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  1. 9th May 2009, 07:22 PM #1
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    Default So, my Mac just crashed...

    I was watching a video in VLC (it was streaming over the network - don't know if that's relevant). I paused the video, closed my MacBook's lid, and went away for ~20 minutes. I came back and opened the lid. Oh dear...



    The image on the screen was static, it wasn't responding to keystrokes, but oddly enough the pointer/trackpad was working normally. Clicking had no effect.

    As you can see from the above image, something odd had happened. Most of the screen was black, except for the VLC video window (yes, that is The Big Bang Theory), a section of the VLC control box, and the OS X Menu Bar.

    I tried closing the lid (with the vain hope that everything would return back to normal). The screen turned off like it usually does, but the HDD did not sleep. When I reopened the lid, there was a delay of about 10 seconds, and the above image reappeared.

    I did a hard reset, and everything appears to be back to normal. I would post a crashlog, but I've got no idea what I'm looking for. There is no file at this location: /Library/Logs/PanicReporter/<date and time>.log

    So what the hell happened? Should I be worried? Does this signify a serious problem with the MacBook, or should I forget about it?

    Help would be appreciated

    Here's some info:
    - 2Ghz Unibody MacBook
    - OS X 10.5.6.
    - Mail, Firefox, Adium, Twitterific, DropBox, and VLC were running.
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  2. 9th May 2009, 07:30 PM #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by James01 View Post
    So what the hell happened? Should I be worried? Does this signify a serious problem with the MacBook, or should I forget about it?
    Hahah. Welcome to 2009, where a crash like this is very strange an unusual.

    Back in the day (feeling old by saying that), OS 9 or your computer OS of choice used to crash at least once a day.

    I doubt it's an issue at all. There's a nearly infinite number of reasons why this might have happened. Don't worry, it's probably nothing.

    However, if OS X is crashing daily, then there might be an issue.
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  3. 9th May 2009, 07:40 PM #3
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    Thanks for the reassurance.

    It's only happened once so far, so I guess I'll cross my fingers and hope it stays that way
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  4. 9th May 2009, 08:55 PM #4
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    Hi. This isn't a massive issue. Just a slight bug in the OS. Next week or 2 Mac OSX 10.5.7 will come out. That should fix all bugs in the OS. Enjoy your mac, she's a beauty!
    "When you kill a cow you gotta make a Burger"
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  5. 9th May 2009, 09:29 PM #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by iCarllovesapple View Post
    Hi. This isn't a massive issue. Just a slight bug in the OS. Next week or 2 Mac OSX 10.5.7 will come out. That should fix all bugs in the OS. Enjoy your mac, she's a beauty!
    Show me where this bug is documented, and show me where it says 10.5.7 is going to fix it, and "all" bugs in the OS.

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  6. 9th May 2009, 09:53 PM #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by iCarllovesapple View Post
    Hi. This isn't a massive issue. Just a slight bug in the OS.
    Probably more likely some issue with VLC.

    Crashes aren't always due to bugs either... very low memory can cause issues, as can other things.
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  7. 9th May 2009, 10:05 PM #7
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    Come to think of it, I did update to a newer version of VLC earlier today. Perhaps this is related...?

    It's a bit annoying that VLC is capable of screwing the entire system though! I thought OS X was supposed to be more resistant to things like this.
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  8. 9th May 2009, 10:26 PM #8
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    Did you try command option escape to force quit?

    OS X is pretty resiliant to crashes... only time I had recurring system-wide crashes was when I had major hardware problems - and I was confused by the fact my mac was crashing, cos I'd become so used to it never happening.
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  9. 9th May 2009, 11:44 PM #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by James01 View Post
    It's a bit annoying that VLC is capable of screwing the entire system though!
    It's a crash. Seriously, it's nothing.

    It's the same as an app quitting, but somehow it took the system down with it. Not a big deal at all.
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  10. 10th May 2009, 12:14 AM #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Exocet View Post
    Piss funny. Did you draw that?

    James, Macs are pretty resilient to crashes, but it's still going to happen from time to time. Most of the time an app will crash and the system will keep going fine. Sometimes, like in this instance, the whole system will shut down. Sometimes you'll get a kernel panic where the whole system just shuts down for seemingly no reason.

    But, like Marc said, unless it's happening regularly, you've got nothing to worry about.
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  11. 10th May 2009, 12:28 AM #11
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    ^^ no sir, GIS for "hyperbole".
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  12. 10th May 2009, 01:23 PM #12
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    Sheldon Cooper is awesome
    Big Bang Theory ftw
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  13. 11th May 2009, 12:14 AM #13
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    I have never really liked VLC, could never get it to work perfectly so dumped it over a year ago and installed Flip4Mac and Perian both of which are plug-ins for Quicktime and now experience no problems (crossing fingers).
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  14. 11th May 2009, 10:48 AM #14
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    From the size of the image on the screen, it looks about the size of what would be on your macbook? Pretty sure something just messed up slightly and between closing and opening of macbooks, the screens got twisted up... doesn't look like a serious issue at all.
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