I think that my machine had a Kernel Panic. I'm not positive, because I've never had one before. Basically, the system froze, with white text in black rectangles appearing over the top of the desktop windows. Some main points in the text were: System Failure, (Corrupt Stack), BSD process relating to Adobe Photoshop. The last line read: "panic: We are hanging here..."

I guess my question is should I be concerned, and where would I go from here to ensure that all is OK.

So far, I've done the following:
• Took a photo of the screen (message)
• Shut it down
• Booted up
• Took a copy of the System Event Log
• Launched Disk Utility, and Verified both volumes - OK
• I haven't run Repair Permissions, yet, because it takes so looooong
• I haven't run TechTools Pro yet either, because of the time factor
• So far, everything seems to be functioning upon the re-boot

This is what I was doing when it occurred:
• Had just finished working in Photoshop
• Launched Mail, attached the Photoshop JPG, and sent the message
• Then the freeze

This was odd, prior to sending the message. I noticed that Adobe Updater had launched (I assume that it was doing a periodic check for software updates. After if was finished, it quit by itself. Out of curiosity, I relaunched the Updater. No updates available. Shortly afterward, the freeze occurred.

This occurred on a 17" PowerBook G4, 133 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, running OS X 10.5.8

Should I be concerned? Should I do any preventive maintenance or checks?

Thanks ahead of time for any advice and/or opinions.

If I remember correctly 'most' kernel panics are RAM related. From the info furnished it looks like more RAM would be in order just because of the type of work you are doing. 1 GB spread out over the OS, Photoshop and background system processes seems to be a little slim. I just bought 4 GB of RAM for my (new to me) MacBook Pro and it was only $63.00 including shipping, from Newegg.

Probably would be good to Repair Permissions and do a File System Check (FSCK -F)

quote:

Originally posted by Brian Stone:
If I remember correctly 'most' kernel panics are RAM related. From the info furnished it looks like more RAM would be in order just because of the type of work you are doing. 1 GB spread out over the OS, Photoshop and background system processes seems to be a little slim. I just bought 4 GB of RAM for my (new to me) MacBook Pro and it was only $63.00 including shipping, from Newegg.

Probably would be good to Repair Permissions and do a File System Check (FSCK -F)

Thanks Brian. I kinda doubt that it's RAM related, unless the RAM went bad. I have 1 GB for years, with absolutely no problems. When I have the chance I'll run Permissions and even run TechTools Pro, to see if anything unusual arises.

Kernel panics are often - but not always - hardware related. RAM is often the culprit, but I've seen quite a few other IO devices cause panics (USB devices, esp. when being plugged in or unplugged) as well as bad disk drives.

The only ones I've seen where the screen dropped into single user mode (which is what sounds like happened based on your description) have been RAM related. The messages and the log might shed more light on it though.

Thanks Jack,

I'd be happy to provide the message (a shot from my camera, as it was the only way that I could think of at the time), as well as the log, which I saved as text file. However, I am a touch reluctant to attach them to my reply, since I don't know what info it really contains, and if it will be secure. I really don't want to make the info public.

Since the panic occurred, everything seems to be functioning OK. It's been at least a few hours.

Jack,

If it's OK, I'm going to start another post for Members Only. I'll include the info there.

Thanks, Mike