Pizza of Death (SPOD) returns with 10.2.6 and SMB connectivity loss. Workaround? - Mac Applications & Software

[John Faughnan]

The "spinning pizza of death" or "spinning beachball of death"
(SPOD/SBOD) problem was much improved in 10.2.4. With that release
loss of connectivity to an SMB (Samba) share did not lock up the
finder, terminal, process viewer etc.

The SMB "improvements" in 10.2.6 brought back the SPOD/SBOD problem
with a vengeance. It's easy to test. Connect to an SMB share on a
Windows 2K workstation. Now turn off the machine hosting the SMB share
(or pull the ethernet cable). Voila -- SPOD.

As far as I can tell, the SPOD never goes away. I've not found any way
to do a clean shutdown when this happens. I have to push and hold the
power button on my iBook.

Interruption of an SMB share is not that frequent in a wired
connection of course, but I see this problem frequently when I connect
my iBook via 802.11b to the SMB share that holds my iTunes repository
(1GB and growing quickly). My heavy iTunes use is new; it's made a
longstanding annoyance much more bothersome.

Sometimes the SPOD occurs when I simply attempt to dismount the SMB
share! So there's no interruption of service or connectivity, merely a
manual dismount.

It's frustrating that this was fixed in 10.2.4 and is back in 10.2.6.
I had very good luck with 10.2.4 and I'm wondering about regressing to
it. (Historically the SPOD with SMB loss problem was fixed in late
versions of 10.1.x, recurred in early versions of 10.2.x, was fixed in
10.2.4, I never used 10.2.5, and was broken again in 10.2.6)

Has anyone identified any changes I could make to my system to reduce
this problem? I wonder about using an AppleScript to run an
alternative dismount procedure. Maybe an application that would be
always running outside the Finder process that I could invoke to do a
clean shutdown.

Or, should I regress to 10.2.4?

Thanks,

John
[email]jfaughnanspamcop.net[/email]
[url]www.faughnan.com/ibook.html[/url]

[meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, crash, lock-up, Finder, network, OS X,
system, SPOD, SBOD, beachball, lockup, Macintosh, Apple, Mac, Jaguar]

[John Faughnan]

Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrisonic.net> wrote in message news:<mcmurtri-0E921C.19242926062003typhoon.sonic.net>...

> In article <5c0dbfb4.0306261351.602dfb3posting.google.com> ,
> [email]jfaughnanspamcop.net[/email] (John Faughnan) wrote:

> >The "spinning pizza of death" or "spinning beachball of death"
> >(SPOD/SBOD) problem was much improved in 10.2.4. With that release
> >loss of connectivity to an SMB (Samba) share did not lock up the
> >finder, terminal, process viewer etc.
> >The SMB "improvements" in 10.2.6 brought back the SPOD/SBOD problem
> >with a vengeance...
> >[meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, crash, lock-up, Finder, network, OS X,
> >system, SPOD, SBOD, beachball, lockup, Macintosh, Apple, Mac, Jaguar]

> AFP does the same thing. The driver locks up and takes any process that
> touches it with it. You can quit any apps that haven't locked up yet
> but there is no way to perform a clean shutdown. The shutdown process
> will hang when it attempts to flush and close all mounted volumes.

Is there any way to individually flush any of the mounted volumes from
the terminal, or is all that code hosed? I gather the latter.

Was AFP better in 10.2.4? I remember thinking 10.2.4 had really
improved things, and a Google search located a Slashdot assertion that
10.2.4 was a big improvement, eliminating most SPODs associated with
SMB connectivity loss.

So they partially fixed it, but broke it again. I guess it won't get
much attention until Panther.

Sure would be nice if some generous uber-hacker came up with an
background application that could detect the problem and allow some
kind of clean shutdown.

john

[Matthew Russotto]

In article <mcmurtri-0E921C.19242926062003typhoon.sonic.net>,
Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrisonic.net> wrote:

>
>AFP does the same thing. The driver locks up and takes any process that
>touches it with it. You can quit any apps that haven't locked up yet
>but there is no way to perform a clean shutdown. The shutdown process
>will hang when it attempts to flush and close all mounted volumes.

10.2.5 seems to have mitigated this problem. It still takes a while
but at least it does finish. Of course, 10.2.6 may bring it back for
all I know.
--
Matthew T. Russotto [email]mrussottospeakeasy.net[/email]
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue." But extreme restriction of liberty in pursuit of
a modi of security is a very expensive vice.

[John Faughnan]

[email]russottograce.speakeasy.net[/email] (Matthew Russotto) wrote in message news:<ht2cnfIcAtbP4GGjXTWc-gspeakeasy.net>...

> In article <mcmurtri-0E921C.19242926062003typhoon.sonic.net>,
> Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrisonic.net> wrote:

> >
> >AFP does the same thing. The driver locks up and takes any process that
> >touches it with it. You can quit any apps that haven't locked up yet
> >but there is no way to perform a clean shutdown. The shutdown process
> >will hang when it attempts to flush and close all mounted volumes.

>
> 10.2.5 seems to have mitigated this problem. It still takes a while
> but at least it does finish. Of course, 10.2.6 may bring it back for
> all I know.

I recall that it was fixed in 10.2.4. I think it might have been
better in 10.2.5 but I'm not positive. I think it returned in 10.2.6.
If 10.2.5 is working for you you might not want to upgrade ...

john

John
[email]jfaughnanspamcop.net[/email]
[url]www.faughnan.com/ibook.html[/url]

[meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, crash, lock-up, Finder, network, OS X,
system, SPOD, SBOD, beachball, lockup, Macintosh, Apple, Mac, Jaguar]