MacOS – OS X 10.11(.1) Randomly freezes while browsing

macmacbook promacos

Ever since I updated to El Capitan I keep getting random freezes.. this is the 2nd time it happened while browsing on safari and while watching videos on Youtube. Anyone having problems with this as well? Im on 10.11.1.

I tried resetting the default things, such as PRAM etc. I even brought my MacBook back to the store and there wasn't any hardware issues.

I checked the log and both of the times these freezes happened I see something about watchdog daemon becoming unresponsive. After the freeze, which takes 1 minute or a bit less.. the macbook becomes responsive again but is very very sluggish.

I'm running OS X 10.11.1 on a MacBook Pro 15" 2014.

I could get you log files if needed, not sure which part would be interesting for you but just let me know.

Best Answer

I kept having this too. After using Youtube for a while, Safari froze and was then on behaving very sluggishly even if restarted. Only reboot of the whole system restored Browser back to normal (until Youtube would freeze it again).

The problem seems to have disappeared along with the latest OS X 10.11.2, so I recommend you just update the OS X.

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MacOS – OSX Locking then logging out

I have experienced similar problems with my MacBook Pro when I drop my earphones near the left side of my keyboard. I believe the MacBook uses magnets to detect the screen lid is closed, so when the magnetic field of the earphones get near the Macbook case it thinks the screen was closed and locks the system.

I have ever since placed my earphones somewhere else, far from the MacBook case and never had this problem again.

Check if you don't have any strong magnetic fields near your computer, even if a bit far from it.

MacOS – Debugging Freezes

First thing is, after a reboot, to look at /var/log/system.log.

Search from the end for BOOT_TIME. This is the first entry after your mac reboots. Now go up to read the lines above. This might give you a clue what happened right before the mac had frozen.

To take a look at more logfiles, go to /var/log and list them with

ls -ltr

This will sort them by time so that newest files are at the bottom. If you can't find something helpful inside system.log you might have a chance when looking at the logs that have been written around freeze time (or later).

Best Answer

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MacOS – OSX Locking then logging out

MacOS – Debugging Freezes

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