Mac is freezing completely

Since several days my Macbook is freezing completely (except the mouse) showing the wheel of eternity. This happens when I try to start a new debug session with one of my iOS projects. I must do a hard reset (pressing the power button on the macbook for about 10 seconds). This is very annoying, because its happening almost every 3-4 starts of a debug session. Does anybody know more about that ? I worked on that project since several weeks without any problems. Since some days I have this issue. My Mac is running macOS Catalina (10.15.3) and I am using Xojo Version 2019 Release 3.1. It would be also helpful to get some hints, where I could start looking for the reason on that problem.

I’d start by running Activity Monitor all the time and see if you can see what your machine is doing just before it hangs.

I’m assuming you haven’t tried CMD-OPT-ESC, correct?

It might narrow down the issue if you run an empty project in Xcode, and see if it happens without Xojo in the mix.

@ Greg O’Lone: Thank you - no I didn’t, but I can try that out next time.

Do not tell us you pressed the Power ON (Power OFF) button !

How should I understand that ? For sure I killed the machine, because I didn’t have time to wait for the wheel of eternity, until it
stops. There were no other options for me.

Will allow you to Force Quit an application.

Power OFF (as brute force) is bad for your OS and may lead in troubles.

Maybe (I wrote maybe), you have to run Hard Disk Utilities (or whatever is its english name) and check your boot disk against errors.

I’d also give a try on checking/verifying the hard disk (using disk utility).

Have the same issue.
Did you find what caused this?
I have an app with just 2 textfields and on the second debub freeze the entire macbook and you have to power off the macbook.

I am using xojo 2019r3.1.

Have you already tried the suggestions in this thread?
What are the results?

The general rule to when you see the wheel of death.

  1. If you can switch between applications still, the app is either stuck in a loop or has done something wrong.
  2. If the cursor moves, but you can’t do anything else, the machine is using more memory than you have installed and is swapping.
  3. If nothing happens, it’s because of either a kernel panic, a graphics card failure or worst case scenario it tried to swap memory but the hdd/ssd is not working correctly.

There are some exceptions; but no definitive list. If you see the third option a lot. Start by backing up your stuff and doing a clean OS install. If it continues after that, you should seek assistance as it may mean something is faulty with your hardware.

If you see the second option a lot, upgrade your memory or with this current Apple, buy a new Mac :frowning:

If you see the first option a lot; check your code. Otherwise you can also try a backup and clean install.

[quote=481573:@Sebastian Kapellas]Have the same issue.
Did you find what caused this?
I have an app with just 2 textfields and on the second debub freeze the entire macbook and you have to power off the macbook.

I am using xojo 2019r3.1.[/quote]

Sorry, while I was exploring and reproducing the freeze, the problem disappeared. In my case, when Xojo IDE was hanging, I was not able to kill any process or program with the suggested methods , just the power button was working. When this problem occured I had 2 different VPNs active, but I am not sure if this was the problem.

Sorry, I just came across this thread, otherwise I would have replied sooner. I had the same issues. It seems gone now.

There was really no other option than to shut the machine down with the power button. The mousepointer kept moving but you couldn’t do anything else, it wouldn’t react. It was only on iOS projects so I assume it was something between Xojo and Xcode and/or the simulator.

It was also completely random. Sometimes it would freeze after the 3rd click on “Run”, sometimes after the 8th. There was no pattern. I’m glad it hasn’t occurred in a while.

Do you have shared ->buildsettings -> optimization to agressive? If so set it to normal.

I’ve seen this behaviour a lot with failures of the graphic card, too. You could move the cursor and pressing command-tab would change the cursor to a hand (like normally) but nothing else would refresh (because the cursor is another “layer” in the graphics card). Pressing the space bar while iTunes is in front would toggle play/pause (so keyboard inputs would still work, as can be expected). I never could guess whether mouse clicks worked.

The graphics card issue I had several times, mentioned in my previous answer, exhibits the same behaviours. When the hang happens, try command-tab and see whether the mouse cursor turns into a hand (you may not see anything else changing). Also, if you can afford to play sounds (start iTunes playing, make some beeps, etc.) “blindly”, you know everything but the graphics is working.
That’s what you can do while the problem happens. After the fact, when you have restarted your Mac, you may see reports in the Console, in some folders. I don’t remember the exact words, but it’s something like “GPU hex dump” (may vary depending on the card/driver/OS) and thousand of lines, numbered from 0 to 1023, showing registries states. If you see that, you know you had a graphics card failure.

Hello everyone.

I have a macbook of 2019 with 16gb ram so for sure I should not buy a new mac.
I started a new ios Project and in this one i have no freezes.
I use the default optimization on this and on my previous projects.

The problem started when I added on my previous project UI Extentions classes and images.
I hope I won’t face it again.