Keeps freezing, forcing me to reboot

[mangaphreak]

Lately the current version (1.40) of Transmission just freezes up after a while, especially when trying to handle several large downloads at a time...! The problem is that it becomes totally unresponsive and even when I force-quit it or kill the process it still doesn't shut down...!

It still shows up in the app switcher and still sits there in the Dock...unresponsive as it was before -- and the only way to get it working again is to actually reboot the whole computer...!?! That's never happened to me before with any Mac app and certainly not with Transmission, so what's up with that...?!

If this keeps happening I'll have to find some other client that can handle the load...

:: M ::

[stern]

When this happens, look at the Disk Activity tab in the Activity Monitor. The only times Transmission appears to "lock up" for me is when it's allocating space, which can take a while if several large torrents start receiving data at the same time.

[mangaphreak]

Well, what bothers me is that I can't get rid of it once it locks up...! No matter whether I kill the process in Activity Monitor or do a Force Quit -- it stays there and won't go away...!? And the only way to get things up and runnignis to reboot the whole Mac...!

This just shouldn't be happening -- no matter what the reason is...! I should be able to quit an app without it bringing everything else down...!?

Actually it just happened again...! And there's only one download left, so it can't be several large downloads causing the problem...!?

Could there be any co-relation with other apps causing Transmission to freeze up...?! While I had it running overnight it was the only app on my Mac...and now I have Mail and Safari and NetNewsWire and Twitterific open and suddenly Transmission gives me the forevere spinning beachball...!? Coincidence...?!

By the way I'm running it on a MacBook Pro with 2.33 GHz and 2 GB of RAM -- should be more than enough to handle a few standard apps and it sure was, until recently...

:: M ::

[Karine]

Hi,

Same for me. Suddenly the whole Mac (I own a Mac Pro 2,66 Gz) freezes. Sometimes, I can still use Firefox or a couple of apps, while Transmission, the Finder and some other apps are frozen. Same for me : you CAN'T force quit anything when this happen.

Found other phenomenons :
- If you wait enough, it de-freezes. This wait can be 15-20 minutes long.
- I supposed it was because I torrent more than 50 files. I simplified things but the freezebug appears again.
- I had to throw 1.40 and I backed to 1.34 : same thing.
- Same phenomenon if you keep upload OR if you stop upload (torrent dl only, thanks to the tortoise icon

It's maybe because of Leopard, because I never experimented this with 1.34 on Tiger.

Just FYI

Karine

PS : To the developers : Please accept a little kiss from me - when it works, this tool is GREAT

[mangaphreak]

Well, at least I'm not the only one...good to know...!

Okay, I think I may have found what's causing my problems: it only happens when I download stuff directly to an external USB drive...! No problems at all when I download only to my internal drive...

But again -- it doesn't really matter what the cause is (although it should be adressed, of course) because no Mac OS X app should freeze so bad that the only solution is to reboot your whole system...!

Anyway, can anybody else confirm strange behaviour when downloading directly to an external drive...?!

:: M ::

[stern]

it only happens when I download stuff directly to an external USB drive

If your drive doesn't have active cooling it's possible it's overheating (many "compact" external drives have fine print somewhere stating they're not designed for constant use). Constant disk activity from eg. a torrent app will generate a lot more heat than if it's just idling.

OS X does have a tendency to lock up totally or freeze for a very long time when drives disappear. There's not really much an application can do about it, as it gets stuck inside the OS (eg. if an external drive locks up, trying to access it via the Finder causes the Finder to lock up, trying to access it via a terminal causes the terminal to lock up etc. Once the OS realizes the drive is gone, all applications continue at once.)

[mangaphreak]

OS X does have a tendency to lock up totally or freeze for a very long time when drives disappear. There's not really much an application can do about it, as it gets stuck inside the OS (eg. if an external drive locks up, trying to access it via the Finder causes the Finder to lock up, trying to access it via a terminal causes the terminal to lock up etc. Once the OS realizes the drive is gone, all applications continue at once.)

Okay, I kind of get that...but it's not the Finder or the OS locking up, it's just Transmission...! I can use the other apps and keep working, but Transmission just hangs in there and I can't restart it, I can't kill it, nothing...until I reboot the whole machine...!? Maybe it's not really the app's fault, but I've never experienced any other app behave like that...

:: M ::

[stern]

Okay, I kind of get that...but it's not the Finder or the OS locking up, it's just Transmission...!

So you can read files from the external drive with other programs when Transmission is locked up?

[thimotyd]

Hi

I have this bug, in version 1.92, freeze the finder and some programs, sometimes one or two programs keep working for a wile.
I use an external USB disk for download, it never fail before, I discover that this bug happens when I connect the external disk to a USB hub, if I connect directy to my iMac everything go fine. I expect this help.

Bye

[kbj149]

Same here. I'm running v2.77 and if I pause a download, it locks up the machine and its a full reboot job!

This really needs to be fixed