[mkral]

All of a sudden, last night, both of my macs (a 12" powerbook running the latest version of OS X 10.5) & an intel mac mini running the latest version of snow leopard are running extremely slow. They both started this behavior at some point yesterday, after I went to work, but before 9 pm when I logged back on. Both of them will not quit apps and it takes like 10 minutes to switch between open apps. On the mini, on activity monitor, both itunes & the finder show up as not responding, as do other apps from time to time (itunes & diner seem to do this all the time.) The only solution I've found is to restart the computer, everything works fine for a little while, but then this comes back. The working condition only lasts a few minutes before it bogs down again. I also noticed that time machine has not done a backup since 5:19 pm yesterday night (it normally does it every hour I think.) Before I went to bed last night, I initiated a backup on time machine, but when I got up this morning, it was still initiating the backup. I tried running disk utilities, the disk appears to be fine & I repaired permissions, but I am still having these problems. (all of the above steps refer to the mac mini)

The fact that both of these machines have been working flawlessly until yesterday & now both have the exact same problem makes me think that the problem is software related & not a bad hard drive or anything (also the mini's hard drive was replaced with a new 500 gig one about a month ago). Any ideas on what I can do to fix this?

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[besson3c]

How much RAM do the machines have? What is the CPU usage of your top resource consuming processes at the time and what are they? Does this happen under a separate OS X account? What are you seeing being logged to your system logs (i.e. what are you seeing in your Console app?)

[mkral]

Thanks for the reply, I will check on that stuff & reply when I get home. The ram on both machines is maxed out, 1.25 gigs on the powerbook & 4 gigs on the mini.

[ibook_steve]

Yeah, click the "% CPU" column header in Activity Monitor to order processes by CPU usage. Something is most likely eating up CPU cycles. Installed anything new lately?

You could also try setting up another user account to see if it happens there as well.

Steve

[mkral]

OK, I checked the cpu usage & something called windowserver was using 100% of the CPU. I killed it & it kicked me out of the computer. It came up with a message saying something to the effect of I would be kicked out & would have to log back in, but once it kicked me out, it just went to a blank purple screen. After a few minutes, I did a hard restart. It's running ok right now, but I'll keep you guys up to date if it starts to get goofy.

[Big Mac]

Yeah, you can't kill the window server and hope to stay logged in - that's a core part of the OS. Let us know if you run into the problem again.

[mkral]

OK, after being able to play around with it some more, I think I have isolated the cause of the problem on the mac mini (or at least a contributing factor). The computer seems to operate more or less normally when I first restart it, but for some reason, my iphone will not sync with itunes. I plug in the iphone & it starts to sync (it backs up, etc) but then I get a message that the iphone is syncing & it just stays on for as long as I leave it. I quit the sync from my iphone & it still says it is syncing on itunes. I try to quit the sync from my computer, but that doesn't work either. When I eventually pull the iphone out of the dock, then itunes and my finder freeze up (in activity monitor, they both become unresponsive). I'm still having other issues, namely time machine is not working & when I tried to open console app, it show up on the dock as open, but I cannot view it, clicking on the icon does nothing. Any other guesses as to what might be wrong?

Thanks,
Mark

[besson3c]

Whatever is causing your windowserver to chew up 100% of your CPU sounds like the problem to me. This could be some sort of kernel extension or some sort of GUI process that is causing the crash. 100% CPU utilization for a background process like windowserver signifies a crash.

Does the problem occur under a different OS X account? If so, there is some program running in your account that is causing the problem. If not, do a "kextstat" in your terminal to list all of the kernel extensions running and look for non-Apple ones.

[mkral]

I did a kexstat list in terminal, but everything showing up is com.apple.xxxx. Of course the machine is running ok right now. It froze up again this morning & I didn't have terminal open so I couldn't access it when the machine got slow. I'll keep it open & post if anything changes when it freezes.

I had installed a copy of 'self control' it's an app that blocks websites for a specified amount of time. That is the only new software I added recently. I removed it using app zapper, but I"m still having this problem. I'm not entirely sure how to read the console, but I do see a lot of stuff showing up when I open it up. I hope this pastes correctly, but here is the screen from console app:

4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)
4/16/10 11:25:15 PM com.apple.FileSyncAgent[127] Fri Apr 16 23:25:15 2010 FileSyncAgent[127] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -4 (transport error)

[TuxToaster]

Did you ever find a solution for this? I just started noticing a similar problem (on 10.6.2) the past couple of days. I get a spinning beachball over the right side of the menubar (starting with the MobileMe iDisk item and going to the clock).

I also get similar errors in the console:

5/22/10 10:03:53 AM com.apple.SystemUIServer.agent[103] Sat May 22 10:03:53 2010 SystemUIServer[103] (FileSync.framework) _SFSendMessage: warning: CFMessagePortSendRequest() => -1 (send timeout)

Different apps, but all reference FileSync.framework. I'm thinking it's something wrong with iDisk, but haven't been able to fix it yet.

[mkral]

In the end, I did get it resolved. I re-synced everything with mobile me (did a sync to mobile me from my mac mini & then from mobile me down to my powerbook & iphone. Then I cancelled the time machine backups on both machines. I am 90% certain that it was something with the time machine backup, as performance seemed to improve dramatically after I turned that off. A few days later software updated popped up with a download (can't remember which one) on my mini. One of the fixes was for unreliable time machine backups. Once I ran the update, I restarted the time machine backups on both machines and have not had any trouble since then. If you are suing time machine, I'd suggest disabling it & seeing if that helps. If not, try re-syncing your mobile me stuff. If neither of those helps you, I'm not sure what else to try.

[solofx7]

What time do you have your time machine back ups set for? I was having an issue like this until I set time machine to run at a certain time only. Basically it runs once a day when I am sleeping.

[mkral]

Originally Posted by solofx7 

What time do you have your time machine back ups set for? I was having an issue like this until I set time machine to run at a certain time only. Basically it runs once a day when I am sleeping.

Not sure if you're talking to Tux or to me, but if it's me, I have my backups set for whatever the factory setting is. I think it is every hour. Since I got the problem resolved, it has not come back. Thanks for the tip though, if it does, I will adjust my settings to have the backups run overnight only.