From: AES on
(Apologies if you've seen similar msg from me before; same problem
persists, have new data.)

I encounter intermittent situations where, a few times a day, the
Finder, or some app on my 2007-era MacBook still running Tiger,
temporarily "freezes up" -- gives me a long-running beach ball -- but
_always_ recovers to normal operation after a long enough wait (maybe
several minutes).

Occurrence is variable, but seems to occur, randomly, when I call for
one or more Finder operations (with mouse or KB), or an app needs to
contact the Finder (e.g., a Save or Save As); and especially after a
sleep.

A common (but not the only) example: MacBook sleeps overnight (all apps
closed). In the morning I open and start using MT-NewsWatcher or
Eudora, processing multiple items, eventually encountering one I want to
Save or Save As to file. I select the Save As command in the app File
menu, and the Save As dialog box opens _immediately_, in column mode,
with all lines and outlining visible but otherwise inactive.

The spinning beach ball then appears; the Save As process (and often the
app itself) are both frozen; and it takes maybe a full minute for the
Save As columns to fill with info, and the Save As box to become active.
It does this on the _first_ Save only; subsequent Saves go fine.

New data: Ran Disk Utility from Tiger OS: no problems. Then ran all
tasks in TechTool Deluxe 3.1.3 from original system disk: no problems in
any of them.

Any ideas? (I'm on the verge of transitioning to a new MacBook Pro with
Snow Leopard; but I'd still like to fix this problem before I do.)
From: Jolly Roger on
In article <siegman-423C95.11020420072010(a)sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>,
AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:

> (Apologies if you've seen similar msg from me before; same problem
> persists, have new data.)
>
> I encounter intermittent situations where, a few times a day, the
> Finder, or some app on my 2007-era MacBook still running Tiger,
> temporarily "freezes up" -- gives me a long-running beach ball -- but
> _always_ recovers to normal operation after a long enough wait (maybe
> several minutes).
>
> Occurrence is variable, but seems to occur, randomly, when I call for
> one or more Finder operations (with mouse or KB), or an app needs to
> contact the Finder (e.g., a Save or Save As); and especially after a
> sleep.
>
> A common (but not the only) example: MacBook sleeps overnight (all apps
> closed). In the morning I open and start using MT-NewsWatcher or
> Eudora, processing multiple items, eventually encountering one I want to
> Save or Save As to file. I select the Save As command in the app File
> menu, and the Save As dialog box opens _immediately_, in column mode,
> with all lines and outlining visible but otherwise inactive.
>
> The spinning beach ball then appears; the Save As process (and often the
> app itself) are both frozen; and it takes maybe a full minute for the
> Save As columns to fill with info, and the Save As box to become active.
> It does this on the _first_ Save only; subsequent Saves go fine.
>
> New data: Ran Disk Utility from Tiger OS: no problems. Then ran all
> tasks in TechTool Deluxe 3.1.3 from original system disk: no problems in
> any of them.
>
> Any ideas? (I'm on the verge of transitioning to a new MacBook Pro with
> Snow Leopard; but I'd still like to fix this problem before I do.)

Do you have any network volumes mounted on this machine?

Have you examined the console log to see what, if any, errors are logged
there around the times you encounter this issue? Same question for
system.log.

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JR