8 minute freeze syndrome
 

I'm using a G4 533Mhz 1G ram + additional NIC as an internet web proxy server at school

dansguardian/Squid as the proxy SW

it rarely stay up and running for more than 8 minutes now... in the past week I've

• UPdated sys SW to 10.3.9
• switched out the RAM completely and replaced with new RAM
• Run Disk Utility and repaired permissions
• Booted from CD and Run Disk Utility and Run Repair Drive
• Run Tech Tool Pro
• Run Drive 10
• Run Disk Warrior

that kinda lead me to believe that it might not be the HD failing... it appears to check out ok on all four Utility programs... and the sys SW has been fully updated... and the fan appears to be working fine so things shouldn't be overheating and causes freezes and crashes...

I am running no oither programs on this server... it just won't stay on very long, and my idea of a job is not restarting a computer and proxy server every 8 minutes... dansguardian and Squid are set to reboot automatically on restart... but they only do that half the time... otherwise its a manual terminal boot for them

any ideas why this mac has become so disfunctional... I'm not particularily Unix savvy so please elaborate if you're talking Unix speak

thanks, dan

Can you describe what exactly happens when it crashes? Or even better, give us a relevant portion of the crash log? It sounds like you've done a lot of good trouble shooting, but I couldn't tell from your post exactly what is happening. There are people here that are pretty good at interpreting crash log reports.

Joe VanZandt

When you say "every 8 minutes" is that repeatable, or it only works for the first 8 minutes and not at all after that?

(I'm thinking heat-related issues - works only in the morning when it's cold)

yesterday I probably restarted the server... or it restarted itself between 40 and 50 times... basically it just freezes... the hookup is essentially...
alcatel hispeed modem to Dl-604 broadband router to NIC which resides on 533 mhz G4 - 1G Ram running OSX server 10.3.9 which is hooked up to our LAN through a series of switches... yesterday I also zapped the PRAM... still froze even after that though, so I'm not expecting great things today... will look up some of the logs... don't really know what I'm looking for though...

only software that is running at the time is Dansguardian 2.7.1 and Squid 2.5 STABLE 3... Stickies is usually open cuz it contains the lines I Copy/Paste into Terminal to activate Dansguardian... but nothing else is running when the server freezes...

oops... just froze again and I've only been on it for a few minutes... this is really pizzing me off... sometimes I can't even getto the login window before it freezes... sometimes as I'm logging in... sometimes... just sometimes

so... where exactly do I look in these logs... better yet... which logs do you want me to look at and where exactly would I find them?

Use the "console" utility and look at both the system log and the crash logs. These are time-stamped, so you can see when the events occurred. You can copy and paste the latest incident to this forum.

It certainly sounds like it is some kind of hardware issue. I take it that the machine consistently restarts after the freezes; heat-related problems are the ones that would come to mind first because of the periodicity of the failure; RAM problems are usually a good deal more random. A bad CPU is my bet.

Joe VanZandt

ok... so it's frozen 3 times in the last few minutes... once just after sending this message... once on a restart and once while opening the servercrash log... just noticed my time is off by a few hours... but that shouldn't make any difference should it... date is fine... ok another freeze... back on again and have copied about 12 different relevant looking logs to my workstation... so... where's a good place to start... instead of copying and pasting the files here, is there an easy way to attach a file instead?

You can attach the log file as a plain text file, using the "Manage Attachments" button at the bottom when you reply.

yup... thought of the heat one as well... had an old imac that wouldn't stay up and running for more than 1/2 hour... always overheating and ram couldn't take it... on this G4 though... oops another freeze... anyway on this G4 I've replaced ram to no avail and fan appears to be functioning... would try console from server but I doubt if I could keep it running long enough to copy and paste even... will look at them from here and see what I can find then copy them to next message...

btw... I really appreciate your help here!

AppleFileServer.crach.log attacded
 

ok...I think I've attached the AppleFileServer.crach.log... hope so anyway... have several others available for perusal... let me know exactly which ones would help and I'll get them and post between crashes

let me know if it didn't upload the file... it said it did anyway, so I'm trusting it did..

Use the advanced reply feature; right next to the "smiley face" on the top line is a paper-clip icon for attaching files. There's a size limit, but it's fairly generous.

Joe VanZandt

other logs available are: these came from the ServerHD log from Library/Logs
ApplePasswordServer.Server.log - 724 KB
DirectoryService.server.log - 320 KB
panic.log --- that sounds appropriate!!!
watchdog.event.log - 848 KB
and a bunch of console.log s - all 4KB
also from admin user logs:
Maintenance 3.6.crash.log - 4 KB
Remote Desktop.crash.log - 20 KB

there were more but these ones all were updated within the last 24 hours

The most important log is system.log

AppleFileServer is just an application and so I think is not that interesting regarding your freezing problem.

If panic.log has been updated recently, that would indicate that a "kernel panic" has occurred - that is quite different from a freeze.
When you get a kernel panic you usually get a multi-language screen telling you to press the power button.

Whichever logs you show us, you need to tell us the time of the freeze (or other problems) so we can go to that part of the log. Or just excerpt the parts of the logs from around that time.

searching around for something called system.log... can't find it by that name... is that the complete name?

ok... I can see the system.log in console... I just can't find the file on the HD... is it just me?

system.log
 

found it... made a file... here it is... have had several freezes in last 15 minutes if that helps...

Error code -91 seems to be an AppleTalk-related error. Now why the PMU forced a shutdown because of AppleTalk (if that's really what that means) is kind of a puzzle. Does your setup require AppleTalk? If it doesn't, and you have it active, you might want to disable it. I don't have great confidence that this is really the issue, but it's something to try.

Joe VanZandt

there is also a steady reference to a80 adn its inability to link and unlink from various workstations... a80 is just a workstation in one of the labs... why is it trying to automount a80 on a regular basis? it was one of the Apple techs who originally set this server up... btw... this used to be our original file server but has been replaced by a G5 about a year ago... is it possible some file services were not turned off and its causing some internal or Appletalk type problems...

this is tough working between freezes... very small window for posting right now...

AT was turned on for the Built-In ethernet setting (have just turned it off - things can't be much worse here right now anyway)... but was not activated on our PCI Ethernet Slot 3 setup

what are the chances its just my hard drive misbehaving... cuz yesterday when I ran Disk Warrior off an external FW drive the G4 stayed up and running the entire time it booted and went through the diagnostics... same as when I C booted from CD for Drive 10 and TechToolPro... wouldn't this mean that it was more of a drive issue than a processor issue?

except for the time then it would also be th eleast expensive repair as well wouldn't it?

that way I could just do a CCCloner of the existing setup, instal the new ATA drive, install new software on new drive, see if it can stay alive, restore clone on new drive from Option start of the FW drive...

does that make any sense? if so I'll go out today at lunch and pick up a new drive and play around this afternoon... thanks again for you help guys!

just bought a new HD and have attempted to clone my existing serverHD with NetRestorehelper... but it craps out after 1 hour with an error... didn't freeze... just didn't complete the process... so as long as I don't use a program off the serverHD I can keep the machine up and running... now I'm in a quandry... cuz I can't make a backup of the drive and easily flip to new drive... heading out for weekend but will check back in monday morning to see if anybody has come up with anything...

ok... so now the Monday Afternoon update

Iin addition to everything else I've:

taken out the Asante NIC... no change... still freezes

swapped out the HD... no change... still freezes

removed memory and installed only 1 bank in slot no previously used... freezes

only things I haven't swapped out are video card, internal NIC, lithium battery...

am now running in Safe Mode and going to do some fsck stuff found elsewhere in this forum... can't do any more harm than has already been done I suspect!... so much for safe mode... frozen again

any other ideas?

oh yeah... I've now also had several Kernel panics... something about backtrace iliminated - unalighned frame address... and Memory access exception (1,0,0)

guess this server is pooched and doomed for landfill???

cuz that's where its heading by tomorrow