PPC Apps dont work

[SuperBoy]

On my intel mac ppcs have have suddenly and mysteriosuly stopped working, they just bounce a couple of times then stop and dont open. On closer examination it also appears the 'translated' process is not running. Restarting doesnt fix the problem, nor does running system repairs or anything like that. Can someone help me?

[hayne]

1) You should try the standard troubleshooting suggestions:
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/ (see the "My Mac needs help" section)
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...04011205473937
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html

In particular, be sure to try logging in as a different user to see if the problem exists there. (Create a new user via the Accounts preference panel if you only have the one user account so far.)

Also be sure to do "Repair Disk" (different from "Repair Disk Permissions"!) in Disk Utility when booted from the Install CD/DVD. I.e. you restart from the Install CD/DVD, then run the version of Disk Utility that is available from one of the menus there.
See this Apple doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

2) Launch the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and look for relevant error messages. Note that messages are labeled with the date & time so you can use that to locate the part of the log to look at. Copy & paste the relevant messages back here so we can see them.
Be sure to look at system.log as well as console.log (Use the "Logs" button (top-left) to see the various logs available - note that you will probably need to be an "admin" user to see the system.log)

[SuperBoy]

id allready tried all of those thing and none made a difference, the problem is still there for other users, and theres nothing much of note in the logs except

Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x46bac64: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x44f5734: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x44f5734: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x44f8d74: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x3970bf8: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x3667988: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping
Dec  8 11:06:18 alastairs-computer kernel[0]: shared_region: 0x44f6b8c: lsf_map: unable to allocate mapping

..except for one of those messages every second

[trevor]

Quote: id allready tried all of those thing and none made a difference,

I'm amazed. You've clean reinstalled OS X with no change in this behavior?

Trevor

[SuperBoy]

no i havent tried anything that drastic but all the not destructive methods i have tested

[hayne]

Quote: Originally Posted by SuperBoy no i havent tried anything that drastic but all the not destructive methods i have tested

If you told us (in incredible detail) exactly what you did do (step by step) then maybe we could suggest what else to try. E.g. maybe you didn't do one of the steps correctly or drew incorrect conclusions from some result.

Otherwise, a reinstall may be your only hope. Note too that an "archive & install" choosing the option to preserve users is not all that destructive.

But note that you need to look at all of the log file - e.g. at the point where Rosetta is first used after a reboot - to see what might be crashing, etc.

[rcreative]

Quote: Originally Posted by SuperBoy On my intel mac ppcs have have suddenly and mysteriosuly stopped working, they just bounce a couple of times then stop and dont open. On closer examination it also appears the 'translated' process is not running. Restarting doesnt fix the problem, nor does running system repairs or anything like that. Can someone help me?

No need to reinstall anything. I ran into this issue this morning and was able to resolve it. I'm not sure exactly why, but there was a random PPC process that was causing the problem. I believe the process was left over from a Yahoo Widget (minimon). Once I quit that process through the activity monitor I was able to launch PPC apps again.

What I would do is open up your activity monitor and systematically quit your PPC processes one by one until you find the culprit. More than likely it will be something that is in your start-up items since it happens even after restarts. I hope this helps.

[malexand]

what this means is that the kernel is running out of shared memory regions. Just increase kern.sysv. attributes using syctl (/etc/rc).

[sjmills]

I just got this problem with a user on my machine that I don't use much, trying to launch an app I built. I tried quitting all PPC apps but that didn't help. I finally thought I'd try running it in Rosetta. To my surprise, the Run in Rosetta checkbox was already turned on! Turning it off fixed the problem and I'm able to run this app again.

[caynick]

Quote: Originally Posted by malexand what this means is that the kernel is running out of shared memory regions. Just increase kern.sysv. attributes using syctl (/etc/rc).

i have the same problem, how does a noob do this pls? many thanks

[psmealey]

I was stuck on this for a few days before coming here. Works perfectly now.

[Skybolt]

AQlso, if you have run Monolingual and checked the boxes to remove all but the Intel architecture you will get this same behavior. I have read on other forums (luckily I have not done this, so can't speak from experience) that if this is the case, you will need to restore from your original restore disks.

[Steiner]

I recently nuked rosetta by running monolingual and had to reinstall the system. For me just using the provided system disc and running the installer over my existing system did not reinstall the needed PowerPC components so I did the following:

Firstly got a firewire drive which has enough space for my full HD content. About 100GB.

Then cloned my system usng SuperDuper onto the external Drive...which is now bootable and a full Intel system.

then reboot from the install disk and wipe your drive. Following this reinstall your system completely and when asked to tranfere data over from your old mac do so from the firewire Drive.

thats it. It worked all my Apps, settings and docs were as good as new.

Oh don't forget never to use monolingual again to clean the Architectures.

This may also work for getting back the english language pack!!

[ylon]

You know, I've been going crazy with odd lsf_map errors for the last 2 years. It seems that Apple has attempted to fix some things a couple of times, but it keeps coming back. I've tweaked sysctl.conf with limited success, but there is something odd going on when you have a certain threshold of processes and RAM utilization involved. I wish we could get a solution. I'm HOPING against hope that Leopard will repair this.

[quelgar]

I've also been experiencing problems launching PPC applications. I would get the "lsf_map: unable to allocate entry" log messages whenever a PPC application failed to launch.

I did some digging through the kernel source code, and narrowed it down to a region of memory in the kernel called the "load_file_server zone". This appears to have a hard-coded maximum size. If that maximum is reached, you start getting the lsf_map errors, and Rosetta will no longer work. You can easily check the usage of the load_file_server zone on your system by running the following command in a terminal:

zprint load_file_server

Here's my current output from that command:

                          elem    cur    max    cur    max   cur alloc alloc
zone name                 size   size   size  #elts  #elts inuse  size count
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
load_file_server            36   491K   492K  13994  13994  6479    4K   113

When the "cur inuse" number reaches the "max #elts" number, the zone is full and you've got problems.

I'm finding that sometimes my in use count goes up a lot, but I haven't been able to work out why. It could be Dashboard, but I'm not sure - it doesn't happen all the time.

[konigol]

I ran into this issue today after trying to install Starcraft. The first time through, the starcraft installer (a PPC app) worked fine. Then it quit working when I tried to reinstall. After noticing that windows remote desktop app (older PPC version) wouldn't run, I finally found the solution on a Russian forum.

Hopefully this will help others if they run into this.

Issue Summary:
Can not run PPC applications
Keywords: ppc, translate, malloc, vfree, vm_allocate, EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS),

Solution Summary:
Replace translate from OS X install disk

Solution Details (found on Russian forum):

1. Insert your Leopard Disk
2. Open a terminal window
3. Execute the following command (updating it with the correct volume name):
   • sudo cp /Volumes/[OSX disk image name]/usr/libexec/oah/translate /usr/libexec/oah/
   • enter your password
4. Your PPC apps should run now.

Symptoms (in logs and crash reports from console.app):

system.log
Jan 28 01:17:24 Lisa [0x0-0x29029].com.blizzard.installer[256]: LaunchCFMApp(256) malloc: *** vm_allocate(size=8421376) failed (error code=268435459)
Jan 28 01:17:24 Lisa [0x0-0x29029].com.blizzard.installer[256]: LaunchCFMApp(256) malloc: *** error: can't allocate region
Jan 28 01:17:24 Lisa [0x0-0x29029].com.blizzard.installer[256]: LaunchCFMApp(256) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in szone_error to debug
Jan 28 01:17:25 Lisa com.apple.launchd[124] ([0x0-0x29029].com.blizzard.installer[256]): Exited abnormally: Bus error

InstallerLauncher crash report.crash
Code Type: PPC (Translated)
Parent Process: launchd [124]
...
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000024
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 translate 0xb822c10e vfree + 3431
1 translate 0xb822c6ff malloc + 29
...

Binary Images:
0xb8000000 - 0xb82da2cf translate ??? (???) /usr/libexec/oah/translate

Hope this helps... I just kept digging and finally got the right keywords in google to find that Russian post.

--
Konigol

[tkingart]

I have discovered what was causing iWeb 2009 to crash and generate the "same error" I've been seeing posted here.

It's the "Domains.site" files. If you move them somewhere temporarily (like the trash), then load iWeb, maybe create a temp site, then quit. Delete the temp site, then move the original Domains.site file back; *Note that you may need to [ choose ] existing domain from the start-up dialog in iWeb. You should be able to load iWeb and the site(s) fine now (as long as the root page or whatever wasn't the corrupt element, but it WILL crash as soon as you select the corrupt/bugged page in the site list (on the left). In my case, it was under Sites > My Albums > Albums.html.

I believe that the albums page had become corrupt by dragging and dropping a MobileMe Sync enabled Gallery in iPhoto, onto the "drop album here" element from a iWeb generated template (from theme chooser.)

I hope this helps.

[jove4015]

Thank you! I copied it from another mac instead of the install DVD (too lazy to go look for it) but worked just the same.