Utility Archives - Alvin Poh

Miscellaneous

10 Simple Steps How To Fix Mac Kernel Panic Errors

I’ve been trying to find out how to fix Mac kernel panic errors ever since I had the fantastic opportunity to be the lucky recipient of kernel panics on my Macbook Pro that happen once every 24-48 hours. It’s a long process of troubleshooting because as you can imagine, it’s extremely counter-productive.

I gained so much experience on how to fix Mac kernel panic errors, and finally fixed my kernel panic by removing a wonky KEXT (kernel extension) that turned out to be the culprit. It turns out it was USBOverdrive’s KEXT, and this all started when I used USBOverDrive to configure my Bluetooth mouse because the default Apple configuration utility just couldn’t do a good enough job.

The whole process of finding this KEXT though was LONG and TEDIOUS. Most of these steps had to be performed when I was asleep, so it was usually a repetition of:

Try one method
Wait to see if the kernel panic happens
Actually experience the kernel panic
Curse
Repeat

How To Fix Mac Kernel Panic Errors

Here are just some steps that I took to try to fix the kernel panic that I was having. If you’re in the same shoes, this is a good guide on how to fix Mac kernel panic errors.

Test Your Macbook’s Memory

To EXTENSIVELY test your memory, a pretty good open-source tool is Rember. Load that up, and leave that running for a few loops at least. If there are any serious errors with your memory, this utility should be able to find them out.

Run Disk Utility

This is a utility that comes with Mac OSX that allows you to verify that your disk runs properly and that permissions are correct. To access this utility, go to Applications >> Utilities >> Disk Utility. Sometimes you might need to restart to use this tool, but if you do, just follow the instructions that it prompts you to follow.

If this step passes, you can be reasonably sure it’s not a permissions problem or a superficial disk error that’s causing your kernel panics.

Run Apple’s Hardware Test

Apple ships a DVD containing a bootable hardware test with all their Macs, and so you should have a copy of this in your Mac’s box. Load this DVD, and boot up following the instructions (typically by rebooting while holding down the D key). When you do this, you’ll be able to come to a hardware test utility that allows you to test your RAM/memory. Leave this test running for a few loops. This, however, is a pretty superficial tests and is well-known to NOT find more serious RAM errors.

Update Your Applications and Mac OS

Sometimes when kernel panics occur, they occur because of a conflict within your applications and your Mac OS. What you can do, is to update all applications and drivers to the latest version, and ensure that it’s fully compatible with your current version of Mac OS. At the same time, you should be updating Mac OS to the latest version as well. To do this, click on the Apple icon on the upper left corner of your screen, and click on “Software Update” – that’ll let you know if there are any updates for your system.

Uninstall Applications

At this step, you can be pretty sure that your hardware should be fine, so you should really be looking for non-hardware causes. You should be isolating the problem to either your operating system (Mac OS) or the drivers/applications that you’ve installed. So give your applications a good look-through to see if there are any applications that can potentially give you troubles. Typically, these are applications and drivers that modify with the kernel (kernel, kernel panic, heh), such as mouse drivers, keyboard drivers, webcam drivers, ANY sort of drivers, applications that modify your kernel’s run-time, power management, and so on.

Uninstall Any KEXTs

This is the absolute furthest that I got in terms of technical complexity when it comes to figuring out how to fix Mac kernel panic errors. To check the KEXTs that are running on your system currently, type this command in Terminal (Applications >> Terminal) and hit enter:

sudo kextstat

Again, look for any suspicious kextstats – ideally no extraneous third-party KEXTs should be installed. If they are, remove them with these instructions on how to remove KEXTs from Mac OS.

Reinstall Mac OS

The fault could be a problem with a corrupted Mac OS installation, which is more probable if you upgraded from a major version (e.g. Tiger to Snow Leopard). If so, reinstall this by booting up with your Mac OS DVD, and choosing to install Mac OS again. This will not affect your data and currently installed applications – but still, please do backups!

Format and Install Mac OS

The very last step. If you’ve exhausted all avenues at figuring out how to fix Mac kernel panic errors, you’ve got not much of a choice left. At this point, your hardware seems fine, and your software seems fine (or unrepairable), so you might be better installing a fresh copy of Mac OS, and starting off from there. Before you do this, you HAVE TO backup your data. If you’re unfamiliar with backups, this site teaches you how to backup data.

What you want to do is not to backup your full system, but to backup only the data and files that you want. That way, when you restore your data on to your fresh system, you won’t be copying over any corrupted files or buggy system data.

Once on your brand new Mac OS installation, be VERY selective on what you install, and keep your installations to only applications that are fully compatible with your version of Mac OS. It was only after a reformat that I found the root cause of my kernel panics, so you may have to resort to this step after all. What would help is to have a good, easily accessible backup so that restoration of your critical apps and data will be quick and easy.

Go to Apple

This is the absolute last step because while you might be covered under Apple Care, it takes so much time and effort just to get your laptop fixed (and it doesn’t guarantee that they might find the error too). Once you’re on this step, you can confidently say that you’ve done all the necessary steps to isolate the fault to something related to hardware, because you’ve pretty much done all you could.

Well that’s my 10 steps. Hope this helps you with your kernel panics.

Miscellaneous

How To Batch Unzip A Series of Sequential Zip Files In Mac OSX

I recently got a bunch of zip files, some sequential (X1.zip, X2.zip, etc), and others not. The thing is, they number in the hundreds, and most contain RAR files within them, and simply extracting each one won’t do. I had to find an automated way to unzip all the zip files, and the utility that i usually use (BetterZip) didn’t seem to help.

Finally after trying a few methods (including the unzip command in Terminal), I found this method that was relatively straightforward and quick. In the folder that contained all the zip files that I wanted of a particular series, I would select all of them, and open them in Finder. This will execute the default Archiver unextract command, and you’ll have a bunch of folders now, which will each contain the contents of their individual zip files.

In that Finder window, search for “.rar” and you’ll see the list of RAR files that you’ve extracted. Now select all of them, and copy them to another folder. Now you can extract all of them at once.

That’s it! Hope this helps.

Miscellaneous

4 Months After Switching Over From Windows To A Mac

Surprisingly, the transition from a Windows to a Mac wasn’t as jarring as I had thought, and it turned out to be pretty uneventful. It’s been 4 months since I bought my Macbook Pro, and the overall experience’s fantastic, save for 2 cases.

1. Windows-only Applications

I deal with Windows-only applications that do not have alternatives on the Mac, and the only way to run these is in a virtualised Windows environment on my Mac (I use VMWare for this). Problem is, it’s equivalent to running 2 systems on one machine, and I don’t like the performance hit that I’m taking because of this. One workaround that I use is to connect to my Windows server (I have a VPS that I use from Vodien), so all my processing is handled there.

2. Kernel Panics

I have NO idea why, but I’m getting kernel panics on my Mac. It’s annoying as heck, especially since I’m used to never ever shutting down my computer. I find it such a huge disruption in my workflow that I have to have everything reset when the computer boots up from scratch. Oh, and I like to call it BSOD – not Blue Screen of Death, but Beautiful Screen Of Death. Still a BSOD, still annoyingly infruriating. For the Mac though, the BSOD gently slides in from the top, and presents to you a multi-lingual description of what you must do (namely, reboot).

I checked the RAM on this Macbook Pro by running the memory test on extended loops (5 loops, no errors found), TechTools didn’t find anything, but then I suddenly had the haunch to try Disk Utility, and -gasp- I found disk errors. It’s something to do with invalid file counts and volume records. Doesn’t sound like something that would cause kernel panics, but I’m hoping badly that it is, and that I’ve seen the last of the kernel panics.

So I fixed the disk errors by booting up with my Mac Snow Leopard Install DVD and running Disk Utility off it to repair the errors. If you need to do this too, just put in your DVD, and restart your computer while holding down the “c” button until you’re brought to the Mac OSX installation screen. Instead of hitting continue, just go to Utilities in the top menu bar.

I’m not sure if these disk errors are the root cause of all my kernel panics, but I’ll be monitoring this closely – hopefully I don’t get the BSOD anymore.

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