Kernel Panics

fotnsfotns
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Am I the only one who thinks a "modern" OS like OS X shouldn't ever have a kernel panic? They can occur when you insert an unknown or unsupported PCI card, or for a variety of other reasons. If Windows can't ID a card or find drivers for it, it will prompt you for them. You can tell it to ignore it and it won't bother you again. Classic Mac OS will never say anything and just will ignore it.

I know that kernel panics are due to the Unix core but I would think Apple should have been able to eliminate them. Kernel panics seem primitive.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 28
    _ alliance __ alliance _ Posts: 2,070member
    considering it virtually never happens, i wouldnt make a big deal about it...
  • Reply 2 of 28
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I wish I knew what Apple was spending all their time on. It does not seem to be bug fixing though.
  • Reply 3 of 28
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    I'd complain about it if it happened often. Once in a while isn't a big deal to me.
  • Reply 4 of 28
    stepsonstepson Posts: 95member
    Its got to be world better than OS9 ... when i bought my imac (the old G3 model) i had it locked up about 15 minutes out of the box. Yes, only 5 minutes after i was able to connect to the internet .
  • Reply 5 of 28
    _ alliance __ alliance _ Posts: 2,070member
    [quote]Originally posted by stepson:

    <strong>Its got to be world better than OS9 ... when i bought my imac (the old G3 model) i had it locked up about 15 minutes out of the box. Yes, only 5 minutes after i was able to connect to the internet .</strong><hr></blockquote>



    "the old G3 model"

    hahahhaa

    i get a kick out of that...

    it seems so out of date now...

    kinda sad really...oh well...

    i still love my 500 G3 iMac. it does everything i need it to do and more... <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
  • Reply 6 of 28
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by stepson:

    <strong>Its got to be world better than OS9 ... when i bought my imac (the old G3 model) i had it locked up about 15 minutes out of the box. Yes, only 5 minutes after i was able to connect to the internet .</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Same with me when I got my 266MHz iMac in 1999. Of course at the time it was running 8.5, not 9.
  • Reply 7 of 28
    graphitemangraphiteman Posts: 428member
    [quote]Originally posted by FotNS:

    <strong>Am I the only one who thinks a "modern" OS like OS X shouldn't ever have a kernel panic? They can occur when you insert an unknown or unsupported PCI card, or for a variety of other reasons. If Windows can't ID a card or find drivers for it, it will prompt you for them. You can tell it to ignore it and it won't bother you again. Classic Mac OS will never say anything and just will ignore it.

    I know that kernel panics are due to the Unix core but I would think Apple should have been able to eliminate them. Kernel panics seem primitive.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The problem is that when a kernal panic occurs, the computer is so messed up internally that there is no way to recover. And often there was no way to see that a specific situation could cause a panic at testing.
  • Reply 8 of 28
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    My Mac classic has a serious problem.



    I won't recognize the OS X cd!
  • Reply 9 of 28
    colorclassicg4colorclassicg4 Posts: 224member
    [quote]Originally posted by Nebagakid:

    <strong>I won't recognize the OS X cd!</strong><hr></blockquote>



    It's the white one with the blue X on it.
  • Reply 10 of 28
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    [quote]They can occur when you insert an unknown or unsupported PCI card <hr></blockquote>



    Yeah, and I suppose you insert and remove PCI cards on a daily basis?



    FWIW, I have a soundblaster PCI card that is unsupported in OS X, and OS X simply ignores it.



    For most OS X users, kernal panics are extremely rare. I've had only a couple, all related to turning off a firewire CD burner while the computer was on...but that doesn't happen with the current version of OS X.



    Try that with OS 9, or any flavor of Windows.
  • Reply 11 of 28
    pbg4 dudepbg4 dude Posts: 1,611member
    I've only had one kernel panic ever. I tried to write a file &gt;2 GB over a LAN to my PC desktop. Considering I've been running OS X since 3/24/01, that is quite an achievement.



    BTW, I'd rather have a kernel panic that forces a restart to fix the problem, then have the OS silently corrupt everything.
  • Reply 12 of 28
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    I think part if the point is that an Apple system shouldn't toss a bunch of text on the screen. It would be better if it tossed up a gui message with a "restart" button like OS 9 et al. does now.
  • Reply 13 of 28
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:

    <strong>I think part if the point is that an Apple system shouldn't toss a bunch of text on the screen. It would be better if it tossed up a gui message with a "restart" button like OS 9 et al. does now.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's true. All that text could freak out someone that doesn't know much about the OS.
  • Reply 14 of 28
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    ok... so kernel panics probably arn't the problem, but I stil get into situations where my machines (X) freezes... I thought X was supposed to be crash proof? Why isn't it?

    I suspect that my cube has a small hardware problem, cause the freeses here seems to be USB related, but my g3 ibook 500 also freezes from time to time...

    (It also gets slower during use. upto a point where a restart is required. The Cube doesn't do this.)
  • Reply 15 of 28
    graphitemangraphiteman Posts: 428member
    [quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:

    <strong>I think part if the point is that an Apple system shouldn't toss a bunch of text on the screen. It would be better if it tossed up a gui message with a "restart" button like OS 9 et al. does now.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The problem lies in the fact that at the point of the panic, the system ignores all processes. That includes the Window Server, which handles the GUI (yes, under OS X, the interface is no different from any other program!). So therefore it can't throw up a GUI message, because it knows nothing of the GUI. It just does what it can, and that is a lot better than in Mac OS 9 (it shows the backtrace to where the problem occured. OS 9 only tells you that a problem occured, and nothing more.)



    Now, I do agree that Apple should add some instructions to the text in the Kernal Panic on what to do. That wouldn't be too dificult.
  • Reply 16 of 28
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    [quote]Originally posted by New:

    <strong>I stil get into situations where my machines (X) freezes...</strong><hr></blockquote>The whole system probably isn't really frozen but the window server is (as graphiteman said, "under OS X, the interface is no different from any other program"). If you're on a network and can connect to your Mac via SSH from another computer, you can probably kill the window server and your Mac will resume work. [quote]<strong>(It also gets slower during use. upto a point where a restart is required. The Cube doesn't do this.)</strong><hr></blockquote>It sounds like you've got low memory and OSX is paging to the disk. How much RAM do you have?



    [ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
  • Reply 17 of 28
    mac the forkmac the fork Posts: 722member
    [quote]The problem lies in the fact that at the point of the panic, the system ignores all processes. That includes the Window Server, which handles the GUI (yes, under OS X, the interface is no different from any other program!). So therefore it can't throw up a GUI message, because it knows nothing of the GUI. It just does what it can, and that is a lot better than in Mac OS 9 (it shows the backtrace to where the problem occured. OS 9 only tells you that a problem occured, and nothing more.)<hr></blockquote>



    I got this same type of answer when I was advocating an OS 9-style error box a while back. Would it really be that hard for the kernel to implement a black and white box with a Restart button? Apple doesn't need a window server to do that. Regarding backtraces: for the vast majority of OS X users, the words 'Kernel Panic' and the results of a backtrace is as good as 'User Panic'.



    [ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: Mac The Fork ]</p>
  • Reply 18 of 28
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    [quote]Originally posted by Mac The Fork:

    <strong>Apple doesn't need a window server to do that. </strong><hr></blockquote>Actually, if you want to use the mouse to click that button, yes you do need a window server.
  • Reply 19 of 28
    fotnsfotns Posts: 301member
    [quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:

    <strong>



    Yeah, and I suppose you insert and remove PCI cards on a daily basis?



    FWIW, I have a soundblaster PCI card that is unsupported in OS X, and OS X simply ignores it.



    For most OS X users, kernal panics are extremely rare. I've had only a couple, all related to turning off a firewire CD burner while the computer was on...but that doesn't happen with the current version of OS X.



    Try that with OS 9, or any flavor of Windows.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Most users do not have any third party PCI cards in their systems, especially ones made before OS X. Most Mac users have machines that do not even have PCI slots, as the majority of Macs sold are iMacs or laptops. And yes, OS X does ignore some cards, such as my DVD card. But others it freaks out about, such as my Radius VideoVision capture card or Voodoo5 5500. They work in OS 9, at the least OS X should just ignore them. And I have never had a problem with windows hot swapping abilities. Win XP even had the drivers for my Mac's USB to SCSI converter, and it doesn't mind if I unplug that when drives are mounted.
  • Reply 20 of 28
    mac the forkmac the fork Posts: 722member
    [quote]Actually, if you want to use the mouse to click that button, yes you do need a window server.<hr></blockquote>



    It would be impossible to implement basic mouse control within the kernel? Odd. Please explain.
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