OS X Lion stability problems

I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion 3-4 weeks ago. Easy upgrade. Some good things, but one incredibly bad thing. Lion is very unstable -- My Windows XP PC ran with more stability. And, my MBP with Snow Leopard NEVER had any problems with stability.

My MBP will lock up nearly once per day. Often occurs while I'm in Mac Mail, but it has also happened in Firefox (v5, 6, or 7 beta) and other apps. When it happens, it is rare that I can force quit the app which seemed to have caused the problem. I usually have to power cycle.

There was an upgrade a few days ago, supposedly for security and wifi stability, and I did install it. No help with standard stability, though.

This is really ridiculous. Anyone else having stability issues with Lion?

Thanks.

Doug
MBP 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM
500GB hard drive
OS X 10.7.1, build 11B26

No Lion is rock steady and fast. May well be something else like a failing hard drive.

Download SMARTReporter and see the state of your hard drive. Also consider booting from your system disc and running Repair Disk in utilities there.

So far I've installed Lion for or help them install Lion for 60 clients. No stability issues reported so far, which mirrors my own experience.

Sounds like a bad install to me.

I'm leaning towards a bad install. I've tried the recommended SMARTreporter; the short test resulted in no error and I'm running the long test, but that supposedly takes hours. I'll let that run... (THanks, harryb2448)

Any suggestions for how to do a clean re-install? Merely download the upgrade again and run it?

Thanks,
Doug

You'd have to format the drive to do a clean install. I believe you can do that from the recovery partition (although I bailed on Lion, so I can't even check)

stability issues with Lion and newest MacBook Pro

I have done a clean install of Lion on my 2011 MacBook Pro and still have many many problems with stability. I have to shutdown via holding down power button most every day as Force Quit won't respond. Have tried using Firefox or Chrome instead of Safari as I heard Safari was locking up some systems. Didn't make any difference. Snow Leopard seemed to be far more stable. Very frustrating. I have bought Macs due to incredible stability over Windows machines for many years but either Lion or the newest MacBook Pro's have issues that make it nearly unusable for me to use for work due to multiple lockups per day.

My MBP ran fine for a few days after installing. . . until I rebooted.
Wouldn't get past the white screen with apple.
In disgust I put Snow Leopard back on and was told to wait for Lion 10.7.2 which was supposedly due out soon.
This was purported to fix some of these stability issues.
. . . still waiting.

This wait time begs me to wonder if this a VERY SERIOUS problem and difficult to fix, or maybe they aren't aware of how widespread it is and therefor given it a low priority.
Why else should it take so long to make good such a highly promoted OS upgrade?

Lion Stability

I have a MBP5.2 and never had stability problems from tiger onward. 10.7 Lion is the first to crash on me. Same problem as everybody: no force quits, only power cycle to restore normal functionality. Hope for a quick upgrade. This is far below what I tell everybody to be the Mac Standard. Happens in particular when I leave my MBP open and walk away for a few moments. While working normally it happens less, though it happens.

Lion crashes

Yup -- Lion is NOT stable. Goes down one way or anther once a day on a large iMac.
10.6 NEVER crashed.

Lion fails with preview, with Photoshop cs6, and just "because." Sometimes restarting Finder works. Usually power-off is the only cure.

Worst OS release from Apple in 20 years!

harryb and I are not just making stuff up.

I can't speak for him beyond echoing his comments: LION IS ROCK SOLID AND FAST. For both of us.

My job depends on 100% uptime while I'm doing my work. I don't get paid when I'm not up and running. And I'm not running the latest equipment, either.

Lion has been without any serious issues for me. The biggest thing I've had to deal with is "natural scrolling," (yes I know I can turn it off) and even that took me about 20 minutes to get used to.

Looking at the sales figues, I'm inclined to say the problem is on your end somewhere.

I have Lion on two older Machines ('06 Mac Pro and '08 MB Pro). Both are running Lion without any significant issues. In fact, the only problem I have had is that for some reason if I try to click and drag something using the Magic Trackpad the program will lock up. I then have to force quit that program. It doesn't happen often enough for me to bother with troubleshooting it yet.

Good to know YOUR system is solid. Problems seem related to cs6 Photoshop. Are you running this? Adobe admitted to problems with cs6 and GPU in my iMac.

My post was not intended to minimize the problems you are having. I'm simply pointing out that it may not be an inherent instability involving Lion and older systems.

FWIW I am not running CS6 (can't justify cost given my needs). Given my recent experience with customer support while trying to install Elements I am becoming less enamored with them by the day.

I do use Preview regularly for a variety of tasks. Have not had any problems with it.