smarticus-blog - Latest Comments in Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

shmeck — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

By the date at the top, it’s been more than a year since this issue cropped up and still no patch from Apple.. in spite of applying the temporary fixes above numerous times, this issue keeps cropping up. Very frustrating.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Robert Nicholson — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

What is aslmanager and why does it need 99% CPU all the time?

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Jan Peeters — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

What worked for me is running maintenance utility Onyx (http://www.titanium.free.fr). Any other utility with the same functionality will do. You can also do this from the terminal.

Choose the Automation tab in Onyx, activate: Maintenance: Repair Permissions, Execute Maintenance Scripts; Clean: System Cache, User Cache, Logs and Crash Reporter, Temporary items, Recent Items.
Click ‘Execute’.

Hopefully this solves it for others too. I get the feeling that like said before, either a program can’t access the syslogfile or accessing the syslogfile takes too much time/CPU because the file is terribly big. Running these scripts gives you a fresh start.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Tyler — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I thought I had the same problem, but I looked in the activity monitor and the printer job manager was taking up 99.9% of CPU!!!! I opened up the job list and deleted the one in there that I printed hours ago, but got stuck I guess when I unplugged to printer too quickly! Went from 70 degrees straight down to 45 in ten seconds, now 0 CPU load. I’m happy.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Razvan — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

Thank you for the comments above (followed comments 61 and 62). Solved my problem with syslogd like this:

How I did it precisely?

machine:~ razvan$ sudo -s
Password:
bash-3.2# cat /dev/null > /var/log/asl.db
bash-3.2# exit
exit
machine:~ razvan$ ls -lh /var/log/asl.db
<del>rw</del>-<del>—</del>- 1 root wheel 63M Nov 25 15:47 /var/log/asl.db
machine:~ razvan$ sudo -s
bash-3.2# ps ax | grep syslog
1265 ?? Ss 0:29.34 /usr/sbin/syslogd
1294 s001 R+ 0:00.00 grep syslog
bash-3.2# kill -HUP 1265
bash-3.2# exit
exit
machine:~ razvan$ ls -lh /var/log/asl.db
<del>rw</del>-<del>—</del>- 1 root wheel 2.9K Nov 25 15:47 /var/log/asl.db

Now we’re talking!

I’m closely following every logs message coming into the system.log, but nothing strange so far. At least now I know where to look for hints.

Thanks everyone!

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Tommy — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I have fixed this problem.
I am going to assume you all have external hard drives attatched to your macs.

I have a 1TB hard drive linked via USB to my imac.
The way i fixed this problem was to change settings in spotlight under preferences. I added my 1TB hdd in to the privacy box. Then turned my external hard drive (after ejcting it) then turned it back on.

the cpu nows normal. no more 100% taken of each core.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Kevin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

As other people noticed, it was the asl.db file growing out of control for me as well, but it was spotlight attempting to index it that resulted in an out of control syslogd.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Stephen R — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

For me the culprit was the new beta of WindowShade—version 4.2b3. I went to the Application Enhancer PrefPane and turned it off. Problem solved.

So—the short version is that pretty much any program can cause this if it does the wrong thing. What program did you install or activate just before the problem started? Asking that question is the only way i figured this out.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

MacMind — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I noted this happening on a client’s 10.5 workstation as well.

I read about this, decided to delete the asl.db file that was now 355MB in size, noted that the console app wouldn’t even run, it would open and hang.

so I did the sudo delete commands to remove the file, it then got re-created, and sure enough, the log started filling right up again, this time I could open and read the log, and noted that it was coming from ‘logmein’, which I then un-installed, and now, no more issue!

Cheers,

<h1>Daniel Feldman</h1><h1>MacMind
Certified Member of the
Apple Consultants Network
Apple Certified (ACHDS)
E-mail: Dan@MacMind.net
Phone: 1-408-454-6649
URL : www.MacMind.net</h1>

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

premium — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

thank You.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

TzarDusanSilni — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I used “syslog -db ./asl.db” and I saw that the line:

<notice>: libdvdread: Can’t seek to block 2285130768

is filling asl.db database to infinity. So you should inspect yours asl.db as well and see what proccess is pumping data into asl.db log file. Every computer has different “crazy process” it is not universal. In my case VLC player was reporting error for every defective block on DVD media. And there is lot of blocks out there :) After you kill/resolve “crazy process”, you can empty large asl.db file. As Apple did not handle this peculiar situation well, you can do it by hand – just type this (as root):

cd /var/log
mv asl.db /tmp
killall syslogd

and the problem will disappear! syslogd will be restarted (SIGKILL is properly handled) and asl.db will be recreated

Bye

</notice>

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

laksjdfalksd — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

There really does not seem to be a consistent cause to this problem. At least in most cases, syslogd itself isn’t the process that’s causing problems—instead, some process is flooding the system with log messages that syslogd is having major trouble keeping up with.

So, restarting syslogd and deleting asl.db really only solves the problem for as long as it takes for your computer to be flooded with log messages again. This is why that solution only seems to work for some people (as described here and elsewhere online.)

Modifying com.apple.syslogd.plist w/ “-c 0” works because it tells syslogd to ignore all but the most serious log messages, but it’s just a band aid solution. There is still some process on your computer spitting out waay too many log messages. (In my case, a dashboard widget called “Build a Snowman” was putting out more than 300 per second!!)

So, to really solve this, you’ll want to find the culprit process or program. Open console and take a look at what’s there. Chances are that you’ll find something that’s hyper-active. Deal with that program, then restart syslogd and remove asl.db and you’ll be all set.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

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Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Tom Scott — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

Thanks for the help with syslogd problem.

I can’t get rid of the process radioSHARK Server even though I threw away all the app software when I got rid of the device (didn’t work well for me—bad reception). But that one darn process is still in the computer somewhere. I can kill it temporarily but it comes back whenever I reboot. Any body know how to root it out?

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

lostinneverland — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

the spike seems to happen even when you turn off time machine so i looked for some information and all it said was stuff about input API’s and so I ran the computer in safe boot and the spike did not come up. I am guessing that it has something to do with maybe the volume the backup is stored on interfacing with the computer.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

FredG — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I had the same problem today (I’ve had it before).
It took a LONG time for my MacBook Pro 10.5.4 to shut down all applications and then restart took a very long time. I found this site right after startup and syslogd was taking 100 – 120%

Here’s my /var/log/ while syslogd was running wild
<del>rw</del>-<del>—</del>- 1 root wheel 46484560 Jul 7 15:55 asl.db
<del>rw-r</del>-r— 1 root wheel 522354 Nov 4 2007 asl.log
<del>rw-r</del>-<del>-</del> 1 root admin 276294985 Jul 7 15:48 system.log

then 8 minutes later syslogd finally came down and here are the same sizes
<del>rw</del>-<del>—</del>- 1 root wheel 9690240 Jul 7 15:56 asl.db
<del>rw-r</del>-r— 1 root wheel 522354 Nov 4 2007 asl.log
<del>rw-r</del>-<del>-</del> 1 root admin 276302813 Jul 7 15:56 system.log

asl.db dropped from 46.5 MBytes to 9.7 MBytes.

I only have 5.8 GBytes free on my hard drive which may be causing a lot of disk thrashing while syslogd cleans up. (gotta love big iTunes libraries)

My suggestion is to restart when syslogd runs away and be very patient.
Until Apple fixes this problem.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

cirro — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

To edit the plist file maybe also check out:

Using PlistBuddy to customize syslogd

http://codesnippets.joyent....

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

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Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

GSymon — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I’ve just had this issue (bzip2 hogging around 90%) I quit everything whilst searching the net and finding this thread and reading through. After about 10 minutes I switched to the Finder and noticed a Spotlight search window open. It had been for quite a time … hours. The ‘second’ I closed that window, the cpu dropped (I have menu-meters in the MenuBar so I could tell instantly. It could have been a coincidence, but it seems unlikely.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

newmac — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I seemingly solved the problem by deleting the file asl.db

if you ever experience this problem

go into console; control click system log; that brings you into the proper folder; delete the asl.db database; it will recreate itself

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Eric Broyles — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I did what was recommended in comment 19 by Apple, though it was not until I saved the changes to the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist file and stopped syslogd again (sudo launchctl stop com.apple.syslogd) that the CPU usage dropped and stayed down and the fans on my MacBook Pro began dropping instantly to a normal speed.

I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary being logged to system.log, but it was 230MB in size, so I figure pretty much anything it wrote was going to be an expensive operation. The asl.db file was 56MB before I removed it (actually I copied it to my user director so I could inspect it later).

Hope this helps someone.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Luke — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

Turning off “Time Machine” and “Back to my Mac” did not solve the issue for me. They were never on to begin with. The only thing I,ve come up with to “help” the issue (Note I didn’t say solve the issue) is to not run the Console app. I usually run console as a startup app. I’ve removed it from startup and have not run in in a few days. “Conididentally?” I’ve not had the problem in a few days.

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

dan — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

I have a relatively fresh install of Leopard 10.5.2, almost no apps installed, and nothing running on a PowerBook G4 1.67 Ghz.

TimeMachine and Back to My Mac are not running. I turned off all network ports, too.

This process has been running for the past hour, processor on full. Continued when i logged out, and even restarted, but has just now stopped.

I do have .Mac, but have only synced once.

I hope this helps getting to the root of the problem, or at least figure out what is goin’ on!

Thanks

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

malcolm — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

i didnt even sign into my mac account thru the pref pane, so i couldnt access the pref. i signed in, and the pref was default set to off. safari is always up at 100% on my Mac Pro on 10.5.2

Re: Leopard 100% CPU usage caused by syslogd and possibly Time Machine.

Marc Pelletier — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:49:00 -0000

Just let the process work, it fixes itself!!! let it run about 8-10 minutes.