"The biggest change in the WDDM [driver model since Vista] is that much of the graphics driver has been moved from kernel space to user space."
"In the unlikely event that an application or its UMD does something illegal and causes an error, only that single application will close, leaving the Windows Vista operating system unscathed, allowing the user to continue working."
OK. I didn't realize that they had moved the driver to user space.
So, all those BSODs that I see on Windows can't be blamed on the graphics driver any more. Even if it's the graphics driver at fault, it's in user space so it shouldn't bring the system down. Interesting.
OK fair enough, then I've never seen it from the time of Vista through Windows7 (and I've been through them all, 32bit, 64bit), except in rare times running GPU overclocking apps.
Could it have been working in the background unnoticed at other times? Perhaps, but I still did get BSODs every now and then.
For heaven's sake even in 7 and definitely in Vista, good luck Alt-Tabbing out of a fullscreen game. The moment you do that you pretty much lose all hope of actually returning to your game, unless you're willing to wait 5 minutes or more... Yes this is not a kernel panic as such but you see what I'm trying to illustrate.
So what I would say on the topic of Kernel Panics, is that Windows still has a big history stretching back decades, and arguably they have not addressed it sufficiently.
Absolutely. (Though I gotta say, the alt-tab behaviour you're describing is more likely due to poor coding in the game. Case in point: Valve released a patch to the source engine a while back making alt-tab in their games virtually instant) It is also absolutely true that the WDDM fault tolerance mechanism is far from perfect. I remember seeing a Microsoft document pointing out that despite WDDM 1.0, the sizable majority of BSoDs are still graphics driver related. But at least such a mechanism exists, and I can't seem to find any documentation of something similar in OS X.
Safari can't sync my bookmarks over several systems (including Linux at work). No use at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
Apple Safari features that Google Chrome lacks; however, in all fairness Google may require one to login to Google for some features which I am not foolish enough to do:
No synchronized tabs
No synchronized bookmarks
No offline reading list
No ability to add to Home Screen
No Fraudulent website warnings
No Facebook integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Message integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Printing (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Twitter integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
Chrome has progressed since the internal 0.1 build that must have been your last experience of the browser, I suggest you give it a try.
Who wants social network integration in their web browser anyway? If I wanted it I'd install an extension, but oddly enough I find the actual websites enough. Or dedicated apps.
Oops. Yea, Chrome has a boo boo, but the thing that's worse is that an app was able to crash MacOS X. Apple obviously still has some work to do with OS stability. In this day and age, that should not have happened.
All joking and google bashing aside, it's shocking how this can happen to os x in 2012, a gfx driver crash hasn't brought down windows since vista in what 2007? The graphics stack should simply restart without bringing down the whole os. There 's a problem here that needs to be fixed in the graphics driver, but the underlying problem which I can assume wont be fixed in ml, of the os allowing this to happen is what's really troubling here.
This is very important to grasp, faulty software should never cause a kernel panic. As much as I hate Chrome, Google is right in filling a bug report with Apple. To do otherwise is to leave Mac OS/X open to denial of service malware.
Now the big question, will this be an easy fix for Apple?
It is very possible to pass bad code at the level you are talking about (much closer to the silicon than other calls) if indeed they are trying to optimize the 4000. I can't see to much of and area where you could optimize code via user level calls.The API does allow for some stuff that you can hang yourself with if you are not fastidious in your resource/memory management. Very little else could do that other that a kext. A well written and thoroughly tested app should not see this.
There is not anything in the OS to keep poorly behaved code (badly written) from crashing an app. From what I read it simply crashed…
The moral of the story is stay away from third party browsers (and other Google and Adobe code -- they both have a track record of putting out good ideas without the best QA) until someone else has shaken it out.
Modern (since 1975) OSes are meant to shield users from bad programmers (and users from themselves). The ability for a user level app to crash a system is an OS defect. Period.
As a passing AI reader... I read in the main article
" the machines were frequently crashing"
meaning... crash. reboot. I don't know what your pronoun 'it' means (Chrome? Mac OS X?), but we may just be in violent agreement.
And maybe more to your point.. Should an OS* have levels other than 'user mode' that are code unlocked by a more rigorous QA process... say, the GPU primitives are only available to applications with Mac AppStore signed code. Developers can self-sign for their own machines, but to run on a 'consumer' machine, it has to be signed by Apple to unlock the that 'low level' API. Make the graphics primitive code call require passing the signature from Apple against the app, and then no GPU poking without at least Apple's QA team doing a once over
*In VMS parlance... it would have been a CMEXEC call to allow the app to run in Executive mode (VMS has 4 processor modes that could be assigned as privileges to a userID, Process, or Application: User, Supervisor (think 'operator'... mounting/dismounting media), Executive (typically direct driver calls), and kernel).
[" url="/t/150994/google-admits-chrome-bug-responsible-for-crashing-macbook-airs#post_2136753"]So even in an article where Google admits responsibility, myapplehate manages to somehow bash Apple for the problem?
You guys need to get a grip on what the guy is saying, what Google is saying and even what Apple is saying. Everyone is in agreement that this bug should not be causing a kernel panic. Such kernel panics are avenues for exploitation by malware and as such need to be closed up. Don't knock a valid message because of the messenger.
Exactly. Graphics drivers almost have to be granted kernel access and it's impossible to prevent a bad driver from having serious consequence. Well, you could, but you'd have to put the drivers in user space and then all the Apple haters would complain about the poor performance.
It's a tradeoff that almost every OS has made and relies on reliable drivers. The bad thing is that it is possible to bring the system down with an application bug. Rare, but it happens.
There are only two solutions:
1. Google fixes Chrome bug to prevent the problem.
2. Rewrite Mac OS X to put all the drivers in user space with all the expense, difficulty, and usability problems it would cause.
Obviously, the first is more practical.
3. Apple fix the graphics driver bug that the chrome code exercised.
The 3rd is most correct and fixes it for all programs. OS stability should always trump performance (if you can optimize your GPU calls, great, but we are not letting the driver crash the system, by letting the 'user mode' call to the driver put data in that will put the device/driver/kernel in an inconsistent, unrecoverable state.
War is not peace. Freedom is not slavery. Ignorance is not strength.
But you are a troll.
You need to get your head screwed on right, nothing he has said is inflammatory nor is it technically wrong. If you don't beleive this is a huge issue with Apples kernel/drivers then you really need to brush up on what is being discussed here. This sort of bug should not be causing kernel panics so Apple has some work to do to correct the problem.
I found the solution for this problem. Go into the Applications folder and drag the Chrome icon into the trash and select empty trash. Fixed.
That fixes nothing with respect to Mac OS. The OS is still vulnerable to exploitation by malware. Say what you will about Chrome ( I personally hate it) it has highlighted a very significant weakness opinion Apples operating system.
You guys need to get a grip on what the gipsy is saying, what Google is saying and even what Apple is saying. Everyone is in agreement that this bug should not be causing a kernel panic. Such kernel panics are avenues for exploitation by malware and as such need to be closed up. Don't knock a valid message because of the messenger.
Yeah, Apple should fix it, and I think Apple will fix it. It is important to highlight OS X's shortcomings because, IMO, Apple does a relatively good job of addressing them.
Lot of people like obviously, it's currently the most used browser.
A lot of people are using it without even realizing it. I've spoke with a number of people for tech support that claim to be using "Internet Explorer", only to find out that they unknowingly switched to Chrome at some point without realizing it. A lot of people are drones when it comes to this stuff. And Google has been very aggressive about pushing Chrome onto people.
No application should ever be able to crash the operating system. Bad design.
That's an oversimplification. Hardware/software integration is complex stuff. In this case, Google's code works fine on other hardware, just not the _new_ hardware introduced by Apple. Now Google must change their code to accommodate that new hardware. This tail-chasing will always happen.
Safari can't sync my bookmarks over several systems (including Linux at work). No use at all.
Chrome has progressed since the internal 0.1 build that must have been your last experience of the browser, I suggest you give it a try.
Who wants social network integration in their web browser anyway? If I wanted it I'd install an extension, but oddly enough I find the actual websites enough. Or dedicated apps.
In this day and age, my car should not have got a flat tire!
Chrome isn't based on Safari, it's based on WebKit. WebKit is an Apple-developed open source rendering engine used by practically every web-browser apart from IE and Firefox.
Why did Apple develop WebKit?
Was it:-
a) for a new browser called "Safari"
b) something to do, because it was fun
c) an evil way to collect more "apple tax" from iSheeps
I must say this has been an enjoying thread, a few people seem to understand the difference between user and system-land. The rest seems to be ignorant morons!
Drivers such as the graphics driver whole point in existence is to abstract the hardware through an API. Google Chrome and for that sake any other piece of software which will use the same pattern of accessing will also run into the same Apple bug. One cannot be so oblivious to believe that Chrome is the only binary artifact that is causing the bug, it is probably the mostcommon software but by no means alone.
By no means do I blame Apple either, all software contain bugs! But the objective (as opposed to the subjective) title for this post ought to be "Google discovered Bug in Apple's kernel code causing MacBook Airs to crash".
Google can work around the problem, we in the software business do that every day. But to work around a Driver Bug is like stepping Back to the dark ages... and is hardy the correct measure.
So now I need to find another reason why my Win 7 machine continues to freeze and blue screen, because "Windows 7 is so reliable"?! I keep hearing people say how much more reliable Win 7 is, yet as a daily user, I find Win 7 incredibly unreliable and an operating system that requires a substantial amount of maintenance just to keep the bloody thing running. I don't think there has been a single week which hasn't required a reboot of my Win 7 machine, including, yes, system freezes.
Over the past year, the ONLY two issues I've had with my MBA have been (a) the occasional freezes, apparently caused by Chrome [which I've stopped using for now], and (b) some annoying Thunderbolt Display problems which now seem to be lingering in the past. I don't know that the freeze issue that I'm having is a kernel panic, per se, because the system continues to operate with cursor movement, but I simply can't do anything (as opposed to the traditional grey-screen kernel panic which literally halts the machine with a pretty message).
Regardless of how applications "should" behave, and errors "should" be handled by the underlying operating system, these things are complex beasts, and both Windows 7 and OS X can benefit from improvements to ALWAYS prevent applications in user-land from killing the machine.
Comments
OK. I didn't realize that they had moved the driver to user space.
So, all those BSODs that I see on Windows can't be blamed on the graphics driver any more. Even if it's the graphics driver at fault, it's in user space so it shouldn't bring the system down. Interesting.
I wonder how much it affects performance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sr2012
OK fair enough, then I've never seen it from the time of Vista through Windows7 (and I've been through them all, 32bit, 64bit), except in rare times running GPU overclocking apps.
Could it have been working in the background unnoticed at other times? Perhaps, but I still did get BSODs every now and then.
For heaven's sake even in 7 and definitely in Vista, good luck Alt-Tabbing out of a fullscreen game. The moment you do that you pretty much lose all hope of actually returning to your game, unless you're willing to wait 5 minutes or more... Yes this is not a kernel panic as such but you see what I'm trying to illustrate.
So what I would say on the topic of Kernel Panics, is that Windows still has a big history stretching back decades, and arguably they have not addressed it sufficiently.
Absolutely. (Though I gotta say, the alt-tab behaviour you're describing is more likely due to poor coding in the game. Case in point: Valve released a patch to the source engine a while back making alt-tab in their games virtually instant) It is also absolutely true that the WDDM fault tolerance mechanism is far from perfect. I remember seeing a Microsoft document pointing out that despite WDDM 1.0, the sizable majority of BSoDs are still graphics driver related. But at least such a mechanism exists, and I can't seem to find any documentation of something similar in OS X.
Safari can't sync my bookmarks over several systems (including Linux at work). No use at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
Apple Safari features that Google Chrome lacks; however, in all fairness Google may require one to login to Google for some features which I am not foolish enough to do:
No synchronized tabs
No synchronized bookmarks
No offline reading list
No ability to add to Home Screen
No Fraudulent website warnings
No Facebook integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Message integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Printing (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
No Twitter integration (likely to change in update prior to or once iOS 6 is released)
Chrome has progressed since the internal 0.1 build that must have been your last experience of the browser, I suggest you give it a try.
Who wants social network integration in their web browser anyway? If I wanted it I'd install an extension, but oddly enough I find the actual websites enough. Or dedicated apps.
Oops. Yea, Chrome has a boo boo, but the thing that's worse is that an app was able to crash MacOS X. Apple obviously still has some work to do with OS stability. In this day and age, that should not have happened.
This is very important to grasp, faulty software should never cause a kernel panic. As much as I hate Chrome, Google is right in filling a bug report with Apple. To do otherwise is to leave Mac OS/X open to denial of service malware.
Now the big question, will this be an easy fix for Apple?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damn_Its_Hot
It is very possible to pass bad code at the level you are talking about (much closer to the silicon than other calls) if indeed they are trying to optimize the 4000. I can't see to much of and area where you could optimize code via user level calls.The API does allow for some stuff that you can hang yourself with if you are not fastidious in your resource/memory management. Very little else could do that other that a kext. A well written and thoroughly tested app should not see this.
There is not anything in the OS to keep poorly behaved code (badly written) from crashing an app. From what I read it simply crashed…
The moral of the story is stay away from third party browsers (and other Google and Adobe code -- they both have a track record of putting out good ideas without the best QA) until someone else has shaken it out.
Modern (since 1975) OSes are meant to shield users from bad programmers (and users from themselves). The ability for a user level app to crash a system is an OS defect. Period.
As a passing AI reader... I read in the main article
" the machines were frequently crashing"
meaning... crash. reboot. I don't know what your pronoun 'it' means (Chrome? Mac OS X?), but we may just be in violent agreement.
And maybe more to your point.. Should an OS* have levels other than 'user mode' that are code unlocked by a more rigorous QA process... say, the GPU primitives are only available to applications with Mac AppStore signed code. Developers can self-sign for their own machines, but to run on a 'consumer' machine, it has to be signed by Apple to unlock the that 'low level' API. Make the graphics primitive code call require passing the signature from Apple against the app, and then no GPU poking without at least Apple's QA team doing a once over
*In VMS parlance... it would have been a CMEXEC call to allow the app to run in Executive mode (VMS has 4 processor modes that could be assigned as privileges to a userID, Process, or Application: User, Supervisor (think 'operator'... mounting/dismounting media), Executive (typically direct driver calls), and kernel).
You guys need to get a grip on what the guy is saying, what Google is saying and even what Apple is saying. Everyone is in agreement that this bug should not be causing a kernel panic. Such kernel panics are avenues for exploitation by malware and as such need to be closed up. Don't knock a valid message because of the messenger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Exactly. Graphics drivers almost have to be granted kernel access and it's impossible to prevent a bad driver from having serious consequence. Well, you could, but you'd have to put the drivers in user space and then all the Apple haters would complain about the poor performance.
It's a tradeoff that almost every OS has made and relies on reliable drivers. The bad thing is that it is possible to bring the system down with an application bug. Rare, but it happens.
There are only two solutions:
1. Google fixes Chrome bug to prevent the problem.
2. Rewrite Mac OS X to put all the drivers in user space with all the expense, difficulty, and usability problems it would cause.
Obviously, the first is more practical.
3. Apple fix the graphics driver bug that the chrome code exercised.
The 3rd is most correct and fixes it for all programs. OS stability should always trump performance (if you can optimize your GPU calls, great, but we are not letting the driver crash the system, by letting the 'user mode' call to the driver put data in that will put the device/driver/kernel in an inconsistent, unrecoverable state.
You need to get your head screwed on right, nothing he has said is inflammatory nor is it technically wrong. If you don't beleive this is a huge issue with Apples kernel/drivers then you really need to brush up on what is being discussed here. This sort of bug should not be causing kernel panics so Apple has some work to do to correct the problem.
That fixes nothing with respect to Mac OS. The OS is still vulnerable to exploitation by malware. Say what you will about Chrome ( I personally hate it) it has highlighted a very significant weakness opinion Apples operating system.
Yeah, Apple should fix it, and I think Apple will fix it. It is important to highlight OS X's shortcomings because, IMO, Apple does a relatively good job of addressing them.
No application should ever be able to crash the operating system. Bad design.
And that, folks, is why Adobe can't be trusted with access to low-level video hardware for Flash (or anything else).
And, yes, I did notice they finally gave up on Flash for Android installs.
Shantanu Narayen really should resign so Adobe can get back to the stuff that made them great, not the craptacular Macromedia stuff they bought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
I question its popularity, as well. IE is still the standard in most of the world, even though 6 has thankfully now bitten the dust.
According to netmarketshare, IE6 still has more users than any (single) desktop edition of Safari, at 6.17% of the browser market.
In what sense of the word has IE6 "bitten the dust"?
/hates IE6, I do
Quote:
Originally Posted by fredaroony
Lot of people like obviously, it's currently the most used browser.
A lot of people are using it without even realizing it. I've spoke with a number of people for tech support that claim to be using "Internet Explorer", only to find out that they unknowingly switched to Chrome at some point without realizing it. A lot of people are drones when it comes to this stuff. And Google has been very aggressive about pushing Chrome onto people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Curmudgeon
No application should ever be able to crash the operating system. Bad design.
That's an oversimplification. Hardware/software integration is complex stuff. In this case, Google's code works fine on other hardware, just not the _new_ hardware introduced by Apple. Now Google must change their code to accommodate that new hardware. This tail-chasing will always happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hattig
Safari can't sync my bookmarks over several systems (including Linux at work). No use at all.
Chrome has progressed since the internal 0.1 build that must have been your last experience of the browser, I suggest you give it a try.
Who wants social network integration in their web browser anyway? If I wanted it I'd install an extension, but oddly enough I find the actual websites enough. Or dedicated apps.
In this day and age, my car should not have got a flat tire!
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichL
Chrome isn't based on Safari, it's based on WebKit. WebKit is an Apple-developed open source rendering engine used by practically every web-browser apart from IE and Firefox.
Why did Apple develop WebKit?
Was it:-
a) for a new browser called "Safari"
b) something to do, because it was fun
c) an evil way to collect more "apple tax" from iSheeps
I must say this has been an enjoying thread, a few people seem to understand the difference between user and system-land. The rest seems to be ignorant morons!
Drivers such as the graphics driver whole point in existence is to abstract the hardware through an API. Google Chrome and for that sake any other piece of software which will use the same pattern of accessing will also run into the same Apple bug. One cannot be so oblivious to believe that Chrome is the only binary artifact that is causing the bug, it is probably the most common software but by no means alone.
By no means do I blame Apple either, all software contain bugs! But the objective (as opposed to the subjective) title for this post ought to be "Google discovered Bug in Apple's kernel code causing MacBook Airs to crash".
Google can work around the problem, we in the software business do that every day. But to work around a Driver Bug is like stepping Back to the dark ages... and is hardy the correct measure.
So now I need to find another reason why my Win 7 machine continues to freeze and blue screen, because "Windows 7 is so reliable"?! I keep hearing people say how much more reliable Win 7 is, yet as a daily user, I find Win 7 incredibly unreliable and an operating system that requires a substantial amount of maintenance just to keep the bloody thing running. I don't think there has been a single week which hasn't required a reboot of my Win 7 machine, including, yes, system freezes.
Over the past year, the ONLY two issues I've had with my MBA have been (a) the occasional freezes, apparently caused by Chrome [which I've stopped using for now], and (b) some annoying Thunderbolt Display problems which now seem to be lingering in the past. I don't know that the freeze issue that I'm having is a kernel panic, per se, because the system continues to operate with cursor movement, but I simply can't do anything (as opposed to the traditional grey-screen kernel panic which literally halts the machine with a pretty message).
Regardless of how applications "should" behave, and errors "should" be handled by the underlying operating system, these things are complex beasts, and both Windows 7 and OS X can benefit from improvements to ALWAYS prevent applications in user-land from killing the machine.