Mac OS - hanging up at user login screen; making me insane.
April 11, 2011 6:40 PM   Subscribe

Mac OS - hanging up at user login screen; making me insane.

We have a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.6.6. Very often--like almost every time I try to use the machine--the following happens:

1. I press a button to wake it from sleep.
2. The login screen comes up with our different family user accounts. Everything looks fine.
3. I click on my account icon.
4. Beachball, which does not stop until I do a hard reset.

I have reinstalled the system software twice. No change.

When I search on google, I find many people complaining about similar "wake from sleep' problems, but no good answers.

For good measure I will add some of the stuff from console below.

Thanks for any leads on what to do about this.

Any thoughts?
posted by Mid to Computers & Internet (13 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Here is a dump from console covering today's activity. It starts with a hard-reset startup by me around 7am. I think you can see the problem crop up around 1:30-2:30pm. I end up doing a hard reset around 8pm.

4/11/11 7:11:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
4/11/11 7:11:36 AM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] Starting HP IO Monitor
4/11/11 7:11:36 AM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] Starting HP Trap Monitor
4/11/11 7:11:36 AM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] /Library/StartupItems/HP Trap Monitor/HP Trap Monitor: line 15: /Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HPIO Trap Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HPIO Trap Monitor: No such file or directory
4/11/11 7:11:44 AM com.apple.loginwindow[34] Mon Apr 11 07:11:44 c13 ManagedClient[116] : display_config_sync_mux_end_proc: not active (0x4272dc0)
4/11/11 7:11:45 AM com.apple.WindowServer[80] Mon Apr 11 07:11:45 c13 WindowServer[80] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 7:12:02 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[113] ALF error: cannot find useragent 1102
4/11/11 7:12:02 AM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[113] plugin.UserEventAgentFactory: called with typeID=FC86416D-6164-2070-726F-70735C216EC0
4/11/11 7:12:02 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[125] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
4/11/11 7:12:08 AM com.hp.printerAgent[151] Mon Apr 11 07:12:08 c13 printerAgent[151] : Label: com.hp.printerAgent
4/11/11 7:12:09 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[125] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[147]) Exited with exit code: 1
4/11/11 7:12:21 AM [0x0-0x10010].com.apple.systemevents[163] com.apple.FolderActions.enabled: Already loaded
4/11/11 7:13:11 AM mdworker[181] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/11/11 7:40:07 AM mdworker[210] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/11/11 7:45:25 AM UserEventAgent[142] **** ERROR: SCNetworkSignatureCopyActiveIdentifiers returned nil
4/11/11 7:45:30 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[125] (com.apple.FolderActions.enabled[152]) Exited: Killed
4/11/11 7:45:30 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[125] (com.apple.AirPortBaseStationAgent[149]) Exited: Killed
4/11/11 7:45:30 AM com.apple.loginwindow[34] Mon Apr 11 07:45:30 c13 loginwindow[34] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 7:45:31 AM com.apple.WindowServer[227] Mon Apr 11 07:45:31 c13 WindowServer[227] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 1:33:25 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[230] ALF error: cannot find useragent 1102
4/11/11 1:33:25 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[230] plugin.UserEventAgentFactory: called with typeID=FC86416D-6164-2070-726F-70735C216EC0
4/11/11 1:34:30 PM mdworker[303] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/11/11 2:27:07 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:07 c13 loginwindow[226] : CGSShutdownServerConnections: Detaching application from window server
4/11/11 2:27:08 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:08 c13 loginwindow[226] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 2:27:08 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:08 c13 loginwindow[226] : CGSDisplayServerShutdown: Detaching display subsystem from window server
4/11/11 2:27:09 PM com.apple.WindowServer[351] Mon Apr 11 14:27:09 c13 WindowServer[351] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 8:04:47 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.aslmanager) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
4/11/11 8:05:33 PM com.apple.launchd[1] *** launchd[1] has started up. ***
4/11/11 8:05:55 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] Starting HP IO Monitor
4/11/11 8:05:55 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] Starting HP Trap Monitor
4/11/11 8:05:55 PM com.apple.SystemStarter[25] /Library/StartupItems/HP Trap Monitor/HP Trap Monitor: line 15: /Library/Printers/hp/hpio/HPIO Trap Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/HPIO Trap Monitor: No such file or directory
4/11/11 8:05:59 PM com.apple.WindowServer[80] Mon Apr 11 20:05:59 c13 WindowServer[80] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
4/11/11 8:06:09 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[112] ALF error: cannot find useragent 1102
4/11/11 8:06:09 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[112] plugin.UserEventAgentFactory: called with typeID=FC86416D-6164-2070-726F-70735C216EC0
4/11/11 8:06:09 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[126] (com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
4/11/11 8:06:10 PM com.hp.printerAgent[151] Mon Apr 11 20:06:10 c13 printerAgent[151] : Label: com.hp.printerAgent
4/11/11 8:06:10 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.505[126] (com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[147]) Exited with exit code: 1
4/11/11 8:06:15 PM [0x0-0x10010].com.apple.systemevents[162] com.apple.FolderActions.enabled: Already loaded
4/11/11 8:07:11 PM mdworker[182] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
4/11/11 8:31:59 PM firefox-bin[179] -deltaZ is deprecated for NSEventTypeMagnify. Please use -magnification.
4/11/11 8:38:07 PM mdworker[182] CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.


posted by Mid at 6:43 PM on April 11, 2011


Can you log into other user accounts?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:54 PM on April 11, 2011


Response by poster: I'm pretty sure its a beachball no matter which one you click on, but I am not 100% sure. Need to wait for another instance of the problem to know for sure (i.e., tomorrow morning).
posted by Mid at 6:57 PM on April 11, 2011


You've done a command-S startup and done fsck to ensure that there are no problems with the disk directory structure?
posted by birdsquared at 7:09 PM on April 11, 2011


Response by poster: Nope. But I did do the Disk First Aid programs from Apple and verified/repaired all issues. There were permissions problems but I repaired those.
posted by Mid at 7:10 PM on April 11, 2011


Best answer: I would recommend restarting, keeping down command-S until the black screen comes up and entering fsck - fy at the prompt. If repairs are needed, run fsck again until it says no problems detected, then reboot. I do this anytime I am forced to do a hard reset, and more than 50% of the time, something has gotten wonky during the hard reset procedure.

Also, it probably wouldn't hurt you to update to 10.6.7. Are there any programs running when the machine is put to sleep (i.e. accounts are active, but hidden by the login window)? I know that Skype in particular often leads to pizza of death when it is in the background...
posted by birdsquared at 7:22 PM on April 11, 2011


Are you in the states? If you're close to an apple store, make a genius appointment and bring it in. Even if it's out of warranty, it may be something they can fix.

I second the suggestion to go to 10.6.7 There seem to be similar errors that people are blaming on 10.6.6 on the apple user support boards.

I'd also recommend starting up with extensions off, in case some third party tool is what's killing you (InputManagers are the biggest culprit I know of, but the HP software may also be problematic).

There's also cmd-V for a verbose startup, which might tell you more.

It never hurts (much) to reset the SMC controller (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964)
posted by Mad_Carew at 9:47 PM on April 11, 2011


I get this, too. Everything checks-out fine. I also get the beachball as soon as the login screen comes up, without having to click or scroll to a user name. The only fix I've had success with is to turn-off my Mac overnight, as opposed to letting it sleep overnight.

I often wonder if something is happening overnight when OS X runs its cron tasks. Whatever it is, it's fucking aggravating.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:19 AM on April 12, 2011


Also, it probably wouldn't hurt you to update to 10.6.7.
I've had this problem before upgrading to 10.6.6, so I'm not sure if 10.6.7 will cure it. Additionally, there's this little bug in 10.6.7 which, if you're a designer (like me), makes that particular upgrade a no-go.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:25 AM on April 12, 2011


When you say reinstall system software twice, do you mean reinstalled 10.6 over the current operating system or reinstalled 10.6 from scratch? It's possible that some software that loads when you log in is causing your system to hang. I notice you're getting a bunch of HP printer errors, and their software is bloody horrendous. I won't install HP printer software on client laptops because I've found it causes random issues with other software and causes no end of aggravation.
posted by jmd82 at 9:05 AM on April 12, 2011


Response by poster: Thanks - the HP errors do look suspicious. I am going to look at the HP stuff, but I wonder if I need that stuff to print? When I say "install," I mean installed it over the current OS, not from scratch.
posted by Mid at 9:26 AM on April 12, 2011


Response by poster: So the HP thing does not seem to be helping.

I think the key error is this:

4/11/11 1:33:25 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[230] ALF error: cannot find useragent 1102

4/11/11 1:33:25 PM com.apple.UserEventAgent-LoginWindow[230] plugin.UserEventAgentFactory: called with typeID=FC86416D-6164-2070-726F-70735C216EC0

4/11/11 2:27:07 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:07 c13 loginwindow[226] : CGSShutdownServerConnections: Detaching application from window server

4/11/11 2:27:08 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:08 c13 loginwindow[226] : kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

4/11/11 2:27:08 PM com.apple.loginwindow[226] Mon Apr 11 14:27:08 c13 loginwindow[226] : CGSDisplayServerShutdown: Detaching display subsystem from window server

Anyone have a clue?
posted by Mid at 2:22 PM on April 19, 2011


Looks like your 10.6.7 bug may have been addressed.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4605
posted by Mad_Carew at 12:30 PM on April 27, 2011


« Older Don't wanna slouch   |   How do I proceed in the wake of a car accident? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.