Well, I've encountered my first "apply update, get bitten" problem. First time since I purchased my G4 Quicksilver, lo, those many years ago.
I've published a similar account on the Apple Discussions. Consider this a hail-mary for any advice. I'm open to suggestions, including turfing this old box and buying a new 8-way Mac. Though, I was hoping to delay this purchase until I couldn't run current versions of OS X on my G4 (which will likely happen the very next release).
I'm guessing that the "Leopard Graphics Update" doesn't like my system. Everything appears to work until the box goes into suspend/sleep (just to be clear, this is the "throbbing lights, no disk activity, monitor dark" sort of sleep).
Upon waking, the monitor will flash a bit of the desktop, and then promptly go dark. I have to reset or shutdown from an SSH session to get the monitor back. I only have the one monitor. I do have a custom build version with the then amazing nVidia Ti adaptor.
Tried:
- Cycling the power on the monitor (20in Cinema Display), both from the touch switch and by pulling the plug
- Pulling and reseating the DVI plug
- Pulling all connected USB devices on the display hub (hey, you never know)
- Resetting the NVRAM
- Making magic incantations. Er, I mean, repairing permissions
- Re-applying the 10.5.2 update and the Leopard Graphics Update
- Changing the display resolution a few times (ran across this unlikely piece of advice on the web -- can't hurt, might help)
- Pushing the Detect Displays button in the Displays Prefs panel
That last one yielded an interesting datapoint: the monitor goes dark (green light still on) as soon as a I hit that button.
Also note that this behaviour has nothing to do with the account currently logged in. If I sleep the box from the login screen, I get the same behaviour.
In article fovbl0$dpa$1@redacted.invalid, Clever Monkey spamtrap@redacted.invalid wrote:
Consider this a hail-mary for any advice. I'm open to suggestions, including turfing this old box and buying a new 8-way Mac. Though, I was hoping to delay this purchase until I couldn't run current versions of OS X on my G4 (which will likely happen the very next release).
I have yet to see any reason to even think about moving from Tiger, so I don't know what your issue with "must run latest system" is. Costs extra, has little positive effect on doing actual work. Skipped Panther entirely. OSX was worse than useless until Jaguar, and I went from Jaguar to Tiger after Tiger got most of its bugs worked out. Still have a few systems running 9.2.2 and doing a better job of what they do on that.
I'm guessing that the "Leopard Graphics Update" doesn't like my system. ... Upon waking, the monitor will flash a bit of the desktop, and then promptly go dark.
Change energy saver settings so the screen does not sleep (just run a screen saver). Worked fine on a similar problem with an old G3 iMac I used as a jukebox for years, which would not wake from sleep, but was fine if it did not ever go to sleep. You'll need to not send the whole computer to sleep "ever" as well, since that takes the screen with it. In point of fact, you might experiment and see if sleeping just the screen works OK, if you are currently sleeping the whole computer.
Restore to a point before these updates. If the problem recurs with the system restored before you apply any updates, then the problem might be coincident in time, or it might be that one of the updates boogered some firmware in the display area. Try not applying the "Leopard graphics update" - I doubt it's doing much good for you. Ignore it so it doesn't come back. If the other update still causes the problem, restore again and don't apply either.
And/or try the dance of 1000 resets - reset the NVRAM, PRAM, that sort of thing. You can do it via open firmware, you can do it via yanking batteries and poking buttons, it's never made all that clear how different or similar these methods are in effect, as it's one of the less well illuminated alleys that Apple pretends we never need to see.
CMD-OPTION-P-R (while booting, hold until second startup chime heard)
CMD-OPTION-O-F (while booting, then type into the white screen:) reset-nvram reset-all
Ecnerwal wrote:
In article fovbl0$dpa$1@redacted.invalid, Clever Monkey spamtrap@redacted.invalid wrote:
Consider this a hail-mary for any advice. I'm open to suggestions, including turfing this old box and buying a new 8-way Mac. Though, I was hoping to delay this purchase until I couldn't run current versions of OS X on my G4 (which will likely happen the very next release).
I have yet to see any reason to even think about moving from Tiger, so I don't know what your issue with "must run latest system" is. Costs extra, has little positive effect on doing actual work. Skipped Panther entirely. OSX was worse than useless until Jaguar, and I went from Jaguar to Tiger after Tiger got most of its bugs worked out. Still have a few systems running 9.2.2 and doing a better job of what they do on that.
Well, not exactly on-topic, but I think Leopard is great, so I don't agree. The software we all use tracks the latest, or maybe one back. Staying with this G4 into the future is a non-starter.
I'm guessing that the "Leopard Graphics Update" doesn't like my system. ... Upon waking, the monitor will flash a bit of the desktop, and then promptly go dark.
Change energy saver settings so the screen does not sleep (just run a screen saver). Worked fine on a similar problem with an old G3 iMac I used as a jukebox for years, which would not wake from sleep, but was fine if it did not ever go to sleep. You'll need to not send the whole computer to sleep "ever" as well, since that takes the screen with it. In point of fact, you might experiment and see if sleeping just the screen works OK, if you are currently sleeping the whole computer.
Well, yes. Not ideal. How about if I just shut down instead? Sounds better to me. Blanking just the screen appears to not be a problem. It is the whole "power-up, detect monitors and go" process that is a problem.
Restore to a point before these updates. If the problem recurs with the system restored before you apply any updates, then the problem might be coincident in time, or it might be that one of the updates boogered some firmware in the display area. Try not applying the "Leopard graphics update" - I doubt it's doing much good for you. Ignore it so it doesn't come back. If the other update still causes the problem, restore again and don't apply either.
shrug Sounds easier to simply shut the box down until it fixes itself (a pattern I've lived with when confronted with other problems -- especially sleep issues -- over the years). Restoring from backups is a pain in the ass. If it really bugs me I'll do a clean install of the system to see if that magically works.
And/or try the dance of 1000 resets - reset the NVRAM, PRAM, that sort of thing. You can do it via open firmware, you can do it via yanking batteries and poking buttons, it's never made all that clear how different or similar these methods are in effect, as it's one of the less well illuminated alleys that Apple pretends we never need to see.
CMD-OPTION-P-R (while booting, hold until second startup chime heard)
CMD-OPTION-O-F (while booting, then type into the white screen:) reset-nvram reset-all
Well, I did say I did most of that already; at least resetting the NVRAM via OF. I'd forgotten about the PRAM reset. Can't hurt, might help.
Clever Monkey wrote: [...]
I'm guessing that the "Leopard Graphics Update" doesn't like my system. Everything appears to work until the box goes into suspend/sleep (just to be clear, this is the "throbbing lights, no disk activity, monitor dark" sort of sleep).
Upon waking, the monitor will flash a bit of the desktop, and then promptly go dark. I have to reset or shutdown from an SSH session to get the monitor back. I only have the one monitor. I do have a custom build version with the then amazing nVidia Ti adaptor.
Well, for USENET posterity:
Archive and install, and applying every automatic update except for the Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 solved this. While it is possible some old file in /System or /Library might have been at the root of this, it looks like this particular update is not healthy for this computer.
And there is no way I'm going to experiment by installing it to find out if it breaks again.