False start

[avaloneon]

Firstly, I've been working on getting OSX on my dad's PC for almost a week now. These forums have been a fantastic resource, and I've finally created an account as merely lurking is starting to not work so well, so hello!

 

Secondly, a huge thank you to all the people who made this possible. The work you have done is incredible. And so is my error- on to business.

 

I have a HP Pavillion a375c with a "3DForce 5700LE" graphics card (basically a GeForce 5700le). Also important is that I'm booting off of a usb hard drive. I discovered that not having an osx86 usb driver produces the "still waiting for root device" error.

 

Now, the problem is I can't get the system to boot properly. It keeps hanging, normally at "Login Window application starting". But wait, it gets stranger! It booted fine the first time. It has come up just fine over half a dozen times now. I've tried almost everything and can't figure out what's wrong with it.

 

The first fix I tried is the one suggested here*. It made the system boot on more time.

After more googling, I finally came across this one, which I tried, and it worked. I then went through, one by one, and it worked again on the removal of Extensions.mkext. when it did it again, I did the same thing. Still hung. I repeated all the same steps, with no effect. WTH?

 

I'm at wit's end here. It silently fails for no error, then works for no reason. I can't isolate the problem, and when I try, it defies logic. Does anyone know what causes the login window to hang? At least possible causes? The only common factor I can see seems to be something with the kext cache, but, as I said, the fix stopped working. Any assistance, suggestions, or even insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

*I made a small change to this. I created a folder next to Extensions called ExtenstionsDisabled and just mv'ed the kexts into it. If something goes wrong, I can undo the mv, but I can't undo an rm.

[avaloneon]

Quick update:

 

I did a clean reinstall (with the drivers for some reason) to see if I could learn anything from prodding it a few more times. It hung after the login window again, on a clean boot, but I noticed something else this time. Previously, it was hanging in various places, and, taking an average, I concluded it had something to do with the login window. But it doesn't.

 

The point the system seems to be hanging at is the starting of ocspd, which, according to my preliminary research, is what loads just before the graphics drivers. This still doesn't explain why the system breaks after a restart, but it does give me a lead on what the problem might be. One of them, at least.

[avaloneon]

bump

 

Come on, don't let this die. There are plenty of people with problems like this. Like this one. Or this one.

 

I'd accuse the community of not helping me, but almost all of my research comes from these forums, so... um... I have no idea how to classify that.

 

Regardless of the "help", here's another update:

it was hanging in various places, and, taking an average, I concluded it had something to do with the login window. But it doesn't.

That's not true. More testing has revealed that it

A: has something to do with graphics drivers, as leaving them installed makes it happen on a clean install. And

B: is, in fact, the login window. The system hangs predictably 2-3 lines after the login window starts, but the content is different. Sometimes it's from ocspd, sometimes from mDNSResponder, whatever, but always just after the login window.

 

Perhaps someone could tell me how to get a GeForce FX5700le working? How about why the system won't boot up twice? That's what I really want to know. I can't fix what I can't find.

 

Either way, I would appreciate the help. It would at least stop the thread from sinking to page three

 

...again...

 

Thanks in advance.

[verdant]

bump

 

Come on, don't let this die. There are plenty of people with problems like this. Like this one. Or this one.

 

I'd accuse the community of not helping me, but almost all of my research comes from these forums, so... um... I have no idea how to classify that.

 

Regardless of the "help", here's another update:

 

That's not true. More testing has revealed that it

A: has something to do with graphics drivers, as leaving them installed makes it happen on a clean install. And

B: is, in fact, the login window. The system hangs predictably 2-3 lines after the login window starts, but the content is different. Sometimes it's from ocspd, sometimes from mDNSResponder, whatever, but always just after the login window.

 

Perhaps someone could tell me how to get a GeForce FX5700le working? How about why the system won't boot up twice? That's what I really want to know. I can't fix what I can't find.

 

Either way, I would appreciate the help. It would at least stop the thread from sinking to page three

 

...again...

 

Thanks in advance.

 

What distro are you using and what Customize selections are you making.......initially do not install video, network or audio drivers.......focus on getting basic OS X system running......

[avaloneon]

What distro are you using and what Customize selections are you making.......initially do not install video, network or audio drivers.......focus on getting basic OS X system running......

 

My bad, I thought I mentioned distro. I'm using iPC 10.5.6 PPF5 final. The components the box appears to like so far are the voodoo kernel, the USB patch (else it can't boot of the USB drive), and an AC97 audio driver (works flawlessly). Those appear to work with the system properly, unlike the graphics.

 

And, yes, I'm generally going for less-is-more. Earlier installs had drivers, although the one I was trying before posting (clean install) hangs at the login window, without anything other than the base system, the kernel, and the USB patch.

 

Also, thank you for taking the time to point out that I forgot the distro. I've seen enough of these forums that I should have known better than to post without distro specs, and it's probably why I wasn't getting any responses, as well.

 

PS: as I was looking through the packages to get the names of the packages used, I suddenly noticed "AGPGart" staring at me. I feel a "d'oh" moment coming on; is it needed to talk to an AGP graphics card, perchance?

 

Edit: The system did come up with AGPGart installed.

[Beerkex'd]

Just a heads-up about AGPGart.

 

If you don't install AGPGart - or if AGPGart isn't compatible with your system - your AGP video card will be running as a old school PCI 33MHz device. This is fine for daily use as long as you've got the card installed properly with full QE/CI support. If AGPGart works for you, you're very lucky. If your video card is not recognized in System Profiler as an AGP card, you can probably safely delete and forget about AGPGart.

 

The video card in my older, second hackintosh (see sig) is a 7600GT AGP and it's working fine as PCI card in Leopard. I've tried running some games on it like Tomb Raider Anniversary and Doom III/Quake 4, and I have to run them at 640x480 to get a tolerable frame rate. But everyday desktop use, watching videos, running SDLMAME and ZSNES and so on doesn't need as much bandwidth as modern 3D games, so all of that is running fine.

[avaloneon]

Hmmm... thanks. One post that I saw yesterday during my endless research said that deleting AGPGart is what made it work for him. I should test it again though, as it seems like everything I do makes it work fine, once.

 

Edit: Yeah, second time I try to boot it, hangs after the login window. Again.

[avaloneon]

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." -Arthur Conan Doyle

 

That's about where I am. I think I've isolated the location of the problem by process of elimination, and, well... I can't really explain what's going on. It appears to be something in the kext system, possibly related to the graphics drivers. Here's what happened:

 

I reinstalled (clean, as always) my iPC 10.5.6 PPF5 Final with

VooDoo kernel

USB Patch

AC97 Audio Driver (whole reason this is here: the intro music. Love that music )

Natit Video driver

 

I booted the new system (with -f -v) and it hung during boot. Big surprise. I decided to try obliterating all the graphics drivers, since it seemed to resolve problems before:

rm -r ATI*
rm -r GeForce*
rm -r NVDA*

And also uninstalled:
rm -r Natit.kext

The system came up to the welcome screen, with the music (but no video). I shut it down from there and rebooted. I did this five times (including this time). Plus for proper boot, minus for hang:

+-+++

I don't quite understand what could have happened , but... whatever. After I went through the setup, and things became weirder. The system hung on shutdown, which didn't happen in either single-user mode or the initial setup. Second, due to the fact that it was correctly booting already, I omitted the -f from the boot parameters, leaving just -v. Every time, however, it still recompiled all of the kexts, despite the absence of the -f flag, which it would only do if it didn't have an Extensions.mkext. So, somehow, it wasn't being generated. Anyway, here's the post install boot log:

++---

 

There's something wrong here, but, again, all I did was turn it on, then turn it off. It seems to keep breaking itself or, more plausibly, the crashes/hangs end up corrupting a critical file (remember, I have to force it down every time), causing the system to hang on subsequent boots. This theory also explains how the destruction of cache files allowed it to boot another time, as I found that deleting the caches (/Library/Caches, /Sys/Lib/Caches, and Extensions.mkext) did work. Twice, in fact, and I thought that deleting that last one was the key. However, since it didn't work the third time, it's possible that some other file was messed up. Since the filesystem is journaled, I wouldn't expect this to happen so quickly, but...

 

Anyway, I hope this sounds familiar to someone out there. The next thing I'll try is the shutdown fix I saw in the installer. If my theory is right (and it does what I think) it should fix the problem.

[avaloneon]

Final Update: Problem solved

 

After some more work (and blundering), I discovered that it was a network driver problem. Installing the Realtek drivers makes everything run smoo-... well, it boots, anyway. I still have issues to fix, but now that I have a known stable configuration, it will be much easier. (At least on paper. The last install somehow managed to royally mangle the filesystem and/or partition table to such an extent that even attempting to reformat it gave my computer indigestion for a while.)

 

For future reference (as I ran into way too many unanswered questions in my searching):

 

ocspd is responsible for fetching certificates for SecurityAgent from the network. See the manpage for more information.

mDNSResponder is also related to the network, I'm assuming something to do with DNS servers.

A system hang just after the login window started when one/both of these have come up appears to indicate a network driver issue. The solution is to install the proper drivers. The LAN can also be disabled in the BIOS for testing purposes.

 

Also, my very first install probably would have worked save for one package: seatbelt.kext. With it, when using the voodoo kernel, I get hangs on boot. I can't explain it, as seatbelt.kext is needed to prevent the panics when mounting disk images and is described as "required" by the readme. Nevertheless, is someone else out there is having similar problems, it's something else to try.

 

I hope I managed to help someone.