abnormal shutdown procedere (PB12")

vox barbara

Folks,

since a couple of days my PB12" shows

an abnormal behavior when i shutdown

the machine. Instead of just shutting down,

(you know, everything quits, the screen dims, black

screen appears and then the PB is off),instead of all this

the black screen lasts for a while and then a message

(white letters) appears:

halting

halt by [USER]



Also i found this in the Logfile after:

Quote:

Jan 20 23:19:21 localhost loginwindow[187]: halting

Jan 20 23:19:21 localhost shutdown: halt by [USER] :

It scares me a bit. Is there something going on?

ANY ideas?



(I am posting this, because EVERYTHING else (repairing priv. and so on)

failed to fix this issue.)

durandal

Quote:

Originally posted by Vox Barbara

Folks,

since a couple of days my PB12" shows

an abnormal behavior when i shutdown

the machine. Instead of just shutting down,

(you know, everything quits, the screen dims, black

screen appears and then the PB is off),instead of all this

the black screen lasts for a while and then a message

(white letters) appears:

halting

halt by [USER]



Also i found this in the Logfile after:





It scares me a bit. Is there something going on?

ANY ideas?



(I am posting this, because EVERYTHING else (repairing priv. and so on)

failed to fix this issue.)

Well, halting the system is what you're doing when switching off the PowerBook.. so the shutdown isn't too abnormal in that regard

I've seen this behaviour as well, but it occured only after booting in SingleUser Mode first and switching to "Fully Operational" mode (whatever it is called) afterwards...

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by durandal

Well, halting the system is what you're doing when switching off the PowerBook.. so the shutdown isn't too abnormal in that regard

I've seen this behaviour as well, but it occured only after booting in SingleUser Mode first and switching to "Fully Operational" mode (whatever it is called) afterwards...

I've never seen these lines before, so to me

this behavior seems to be "abnormal" .

Also, i've never seen this on any mac i worked with.

This shutdown message is definitely not

common sense. As far as i understand "common sense".

durandal

hmm... perhaps some crippled preferences file or something?



/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist



...might be a candidate. So you could trash it, restart and check whether your PB is back to normal... (just an idea, don't have any real clue as to what might be wrong with your laptop)



greetings,

durandal

johnq

Are you running APE (Application Enhancer)? That might cause it.

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by johnq

Are you running APE (Application Enhancer)? That might cause it.

I guess so, but as i stated above, this message

never occured prior, this shutdown behavior started

only 3-4 days ago.



Which app does install APE? MenuMeter or something?



BTW, on my powerbook there are several user accounts

created, two of them have admin status. Could this

be the culprit? Just a wild guess.



thank you so far

johnq

How about MSN Messenger?



When I google "localhost shutdown: halt by "



This thread suggests MSN Messenger:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...t+by+%22&hl=en





This one suggests APE:

http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/sh...=5&o=31&fpart=



Might not be either, but rather any app the is crashing might be doing this. Can't tell without seeing the log.



Is the user you named you? Or one of the other users?



Perhaps they are running programs and they are halting your shutdown.

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by johnq

How about MSN Messenger?

Nop.

Quote:

Originally posted by johnq



...

Might not be either, but rather any app the is crashing might be doing this. Can't tell without seeing the log.



Perhaps they are running programs and they are halting your shutdown.

I looked up the logs by myself. The last time i saw this

""halting" message thing", ichat agent crashed.



Actually, i have the feeling that there is something very bad

happening with my PB, because now (the last 2 days) the "windowserver"

is crashing occasionaly. NEVER happend before.

If the windowserver is crashing the entire

UI becomes unusable. You have to reboot the hard way



After rebooting i look up the logs and a lot of

stunning things crashed too: SystemUIserver,

securityagent, loginwindow etc pp.

It is really scaring.



In short: My system is a PB 12" 1ghz/768RAM with build in Superdrive.

Since purchase (15 months ago) i had no troubles at all

with this beast. It was just working. Uptimes up to 30 days, no

crashes except MS Word, only occasionaly.

The PB is running 10.3.7 -

all possible and available updates included. Software,

which is legaly installed: Adobe CS 8, Office 2004, FinalDraft, FCE 2,

iLive 4, - well nothing exotic, neither Haxies,

betas nor "System Enhancers" and such.



I have no clue what happend. Something hardware?

Example: Original Apple Hardware Test CD (Jaguar) tells me

... Grafic card unknown.

The Panther Hardware Test CD tells me the apropriate Grafic card.

Oddly enough i'd say.



The weird thing is, i can't reproduce the crashes. Example: i do my work

for 3 or 4 hours. Everything is fine, then i switch from one app to another

(CMD-TAB), and - guess what - the system crashes. Well the windowserver crashes, which is like a system crash. I have to reboot. To my knowledge it is no KP.



BTW do you want to see the entire "log"? i can post it via PM, if you want.

maccrazy

Quote:

Originally posted by durandal

Well, halting the system is what you're doing when switching off the PowerBook.. so the shutdown isn't too abnormal in that regard

I've seen this behaviour as well, but it occured only after booting in SingleUser Mode first and switching to "Fully Operational" mode (whatever it is called) afterwards...

I know this is off the topic a bit, but do you have to select multiple users after you use single user mode? I though you just restarted.

vox barbara

I am on the way to trace back,

who has done bad to my system.



I searched a while on this page

and indeed i found some pretty useful informations there.

Perhaps useful for others too.



Well at first i put 2 files into the trash bin:

(1) library/preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

(2) library/preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist



rebooted



At first glance the system feels stable again.



Later on i learned on the very same page,

that corupted fonts (this is something i knew already can do

nasty things to your system as well.

And some apps do install corupted fonts by default, i.e.

MS Internet Explorer, which i had installed once, but

never used. Until recently. Perhaps plain random, but i

can see kinda relationship. Well i dragged some

MS Fonts to the bin. I will see...

[/fingers crossed]

maccrazy

Quote:

Originally posted by Vox Barbara

I am on the way to trace back,

who has done bad to my system.



I searched a while on this page

and indeed i found some pretty useful informations there.

Perhaps useful for others too.



Well at first i put 2 files into the trash bin:

(1) library/preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

(2) library/preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist



rebooted



At first glance the system feels stable again.



Later on i learned on the very same page,

that corupted fonts (this is something i knew already can do

nasty things to your system as well.

And some apps do install corupted fonts by default, i.e.

MS Internet Explorer, which i had installed once, but

never used. Until recently. Perhaps plain random, but i

can see kinda relationship. Well i dragged some

MS Fonts to the bin. I will see...

[/fingers crossed]

Good luck, let us know.

vox barbara

Quote:

Originally posted by MacCrazy

Good luck, let us know.

Alright, i will report...



[EDIT] Everything seems to be fine again.

Perhaps damaged top library pref files,

perhaps damaged MS fonts. I can't decide

right now.