Mac OS X: SSH bus error

By Stefano Buliani

This morning I found this joyful message greeting me when I started working and tried to ssh to a remote server: Bus Error

Same thing even with verbose mode. The system log (/var/log/system.log) told me that a file containing the full dump of the error was created in my home directory. This is what it said

….(Some gibberish)

Date/Time: 2008-04-18 09:26:28.195 +0100
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.2 (9C7010)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0×0000000000001014
Crashed Thread: 0

… (More gibberish)

Ouch, kernel protection failure. I found all over Apple forum people whinging about it and posting their full dump without a definite answer. They all seemed to blame the last security update, which is really strange since it worked fine for me after I ran it.

The software causing the error was an additional module of “Audio Hijack Pro” called “Instant Hijack“. You can install it or uninstall it from from “Install Extras” inside the Audio Hijack menu.
Uninstalled it and everything started working again.

Audio Hijack people, get your game straight, don’t mess with my kernel unless you know what you’re doing!

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9 Responses to “Mac OS X: SSH bus error”

  1. breun Says:

    You also could have just upgraded to the latest version of Instant Hijack. They fixed the problem on March 19: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/2008/03/19/security-update-2008-002-compatibility-fix/

  2. Stefano Buliani Says:

    Oh cool, I didn’t know that. Thanks for the tip!

  3. Retroaktiv » Blog Archive » SSH Hijacking Says:

    [...] Gib mir ein Google, das lang genug ist und ich hebe damit die Welt aus den Angeln: Die Lösung fand sich hier. [...]

  4. e5 error message Says:

    [...] message greeting me when I started working and tried to ssh to a remote server: Bus Error…. Solvedhttp://thebigdeal.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/mac-os-x-ssh-bus-error/SensocardE-5 error message: Strong electromagnetic field eg. mobile phone or high intensity [...]

  5. iPhowner Says:

    Thank you very much for your post, I’ve spent the last 3 hours of my life trying to understand why my SSH clients didn’t connect to my iPhone using OpenSSH…

    After the last ~/.ssh/ chmod I’ve found your post…!

    I just fogot I’ve installed that Audio Hijack plug-in yesterday…
    Working fine now I’ve uninstalled it :)

    Cheers :)

  6. Brent Says:

    THANK YOU! Solved a very big problem for me with minimal hassle. Much obliged!

  7. The Fluent One Says:

    They have fixed the error. If you update to the nest version of audio hijack or the plugin I forgot which, but it fixes the ssh problem. I had it too!

  8. effencenusbal Says:

    Greetings new friends

    I just joined this forum and see that it is very active and full of people with great ideas. It seems like you all support each other well here too. I am looking for advice as I got laid off from my job 3 months ago and it looks like the mortgage company is going to foreclose on my home.

    Do any of you have any advice or are you in a similar position?

    I know this is a bit off topic for this forum so maybe you can please join me at LayOffRant.com and we can talk through what’s going on with me and the economy in the USA.

  9. captain Says:

    This is crazy!

    Here I am, a year later, with the same symptoms as described above, but no Audio Hijack installed (at least I don’t think so, and don’t see that in the error log). I did, however, just do an OSX “up”grade, and I did recently install Remote Desktop and VPN. I was thinking that maybe the IP# appearing on both the airport and VPN interfaces might be a problem (although I’ve never had troubles running the same IP on both airport and ethernet simultaneously), but I checked and VPN is disconnected. ifconfig reports only one interface active.

    I am very confused now. Did VPN hose my ssh? Did the lamest, I mean latest, upgrade from God, I mean Apple, strike me down? Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

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