Channel exception error with NVIDIA card: Now a ‘known issue’

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
September 3rd, 2009 • 10:47 am

There has been a bit of a breakthrough with the “channel exception” error encountered by Mac Pro users with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 cards which causes a system-wide UI freeze requiring a hard reset.

I have now received an e-mail from Apple Developer Bug Reporting confirming that the bug is a a “known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering.” They also give me the bug ID number of the original bug report in their database, which is 7069239.

This is a very positive development, because the last feedback I got from Apple on this issue was that they could not reproduce it. Now, apparently, they can, and they are working on it.

The original bug ID number also gives an approximate idea of when they finally were able confirm that this was a bug. The original bug report that I filed on this problem was in mid-July, and its number was 6951559. The new bug report I filed on August 20 was numbered 7156980. So it looks like the bug was confirmed some time in early August, probably through the bug report of another user.

Now, of course, just because the issue is now “known” and “being investigated” does not guarantee that it will be fixed any time soon. The fact that the bug apparently does not affect Snow Leopard users also means that it might be treated as a Leopard-only bug, which could, down the road, mean that it might accidentally reappear in a Snow Leopard update if Apple’s engineers are not careful enough not to recreate it.

So we need to remain vigilant, even if we all move to Snow Leopard and the bug disappears for now. Still, the recognition of the existence of the bug is a positive step, and I hope it soon helps bring relief to Leopard users affected by it.


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