On Mar 4, 2021, at 11:28 PM, Macs R We <macs...@macsrwe.com> wrote: There's a free tool called Grand Perspective. If you've never seen the interface before, you'll think it is the most bizarre thing you've ever seen, but after you've used it just once you will wonder why no one ever did it before. I've had people find mail logs that had wildly grown out of control due to gmail bugs, dead copies of macOS that they forgot they had, and things like that. The huge files are glaringly obvious off the bat. I believe there is a mode where you can ask it to request the admin password from you and it will scan additional portions of the file system to the same effect. It's possible on that last detail that I'm thinking of DaisyDisk, another tool that does much the same task with a different interface, that is available for trial use.
Thank you all for these ideas. I’ll go find these and see what shows up! On Mar 4, 2021, at 5:47 PM, Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> wrote: On Mar 4, 2021, at 7:34 PM, Macs R We <macs...@macsrwe.com> wrote: It sounds like you have two problems at once: your drive is over-full, and it's also going bad. It's quite possible that your panics are due to the OS not being able to access or write critical runtime information on some portion of the drive that it owns. I can give you some ways to find large files you weren't aware you had and would be happy to delete, but it's not going to make your drive work better. When your drive gets this sick, contiuing to use it just accelerates the damage. Since it looks like you're going to need to buy a new drive anyway, I'd just buy a bigger one, hack the transfer, and be done with it. Thank you for your help. You did guide me to the right places to find this. It’s definitely time for a new drive, sadly. If you don’t mind offering ways to find some large files, I’d appreciate it. I will need to clear space even after the new drive. Thank you! On Mar 4, 2021, at 3:29 PM, Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> wrote: On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 11:56 AM Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 3:47 PM Macs R We <macs...@macsrwe.com> wrote: > >> I can't give you great instructions because I don't have any panic logs >> of my own so that I could tell you for sure where to find them. >> >> Open Console, click one by one on all the folders and subfolders in the >> left-hand column (the system-y ones, at any rate, you can skip stuff like >> Microsoft) looking in the center column for any that start with "panic" and >> have the right date and time on them. I expect you'll find them somewhere >> under either /Library/Logs or /var/log. Keep in mind that folders that have >> subfolders also have logs directly inside them, so don't miss clicking >> directly on them. >> >> If you find an appropriate panic log, right-click on it, choose Reveal in >> Finder, then copy it to a cloud-accessible location. >> > > Thanks. I've done a good bit of searching and there seems to be no "panic" > log - only crash reports for individual daemons/tasks. The only information > I can find that shows what was happening in the system at the time of the > crash is what I posted in my initial email from system.log. > > For most of the crashes, the only entries in the crash reports seem to be > from 'cloudd' - and my iCloud syncing is not working well at all, so I > suspect this is the cause. Some other things show up now and then (disk > issues with an external drive that might be failing and once or twice, > 'ScreenTimeAgent') but not consistenly. Thinking a fresh install of the OS > might help. Or it's just all gone flaky. > >> >> >> On Mar 3, 2021, at 12:19 PM, Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 1:49 PM Macs R We <macs...@macsrwe.com> wrote: >> >>> Most direct thing to do is log into the account that doesn't crash, go >>> into Console, find the panic log from that crash, and make it available >>> somewhere where we can look at it. >>> >> >> Happy to, but pardon my ignorance here. I posted messages from the system >> log, but don't know where to find the panic log. If you can help point me >> there, I'll post it .If it helps I'm on an iMac (late 2015) running >> MacOS11.1. Thank you! >> >> >>> >>> I do like the technique of booting from a drive with a virgin OS on it. >>> I keep one of those, most people don't. >>> >> >> I don't, sadly. I"m hesitant to erase my internal drive because the data >> loss (even with time machine) would be tough, but if nothing else works.... >> >> >>> >>> On Mar 3, 2021, at 11:40 AM, Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 1:17 PM Matt Penna <matthew.pe...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Whenever I encounter such a problem, my first steps are to run Apple >>>> Hardware Test (AHT), and if that shows no problems (it’s far from >>>> foolproof), try a completely clean install of the OS to a blank drive. See >>>> if you can get any clues from either of these steps. >>>> >>>> If you need AHT for your Mac, you can find it for many different Mac >>>> models here on GitHub: >>>> >>>> https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest >>>> >>>> Let us know how it goes. >>>> >>>> You mentioned that occasionally your Mac refuses to start up. Can you >>>> describe the crashes you’re seeing? Are you getting the gray screen with a >>>> message that you need to restart your computer, or is it just a reboot with >>>> no warning? >>>> >>> >>> It actually crashes when I try to log in to my user account. It starts >>> up slowly, but does start, then I log in and I get the grey screen that >>> says I need to reboot. >>> >>> I am able to log into an alternate user account, so I don't think it's >>> hardware...but I'll give that a try. >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> >>>> >>>> Matt >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mar 3, 2021, at 12:56 PM, Jeff Weinberger <j...@jeffweinberger.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Thank you for your help with SIMBL I removed all traces I could find of >>>> it and it no longer appears in logs, crash reports, 'find' commands, etc. >>>> >>>> May I impose on your collective expertise to help diagnose the ongoing >>>> crashes? >>>> >>>> But the system crashes have not stopped. I have identified that it is >>>> the user account (I am the only user of the system, so having my user >>>> account is kind of important). I only have two use accounts: 1) mine and 2) >>>> a test account just in case there's a problem with mine - which there is. >>>> >>>> Every time I restart and then login to my account my Mac crashes. When >>>> I log in to the test account, it is very slow, but successfully logs in and >>>> I can do some testing. >>>> >>>> I noticed some issues with one of my two external drives, so I have >>>> disconnected it. The crashes continue. >>>> >>>> I see from the log files that "cloudd" (the iCloud daemon) crashes very >>>> frequently. I don't know if this is relevant. >>>> >>>> Any help is appreciated! >>>> >>>> Here is the system.log file leading up to the last crash: >>>> >>>> >> I have made progress, but am not sure how to resolve what seems to be the issue. I see lots of disk access errors leading up to the crashes in system.log. Some are related to the startup disk being full (it's very close to full). The crash logs show lots of crashes for 'ccloud' - the iCloud sync agent. I have my iCloud account set to manage my disk space (moving older files to the cloud when there is little space left), so the disk should never get full. Because I do see new files from my iMac (the one that crashes) on my iPhone/iPad in iCloud, it is syncing files, but I suspect it's crashing trying to move files to the cloud to make space on my local device. So I need to make space without losing files. Is there any way to force iCloud to move specified files to the cloud? I can think of other, more complex, ways to fix this, and would appreciate suggestions. Thank you for all your help! _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com https://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
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