This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2003 at 7:34 and is filed under Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Remember how I blogged that after only four days of my Apple Care repaired TiBook returned, it started Kernel panicing again? Again at every 24 hours or so? Well, I did extensive testing and found the same results as before I sent it in to Apple. But this time I did something different in the end. I wondered why it didn’t crash within 24 hours when I first got it back. In fact, it took 4 days. What was different? Mmmm, I left the 10.2.x default install alone as they sent it back in. It wasn’t until I added my applications back that it started doing that.
So, what applications could it be? Well, it would have to be something in the startup folder (Login Items in Mac OS X) and so I removed them all. Let the TiBook sit for, get this, 5 days without a crash! Ok, it is something in the startup. But what? I had like 7 things in there. Well, one by one I put them back and when I put Konfabulator back, it crashed the next morning. Bingo! Found the problem. Now I could find out by yanking the modules one my one. And that’s what I did and on a hunch, I yanked the AirPort signal strength indicator. The reason I suspected that was because if I had left the AirPort enabled in the past, it never crashed. Sure enough, 3 days passed without a crash. So, that was it.
Now that module isn’t being used, though I’ve seen an update for it. I don’t want the update in fear it’ll do the same thing as I saw no mention of crashes in the release notes. It was a nice module, but not that nice. 
The funniest part about all this is that Apple could have probably found this themselves. When the OS does a Kernel panic, it writes a core file. The “who done it” of the UNIX world. While you need a special viewer for them (at least I did when I was on Sun workstations) and it would have most likely said what was the last item to inflict the pain. It may have not revealed the module but I’m sure it at least showed Konfabulator in it’s records. Would have saved Apple some money on the repair. But, I do think my USB 2 port was bad, so it all worked out in the end.
The one thing I want to know is what is that module doing to cause it to die? It seems to poll something in the network stack every 24 hours. Why and what? Maybe if I get a chance, I’ll write the author.
But anyway, in case someone else out there is having the same type of issue, there’s your answer, possibly. Hope is and this “fix” works for you.
March 28th, 2004 at 17:37
I have a feeling that my battery strip konfabulator is causing kernel panics for me. Did you ever find out why it was doing it?
March 28th, 2004 at 20:29
No, I never figured out why that module made it crash. I haven’t used it since and it stopped crashing…but now it is and I’m starting to think, maybe it’s another module.