[X-Unix] How to REALLY kill Finder.

[Stroller]

On 24 May 2008, at 06:25, Eric F Crist wrote:
> On May 23, 2008, at 2:49 PM, Stroller wrote:
>> ...
>> Last night I was converting a bunch of video files in Quicktime  
>> and copying them to a samba server on the LAN (so I could play  
>> them on my Linux-based media machine) when the Finder stopped  
>> responding and I got the spinning beachball of death.
>>
>> The beachball appeared when I clicked on one of the files in  
>> Finder and it tried to generate a preview in column-view. The  
>> media files were fairly big ones (1 gig) and .mkv format (which  
>> seem particularly processor-intensive to decode) and I'm pretty  
>> sure the file in question was on the Samba server.
>>
>> So ... I figured ... I'd just force-relaunch the Finder and go  
>> back and open the folder in a different view in order to copy it  
>> wherever it needed to be.
>>
>> After doing so, though, Finder fails to restart - I've got no  
>> icons on my desktop and I can't navigate to a folder of files to  
>> click on the one I want to view.
>
> I tried to post a reply earlier, but it was reject due to being >5K.

If you have a copy in sent items then perhaps you could resend a copy  
direct to me, so I can enjoy your 5K of wisdom.

> First, I would try to kill the process that's involved with  
> transferring or otherwise reading the file over the network.

Hmmmn, I thought that WAS Finder that did this.

> Second, if that fails, I'd try killing the process that's involved  
> with QuickLook.  I don't think this is internal to Finder itself,  
> so there should be a separate process.

Ah! No, I'm using 10.4 - the preview that it was generating was this  
kind:
http://www.bioneural.net/wp-content/uploads/iblog/d70rawtiger.jpg
(except of a movie, obviously)

> reading through all of the output for your user with ps should at  
> least give you some clues as to what you can try to kill along the  
> way.  Unfortunately, the only thing you can do is experiment.  The  
> disturbing thing is that a kill -9 on Finder isn't working.
> Hope this helps.  Try posting a copy of a ps auxwwwww here, or at  
> least directly to me.

Attached. Had to zip it because it was 8k alone.

The most interesting process is "/sbin/umount -f /Volumes/4GIG CF" -  
this refers to a CFcard that was plugged into my Mac through an  
adaptor dongle.

Maybe my memory is mistaken as to what I was doing when Finder died,  
because copying to this CFcard stalled at c 20% and I got a complaint  
about removal when I pulled it.

Perhaps its this unmount process that's holding the Finder up, but  
that doesn't respond to `sudo kill -9 6180`either.
Is there any way to force restart the disk automounting daemon?

> You could try nice(ing) the processes you're interested in save to  
> get them the proc time so you can save your work, but I'm afraid  
> you may be stuck rebooting the system if all this fails.

That's not the problem at all - everything else on my system is  
running fine. There's no problem with stuff hogging the CPU - other  
applications respond quickly and I can save from them. It's just that  
I don't want to close this particular program if I can help it,  
because one *can't* save its state. It's actually not that important  
and I guess I could reboot if I had to, but this is annoying me, now,  
and I'd just like to get to the bottom of the problem.

Stroller.