Strange crash!!![pic]

[yippy]

Yesterday my friend called me on the phone and said their computer crashed. I couldn't figure out what they were saying they were seeing on the screen so I had them take a pic with a digital camera and then hard reset. It seemed fine after but I want to make sure this was just a one time thing and not something we need to worry about.

Here is part of the pic they sent me, sorry it is kind of blurry.

Notice on the bottom of the pic the mouse pointer is visible but it looks like a command line.

Any ideas what this means? Thanks.

 

[Doraemon]

That's a kernel panic of some earlier version of MacOS X.

 

[yippy]

Forgot to mention, she is running 10.3.7 on a single 1.25Ghz MDD.

 

[MacsRgr8]

After encounting this type of crash, I usually do hardware check.
You see so many RAM issues out there, that I like to eliminate that first as a problem.
I do two things:
1) run the Apple Hardware test CD, and
2) run Rember which is an excellent RAM tester! (be sure to test all the RAM, and quit all apps)

If both show no errors, then I'm pretty confident that it is a one-time-thing

 

[yippy]

Update

So, her computer did it again, sort of. It looks like this now:

Any ideas?

 

[emw]

So, her computer did it again, sort of. It looks like this now:

Any ideas?

Did you run the hardware tests to check RAM, etc? If not, run them as MacsRGr8 suggests. After that, start thinking about any new software that was installed and what it was installed to do. Perhaps do a fresh system install. But first, the hardware check.

 

[yippy]

Yes, she ran a hardware check after the second one, everything came up ok. Both times she was online using Juno, an ISP that requires you use their app to connect. Could a poorly coded app be causing this?

 

[Mechcozmo]

Yes, she ran a hardware check after the second one, everything came up ok. Both times she was online using Juno, an ISP that requires you use their app to connect. Could a poorly coded app be causing this?

Rare but possible. It certainly seems suspicious. Call up Juno maybe and see what they say...

 

[kajeff]

Same problem with me

I am also using Juno on an iBook G4.

I have also experianced kernal panics while using Juno, infact the only kernal panics i have is when i am trying to get online with Juno.

I have found that if i reboot often, like once a week, the problem does not occur. I have found that when my uptime gets to around 3 or 4 weeks i am the most likly to crash.