Assessing Your Mac


Key to troubleshooting and solving problems that you can't prevent is being able to accurately and precisely assess how your Mac is performing and knowing the specific configuration of your system. Mac OS X offers many diagnostic tools that can help you; however, several of these tools are quite complicated. Still, even if you are not able to interpret all their output, people who are trying to help might be able to, so even in this case it is useful for you to know how to use them. And, you should understand how to use these tools before you need them.

NOTE

If you choose Apple menu, About This Mac, you will see a window displaying the version of the Mac OS X you are running, the amount of RAM installed in your machine, the specific processors it contains, and the current startup disc. You can also click the Software Update button to move to that pane in the System Preferences application or click More Info to move into the System Profiler.


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If you click the Mac OS X version number shown in the About This Mac window, you will see the specific build number of the version you are using. Click this information and you will see your Mac's serial number. Click it again and you will return to the Mac OS X version information.


Using System Profiler to Create a System Profile

Mac OS X includes the System Profiler application. This application enables you to get a detailed view into your system at any particular point in time.

To create a profile of your system, launch System Profiler (Applications/Utilities directory). The System Profiler provides a window with two panes (see Figure 36.1). In the left pane is a list of areas about which you can get information, including Hardware, Network, and Software. Each of these sections is broken down into component areas. For example, the Hardware section is further organized into various aspects of your system, such as ATA, Audio, Bluetooth, Diagnostics, and so on. The Software area is organized into Applications, Extensions, Fonts, and so on. When you select an item in the left pane, detailed information about that item appears in the right pane. For example, in Figure 36.1, the Hardware item is selected, which provides an overview of a machine's hardware configuration.

Figure 36.1. The System Profiler provides detailed information about the hardware and software that make up your system.


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You can also open the System Profiler by clicking the More Info button that appears in the About This Mac widow.


Click the category for the part of the system about which you want information. For example, to see the memory configuration of your machine, click the Memory category. In the right pane is each memory slot the machine contains. When a chip is installed in a slot, you can select the chip and see detailed information about it in the lower part of the pane (see Figure 36.2).

Figure 36.2. The Memory category enables you to get information about the memory configuration of your Mac.


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Click the expansion triangle next to a category to expand or collapse its detail.


Three views are available in System Profiler; you can select the view on the View menu. The Full Profile (press (-3) is the default view and provides the most information. The Mini Profile (press -1) hides details under the Software and Network categories; you can expand these sections to view the detail. The Basic Profile (press -2) includes more detail in the Hardware and Network sections but no additional detail in the Software section. Frankly, there's really no reason to use any view other than the Full Profile. After all, you use the System Profiler to get information, so why not get as much as is available?

The categories available in System Profiler in the Full Profile view can include those shown in Table 36.1.

Table 36.1. System Profiler in the Full Profile View

Category

Subcategory

Summary

Hardware

None

This area provides an overview of the hardware that is part of your machine. You will see the type of Mac, the CPU(s) it includes, cache information, memory details, and other hardware information.

Hardware

ATA

Use this category to view detailed information about the ATA disk or disc drives in your Mac.

Hardware

Audio (Built In)

Use this section to view information about the audio capabilities of your Mac.

Hardware

Diagnostics

This section provides information about diagnostics that your Mac will sometimes run, such as those that occur during the self-test when you power up your Mac.

Hardware

Disc Burning

Use this to view information about CD or DVD burners in your system or that are connected via FireWire or USB.

Hardware

Fibre Channel

This section applies if you use fibre channel to link machines together.

Hardware

FireWire

This provides information about your Mac's FireWire ports including the devices that are currently connected. If a FireWire device is connected to your Mac, but is not listed in this section, you know there is a problem with the device.

Hardware

Graphics/Displays

This section provides details about the graphics cards installed in your Mac and the displays connected to those cards.

Hardware

Memory

Use this category to view detailed information about the composition of your machine's RAM memory.

Hardware

PC Cards

If you use a mobile Mac and PC cards, you can view information about them here.

Hardware

PCI

This area provides information about PCI cards you have installed in your Mac. If you have physically installed a card, but it is not listed here, the card is not working. The most likely cause is that the correct driver isn't installed.

Hardware

Parallel SCSI

Here you see information about any SCSI devices included in your system.

Hardware

Power

This area displays the current power settings for your Mac, such as sleep time.

Hardware

Printers

This provides information about any printers with which your Mac can communicate.

Hardware

Serial-ATA

In this area, you'll see information about serial ATA drives connected to your Mac or installed in it.

Hardware

USB

This particularly useful section shows all the USB devices attached to your system. If you are having trouble with a specific device, use this information to see whether your Mac recognizes a device properly. You can also see the speed at which USB devices are communicating with your Mac.

Network

None

This category provides an overview of your Mac's current network connections.

Network

AirPort Card

View this to see the type of AirPort card installed in your Mac and the current AirPort network you are using, along with other AirPort information.

Network

Firewall

This area provides information about the firewall configured for your Mac.

Network

Locations

This section provides a list of all the locations configured on your Mac. If you select a location in the upper pane, details about it will be shown in the lower pane.

Network

Modems

This provides information about modems installed in your Mac, such as an internal dial-up modem, or an external modem, such as a cable modem to which your Mac is directly connected.

Network

Volumes

This section provides information about network volumes that are currently mounted on your Mac, such as your iDisk.

Software

None

This provides an overview of your system software, including version and build, kernel version, boot volume (startup volume), computer name, and current user.

Software

Applications

This category displays information about the applications installed on your startup volume. The upper part of the pane shows the application name, version number, and modification date. If you select an application, in the lower part of the pane you will see its version, modification date, location, Info String (which is usually a copyright statement from the manufacturer), the location in which it is stored, and the kind of application it is.

Software

Extensions

Here, you will see the Mac OS X extensions installed on your startup volume. This information can sometimes be useful when troubleshooting. For example, you can determine if an extension associated with a piece of hardware is currently recognized by your system.

Software

Fonts

This provides the details about all the fonts on your Mac. Select a font listed in the upper pane to see more details about it in the lower pane.

Software

Frameworks

This category lists the Mac OS X frameworks installed on your startup volume. In the upper pane, you see the name of the framework, its version, and when it was last modified. If you select a framework, in the lower part of the pane you will see its version, modification date, location, Info String (which can sometimes tell you more about the framework), and whether it is private.

Software

Logs

This section provides access to various logs the system and some applications keep to record significant events, such as crashes. Each log can be selected to reveal its details. In the upper pane are all the logs available to you. For each log, you'll see its name, a description, its size, and when it was last modified. If you click a log, its information will be displayed in the lower pane. The specific information you see will depend on the log you select.

Some of the information in these logs is quite technical. However, you can often review the logs for a specific point in time during which you were having trouble, to assess what was happening with your system. For example, you can see significant events that occurred or didn't occur successfully. This can often reveal the source of a problem. Also, if you need to ask for help, accessing these logs can enable you to provide more s pecific information to the person trying to help you and might result in a problem being solved more quickly. Other logs, such as those for applications, are quite easy to understand and will often reveal information about problems you have experienced.

Software

Preference Panes

This list shows you all the preference panes currently installed in the System Preferences application. Select a preference pane in the upper pane of the window to see details about it in the lower pane.

Software

Startup Items

This list shows all processes that start up when your Mac does. As with other panes, select the item in which you are interested in the upper pane and view the details in the lower pane.


You should periodically save a Profiler report, called a profile, to disk and print it. Then, if you need to get help with a problem but can't open System Profiler at the time, you can use the profile to help troubleshoot the issue. You can also email the profile file to people trying to help you solve a problem. To save a profile for your system, do the following steps:

1.

Launch the System Profiler.

2.

Select File, Save As.

3.

In the resulting Save sheet, name the file, choose a location in which to save it, and select the file format in which you want to save the profile. The options are System Profiler 4.0 (XML), Rich Text Format (RTF), and Plain Text. The format you choose depends on how you are going to use the profile. In most cases, you should choose System Profiler or Rich Text because the resulting profile will retain some formatting.

4.

Click Save. The profile will be saved in the format you selected.

5.

Open the profile to view it (see Figure 36.3).

Figure 36.3. Here is a profile saved in the RTF format.


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When you need help from Apple, you can send a Profile to it by choosing File, Send to Apple. Click the Send to Apple button in the resulting sheet and your profile will be transmitted to Apple. An Apple representative will be able to access the profile to help you solve a problem. Apple can also use the profile to help identify bugs and other issues with its software, including OS X.


The System Profiler menus contain some additional commands that might be useful. For example, View, Refresh causes System Profiler to refresh all its information.

Using Activity Monitor to Understand and Manage Processes

To provide services, your Mac runs a lot of processes. These processes fall into many categories. User processes are those that are related to specific user accounts, such as running an application. Administrator (also called root) processes are those that are fundamental to the OS and are controlled by it, such as the Desktop database. NetBoot processes are those related to network services, such as Apple File Server.

The Activity Monitor application enables you to get detailed information about any process running on your Mac at any point in time. This information can be useful when it comes time to troubleshoot your system. You can also use the Activity Monitor to kill any running process; this is useful when a process is hung and needs to be stopped.

The following steps walk you through using the Activity Monitor:

1.

Open Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities directory). You will see a window providing a listing of all the processes on the machine (see Figure 36.4).

Figure 36.4. Activity Monitor enables you to get detailed information about any process on your Mac.


2.

Select the category of process you want to view from the pop-up menu at the top of the window. There are many options from which to choose, and the option you choose will depend on the types of processes in which you are interested. For example, select My Processes to see the processes that are related to your user account. The processes shown in the window is refreshed according to the category you select.

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One of the more useful process categories to view is the Active Processes option. This shows only processes that are currently doing something. When you are troubleshooting, these are typically the processes in which you are interested.


For each process shown in the Activity Viewer window, you can see the following information:

  • Process ID Each process running on your Mac is assigned a unique ID number. This number can change each time the process is started.

  • Process Name Unlike process number, a process's name is constant.

  • User This identifies the specific user running the process. In addition to the user accounts on your machine, you will see processes with root as the user. These are processes that are part of the OS and are started and managed by your Mac when it starts up.

  • % CPU This percentage indicates the amount of CPU processing that a process is consuming. This is one of the more useful pieces of data. Any process should be consuming a small percentage of the available CPU processing power. If a process is consuming a large amount, such as something more than 90%, over a long period of time that usually indicates the process is having trouble and should be stopped.

  • # Threads Processes can run in different threads within the processor. This column indicates how many threads a process is using. Unless you have a detailed understanding of how processors work, this isn't likely to be meaningful.

  • Real Memory This indicates how much physical RAM is being used by the process.

  • Virtual Memory This indicates how much virtual RAM is being used by the process.

NOTE

Virtual RAM is your Mac using its hard drive like it uses real RAMthat being to temporarily store data with which it is working. Virtual memory is much slower than real RAM, but you usually have a lot more available to you. Fortunately, Mac OS X takes care of managing both kinds of memory for you.


The following list outlines some additional process tasks you can perform in Activity Monitor:

  • Open a sheet that enables you to quit a process normally or to force it to quit Select a running process and either click Quit Process or press Option--Q to open this sheet. You can use this to stop a process that is hung. For hung processes, use Force Quit; for processes that are running normally, use Quit.

  • Sort the processes shown in the window You do this by clicking the column by which you want them sorted. The current sort criterion is shown by the highlighted column name. You can reverse the direction of the sort with the sort order button that is located next to the column heading.

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    Sorting the window by the Real Memory or % CPU column is useful because you can see which processes are consuming the most system memory. If a process is consuming a large amount of memory (such as 80%), that can indicate something is wrong with the application that is generating the process.


  • Find specific processes You do this by typing in the Filter box. The list is reduced to only those processes that contain the text you type.

  • Open the Inspector window You double-click or select a process and then either click Inspect or press -I. The Inspector window will open and you will see additional information about the process, including the parent process and recent hangs (see Figure 36.5). You can click the Memory tab to see detailed memory usage information for the process. Click the Statistics tab to get information about the threads, CPU time, and other technical specifications. Click Open Files and Ports to see the open files and network ports related to the process. Click the Quit button to open the Quit/Force Quit sheet.

    Figure 36.5. With the Process Inspector, no process can hide.


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    If you click the Sample button, you will see yet another window that provides even more technical information about a process.


  • Change the rate at which process information is updated You do this by selecting View, Update Frequency; then you select the frequency you want to use, such as every .5 seconds. Increasing the sample rate provides data closer to real time.

Using the Activity Monitor to Monitor System Activity

Using the tabs along the bottom of the Activity Monitor application enables you to gain insight into the following system activities:

  • CPU Usage You can monitor the CPU activity of the processors in your Mac. This gives you a good idea of the resources being used at any moment in time. When CPU usage becomes close to the upper limit, this usually indicates a problem.

  • System Memory Using this tool, you can view the usage of various types of system memory, such as physical RAM and virtual memory. You can also view the free memory of your system, which can be useful to determine whether you need to add more memory resources to your Mac.

  • Disk Activity This tool enables you to view the performance of your machine when reading and writing data to disk.

  • Disk Usage This area enables you to see the space breakdown of a selected disk (see Figure 36.6). This is particularly useful to make sure your disks aren't running close to their maximum capacity.

    Figure 36.6. The Disk Usage information shows that the disk called Tiger currently has about 27GB of free space.


  • Network This tool provides information about the communication across your network interface, such as via Ethernet.

Using Acitivity Monitor, you can display system activity monitoring information on your desktop in a number of ways. For example, you can display CPU usage information on the desktop and display an icon showing other information on the Dock (see Figure 36.7). The monitoring options you have are listed in Table 36.2.

Figure 36.7. Several options are available for real-time performance monitoring from the desktop, such as viewing CPU usage on the Dock.


Table 36.2. Monitoring Options in Activity Monitor

Menu

Command

Keyboard Shortcut

What It Does

Window

Activity Monitor

-1

Opens the Activity Monitor window.

Window

CPU Usage

-2

Opens a window containing a bar for each processor that graphically displays its activity level.

Window

Floating CPU Window, Show Horizontally

-4

Opens a bar showing activity for each processor. The bar is anchored in the lower-left corner of the desktop and is oriented horizontally.

Window

Floating CPU Window, Show Vertically

-5

Opens a bar showing activity for each processor. The bar is anchored in the lower-left corner of the desktop and is oriented vertically.

Window

Floating CPU Window, Do not show

 

Closes the Floating CPU window.

Window

CPU History

-3

Opens a window that tracks processor activity over time.

View

Clear CPU History

 

Starts the CPU history over again.

View

Columns, Column, where Column is the name of an Activity Monitor column

 

Enables you to show or hide all the columns Activity Monitor can display.

View

Show CPU monitors on top of other windows

 

When this option is selected, all CPU monitor windows always appear on top of other windows. When not selected, the CPU monitoring windows can be hidden by otherwindows.

View

Dock Icon, Show CPU Usage

 

Shows a CPU Usage window on the Dock.

View

Dock Icon, Show CPU History

 

Shows a CPU History window on the Dock.

View

Dock Icon, Show Network Usage

 

Shows a Network Usage window on the Dock.

View

Dock Icon, Show Disk Activity

 

Shows a Disk Activity window on the Dock.

View

Dock Icon, Show Memory Usage

 

Shows a Memory Usage window on the Dock.

View

Dock Icon, Show Application Icon

 

Shows the Activity Monitor icon on the Dock instead of a monitoring window.

View

Update Frequency, Frequency, where Frequency is the frequency you choose

 

Changes the frequency at which the Activity Monitor monitors processors. The frequency can be .5 second, 1 second, 2 seconds, or 5 seconds.


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When you choose a frequency, it affects only the monitoring of processes. The monitors always display information in real time.


Monitoring is available only while Activity Monitor is running. When you quit the application, all monitoring disappears. If you want to display the monitoring tools but hide the Activity Monitor window itself, you can minimize or close the Activity Monitor window.

Viewing System Activity with Top

The Top window is a Unix window that provides detailed information about the current operation of your Mac. To access it, open a command-line application such as Terminal or X11, type top, and press Return.

The Top window provides detailed information about your system, although not in the most easily understood format (see Figure 36.8). At the top of the Top window, you see a summary of the activity on your machine; the lower part of the window lists all the running processes and detailed information about each.

Figure 36.8. Using Top can be a bit intimidating, but the information it provides is worth getting to know.


In the summary area of the window, you can see how many processes are running versus the number sleeping, how many threads are running, the average loads, and the percentage of CPU usage of user processes versus system usage. The PhysMem information contains data about your RAM. For example, the amount shown as active is the RAM currently being used by running processes. The VM information provides data about the virtual memory being used.

NOTE

You can get similar information in an easier-to-use format by using Activity Monitor.


In the lower part of the window, you see a table that provides data on each process that is similar to the information in the Activity Monitor. For example, you see the PID, which is the same Process ID as is displayed for a process in the Activity Monitor. You can also see the percentage of CPU use, the processor time, and other more technical information. Much of this information will probably not be useful to you unless you are quite technically oriented; however, it can be useful to others when you are trying to get help.

You can save the information seen in the Top window by selecting the information in the window and selecting File, Save Selected Text As. This text file can be useful or can be provided to someone else when you are getting help with a problem.

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To stop the Top process, press Ctrl-C.


Using the Console to View Logs

The Console application provides a window to which Mac OS X writes system messages you can view, most notably various logs your Mac creates as it works (or doesn't work as in the case of crash logs). These messages are mostly error messages; some of these can be useful when you are troubleshooting problems (see Figure 36.9). The messages you see are quite technical; unless you are a programmer or are extremely technically knowledgeable, you might not be able to understand all their detail. However, Console messages can be helpful to understand what was happening when something went wrong and when you are communicating a problem to someone else.

Figure 36.9. The Console enables you to view the contents of a log in detail.


You can choose the log that is displayed in the Console window in a number of ways:

  • Click the Logs button in the toolbar You will see a list of all available logs organized into categories. You can expand a category to show the logs contained in that category. When you select a log, it appears in the Console window.

  • Select File, Open Console Log (or press Shift--O) This opens that log. Or, you can select Open System Log (or press Option--O) to open the System log.

  • Select File, Open Quickly Then choose the log you want to see on the hierarchical menu that appears.

A number of logs are available through the Console, and each provides a specific type of information, as you can see in Table 36.3.

Table 36.3. Logs Available in the Console

Log Name

Information It Provides

console.log

This log lists events related to the core operation of your Mac, such as when specific events occurred. Reviewing this log can sometimes give you insight into failed processes that might be causing problems for you, but that you might not be aware of because an application didn't crash.

system.log

Whereas the console.log displays mostly errors, the system.log shows all events that have occurred for the system, such as when specific processes start up. You see the date and time for each event.

~/Library/Logs

This category of logs provides information related to your user account (indicated by the ~). The specific logs you see in this category depend on what you are running at any point in time. You will always see the CrashReporter log for each application that has crashed. You might also see logs for various processes, such as the MirrorAgent.log when you are using an iDisk that is synchronized on your Mac.

/Library/Logs

This category presents a set of logs related to the system. These include various error logs along logs for various system services.

/var/log

This category contains many logs related to various processes. For example, you can choose the install.log to see a list of all installations you have done on your Mac or ftp.log to see information related to FTP access of your machine.


NOTE

You must be logged in under an account to see its logs. Even if another user is currently logged in while you are using your user account, you will still see only your logs.


You are most likely to use the Console to troubleshoot problems. To do so, use the following steps:

1.

Open the Console and choose the log you want to view. For example, if an application has crashed, find that application's crash log, which will be located in the CrashReporter category within the ~/Library/Logs set of logs.

2.

View the information you see. At the top of the log window, you will see summary information. Moving down the screen shows you the very technical log detail (see Figure 36.10).

Figure 36.10. This CrashReporter log shows information about a crash of the Snapx Pro X application.


3.

Save a copy of the log by selecting File, Save a Copy As.

4.

Name the log, select a save location, and press Return.

5.

In the Console, click the Clear button on the toolbar. The log's information is erased.

6.

Repeat the steps that lead to the crash if you can. If not, just keeping doing what you were trying to do.

7.

If the crash occurs again, repeat steps 14 to view the crash log. Compare the log to what you viewed in step 2. This might tell you whether it is the same problem or not.

8.

If you can't solve the problem on your own, save the new log information so you can provide both logs to whomever you contact for help.

If you aren't very technically inclined, the information you see in the logs won't be understandable. However, you can still glean useful information such as the general cause of a problem and specific information about when it occurred. That information will often help you pinpoint exactly what was happening when a problem occurred, which is often critical to being able to solve it.

Here are a few other Console tips:

  • You can open multiple Console windows at the same time by selecting File, New Log Window or pressing -N. This is useful when comparing different logs.

  • You can reload the information in a log by viewing it and clicking the Reload button; by selecting File, Reload; or by pressing -R.

  • You can use the Filter tool to search for specific log items.



Special Edition Using MAC OS X Tiger
Special Edition Using Mac OS X Tiger
ISBN: 0789733919
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 317
Authors: Brad Miser

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