Mac Mini restarts: Previous Shutdown Cause: -2?
Hi folks,
I have a headless, second-hand Mac Mini (Late 2012) running Mavericks (10.9.2) which I've been trying to get stable for some time now. Two or three times a day it restarts for no (apparent) reason and until now I've not been able to spot any pattern. I've run full Apple Hardware Tests and no problems reported there.
Monitoring the logs, though, I've noticed that every unexpected restart is followed by a startup log that contains the text 'Previous Shutdown Cause: -2'. I've searched for this everywhere I can think of but haven't found anything.
Does anyone know what the mysterious '-2' is? Any pointers would help so I can try and troubleshoot the various elements of the system.
FYI the Mac is connected via Ethernet to the LAN, wireless is disabled. The Mac basically runs RealVNC (to get around Screen Sharing problems) and Air Video Server (to watch video on an iPad).
Any advice very much appreciated!
Message was edited by: G.C.Thompson
Mac mini, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)
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howapple - hello
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Well, almost one month on but I've resolved the issue and wanted to leave a record in case this discussion turns up in someone's search for 'Previous Shutdown Cause: -2'.
The problem was caused by some replacement RAM; I'd upgraded the 4GB that came with the Mac Mini to 8GB from Crucial. When I swapped the original RAM back in, the restarts stopped happening. (I repeated the tests with the original RAM and Crucial RAM a few times to make sure it wasn't just a seating problem.)
Bear in mind that the RAM passed Apple's diagnostic tests and several runs of memtest. To be honest I didn't expect the Crucial modules to cause a problem as their products have always worked flawlessly in all the memory upgrades I've performed or helped with.
Anyway, the evidence suggested otherwise, so I RMA'd the RAM with Crucial (great service as always), and the replacement DIMMs are now in the Mac, which hasn't restarted of its own accord for about a week