[krove]

Ahh!!!

In the last week or so, my iBook's hard drive would continually access something every second, very consistently (I can hear it). At first I ignored it, but it became irritating and I realized that whatever was causing this would wear out my hard drive and battery life (when not plugged in). So, I began investigating. First, I closed all open applications (Mail, Safari, Adium, TextEdit, SubEthaEdit, Adobe Photoshop, and Terminal). The accessing of the hard drive appears to go away. I restart. Nothing. So open up the apps that I normally use (those above) and notice after a while that the accessing has started back again. Still, I am unable to narrow to a single application.

Finally, I resort to using the fs_usage command in Terminal (sudo fs_usage -e #pid, where #pid is the process id of Terminal.app). Low and behold, I see that the Window Server is constantly writing to its log (/private/var/log/windowserver.log) every second. WTF?!?

So, I tail -f the log to see what is being output, and here it is:
May 26 11:44:09 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:09 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:09 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:09 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:09 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:10 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0
May 26 11:44:10 [192] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXGetWindowLevel: Invalid window 0

Over and over, actually multiple times a second (5 times/sec, to be exact). What is causing this?!?! I thought that the [192] might indicate a process id, and it does: it's the window server.

How can I fix this?

[krove]

if not fix the problem ... how do I stop the logging of activity from window server?

[chris v]

Have you tried quitting your apps one at a time while running fs_usage to see if it stops when one of them is quit? Seems like it's got to relate to a particular app. Just curious.

CV

[krove]

Yes, it still does it with just two applications open: Terminal and Finder. If I quit terminal, I can still here the hard drive making its usually open/read, write/close of the log file sounds every second.

Can I somehow disable the log?

[SMacTech]

Do as chris v suggested and run sudo fs_usage and it will show what is accessing the file system. Post the results from that. I assume you are running Panther. How much RAM to you have installed?

[krove]

As I said, it's the WindowServer that is accessing files.

Here's some sample fs_usage output that repeats over and over:

Code:
11:26:01  open            private/var/log/windowserver.log                                       0.000176   WindowServer
11:26:01  fstat                                                                                  0.000011   WindowServer
11:26:01  write                                                                                  0.000088   WindowServer
11:26:01  close                                                                                  0.000407   WindowServer
11:26:01    WrData[async]                                                                        0.000513 W WindowServer
11:26:01  open            private/var/log/windowserver.log                                       0.000110   WindowServer
11:26:01  fstat                                                                                  0.000007   WindowServer
11:26:01  write                                                                                  0.000059   WindowServer
11:26:01  close                                                                                  0.000477   WindowServer
11:26:01    WrData[async]                                                                        0.000448 W WindowServer
11:26:01  open            private/var/log/windowserver.log                                       0.000112   WindowServer
11:26:01  fstat                                                                                  0.000009   WindowServer
11:26:01  write                                                                                  0.000064   WindowServer
11:26:01  close                                                                                  0.000285   WindowServer
11:26:01    WrData[async]                                                                        0.000963 W WindowServer

I am running Panther 10.3.4 (just updated from 10.3.3, but the problem still exists as it did under 10.3.3). iBook 600 MHz, 640 MB RAM.

[SMacTech]

It's not much different than mine. I see pretty much the same thing.

[krove]

Weird...I bet more people might have this problem, but not even realize it just because they cannot hear their HD being accessed like I do. (i.e. G5s, iMacs). More people should check...

sudo fs_usage -e ###, where ### is the process id of Terminal.app

You can find the pid by:
ps -ax | grep Terminal.app

Also check the size of that file. Mine was over 100 MB.

[arekkusu]

What _other_ apps are running? Even if only Finder and Terminal are in the dock, there are still other apps running, some of which may have windows. For example, any extras in your menu bar? Any haxies? Any faceless background apps?

If you have the dev tools, run Quartz Debug to get a list of all the windows the Window Server is maintaining and the apps that own each window. Then kill the other apps one at a time to see which one is the problem.

[krove]

I found the culprit:

Snapz Pro X

I'll forward this thread to their leader.

Thanks for the help.

[krove]

More specifically, it was Snapz Pro X v2.0.0. After checking, it does not appear that Ambrosia has issued any updates, so anyone running this software in the background may exhibit this issue.