Q: iChatAgent using gigabytes of memory

Hi,

You list the things I would have suggested but not in the order I would have listed them.

I am not sure if this is the way you actually did them.

I would have tried deleting just the com.apple.ichatAgent.plist

Other combos can get the Start Up Screen to appear again.

Deleting com.apple.ichat.plist can be quite destructive if you have made lots of changes to the Preferences. (that's not to say that now and then for certain issues it is useful to delete it)

Then I would have tried the COMBO Download (and kept it)

As well as the Restore from Time Machine I would have considered a Reinstall

Instructions See the "Hard Way" as it is called and Possible Problems (You also need to Run the COMBO afterwards to Update the reinstalled bits depending on what level OS the Install Disk is at)

Specifically IMCore and VideoConference.framework as iChatAgent has lots to do with linking in the Video.

I would not have done the PRAM Reset as iChatAgent does not save anything that is held in the PRAM memory.

Although it would have counted as a Restart of the computer

Things to Check.

Strangely, check the Buddy pics stored in your Home Folder/Library/Caches/com.apple.ichat/Pictures

If you use a View that shows icons (you may have to set this in the Finder's View Menu > Show View Options) and Info the pics should show the icon and the size should be 64 X 64

If you have multiple Buddy Lists I would turn All of them Off but one

(iChat > Preferences > Accounts (Highlight each in turns and Deselect the "Use this Account" option).

Quit iChat and restart it to see if iChatAgent improves.

Add each account back (login) one at a time and see if iChatAgent uses more memory.

Restart iChat in between as well as a check.

If you have Buddy set with it's own Action Alerts I would stop them.

You can change; the Sound iChat uses for various actions on global (All Buddy) basis in iChat > Preferences > Alerts

You can also set them Individually by highlighting a Buddy and then using the CMD + i keys (Get Info) together.

In the panel that shows up you can set Alerts and set different sounds to the  Actions.

If you are linking to any Sound you have stored in your Home Folder/Library/Sounds check the Sample rate.

Open it with Quicktime and use the Inspector.

They should be sampled at either 41000 or 48000   AND be something the OS/Quicktime can use Natively (i.e. not a WMA file using Flip4mac or Perian or similar to play)

Also check the Address Book card for Buddies that have the Pic from the Address Book as their Buddy pic.

No Buddy pic from the Server leads to an AIM Running man, Blue Globe for @Mac.com or a Blue/White Cloud icon for Mobileme as the default icon

You can set the Get Info Card detail earlier to Display either the incoming icon pic or whatever you have stored in the Address Book.

Check that these pics are not corrupt.

How the Buddy List loads may provide clues as to whether it is a Buddy pic.

Try turing Off and On again Saved Transcripts in iChat > Preferences > Messages

iChat may be trying to display a "Last Chat" that it has lost contact with  (Will do this if you have changed the folder tha chats are put in)

Also try clearing the Recents List

I favour a corrupt Buddy Pic as first choice.

The Saved Transcripts/Missing Chat as second.

In the Address Book check your own My Card (the Head and Shoulders icon)

Is this your correct details ?

If not find your Card and then use the Card Menu > Make this My Card option.
That would be my third choice.

The others are things that have popped up from time to time to cause issues in iChat that I think might be possibles.

10:50 PM      Wednesday; July 6, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),

"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Glad to have helped.

Thanks for the points.

7:18 PM      Monday; July 11, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),

"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Well this is maddening, and I've been battling the iChat Agent demon for months it seems.

iChat is just not usable due to the iChatAgent's incessant need to gobble up both CPU usage and both real and virtual memory. To give you an idea, logging in will see iChatAgent using 100.1% of CPU, not sure the extra .1, but obviously the processor needs of this robber go beyond what my i7 27" iMac can offer.

If that's not bad enough, it quickly takes more than 10GB of real memory and over 30GB of virtual memory. My machine comes to a roaring stop.

I timed the launch of Activity Monitor at 8 minutes to load, all the time I can't use the machine. Grabbing a screen capture such as you see here? How's 2.2 minutes sound?

I've done all the remedies suggested including:

1) trash agent prefs

2) new install of iChat the hard way by extracting the way of Pacifist

3) COMBO Update

4) Deleting every account and then re-adding only my AIM account

4) iChat transcripts, Recents etc., cleared checked on/off per suggestion

5) Buddy icons? Not sure how to tell if one is corrupt, but I don't have that many.

6) No use of sound whatsoever

It's absolutely unusable and if I load I can't do any other work on my machine.

The only thing I have changed, because I was having constant battle of auto logouts, is the server?

login.oscar.aol.com

And I changed to port 5190 and not requiring SSL.

This is maddening and I don't know what to do. A reinstall of the entire system and all my apps and files is just not an option.

Hi,

As modern processors come with more than one core the Reports of CPU usage can look odd.

100% tends to mean one core is working flat out.

I couldn't read the Pic.

It seems it is already displaying at full size.

Re 1)

Did you restart the Mac ?

iChatAgent is a backcground app that starts up when the computer does.

Deleting the .plist does nothing until you restart the computer.

Variation on this.

Highlight iChatAgent in the Activity Monitor

Use the Quit Option and Agree to Force Quit
Then delete the .plist for iChatAgent.

Then Restart the computer  (Best to do Shut Down and Start)

Re 5)

You can chose to show Pic as Icons in various views from the Finder's View Menu > Show View Options.

Corrupt pics don't get an icon created.

Also they tend to show the wrong size in Icon View and Show Info (From the View Options)

After that I would try a Safe Boot
After it has done that you need to restart.

I would try a PRAM reset

Shut down the computer.
Restart it holding down Apple/CMD (or ⌘)+ALT( ⌥)+P+R Keys until you have heard three Start Up Bongs.

9:53 PM      Monday; July 11, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),

"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Ralph Johns (UK) wrote:

Re 1)

Did you restart the Mac ?

iChatAgent is a backcground app that starts up when the computer does.

Deleting the .plist does nothing until you restart the computer.

Yeah. I restarted, Had to especially after the COMBO update.

Ralph Johns (UK) wrote:

 

Hi,

 

As modern processors come with more than one core the Reports of CPU usage can look odd.

100% tends to mean one core is working flat out.

 

I couldn't read the Pic.

It seems it is already displaying at full size.

Discussions doesn't let me upload anything larger than 450px high, so that was a full screen capture and then cropped to only the essential window. I forgot how to capture simple the active window. Anyway, just shows the Activity Monitor usage of iChatAgent as I noted.

Re 5)

You can chose to show Pic as Icons in various views from the Finder's View Menu > Show View Options.

Corrupt pics don't get an icon created.

Also they tend to show the wrong size in Icon View and Show Info (From the View Options)

So I an actually see buddy list icons in the Finder as a list/icon view? Okay. I'll look for that. I did delete my own pics per your suggestion. I found them and deleted the icons and the icon plist.

Also they tend to show the wrong size in Icon View and Show Info (From the View Options)

 

After that I would try a Safe Boot
After it has done that you need to restart.

 

I would try a PRAM reset

Shut down the computer.
Restart it holding down Apple/CMD (or ⌘)+ALT( ⌥)+P+R Keys until you have heard three Start Up Bongs.

OKay Ralph. Trying that, didn't before because in this or other thread it was mentioned that this didn't matter with iChat. But I'm on it and will go through the other suggestions and post back.

Thanks for the fast response. Very helpful info here and I just wish I wasn't the exception!

smiles!

Well, I've made progress. iChatAgent is not nearly at the top of the list. Not sure what I did other than follow @Ralph awesome instructions and suggestions.

But maybe no Agent activity because I can't log in. At once second I was seeing my buddy list and active green light on my name in email. But my Buddies couldn't see me.

so I quit. Relaunched. And now under Accounts there are no accounts configured, and I cannot access preferences in the iChat menu because it's grayed out!

So I now have NO iChat... hmmmmmmm. something strange here.

So as I type this I'm reinstalling the Frameworks per Ralph's other detailed instructions:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1486891?threadID=1486891&tstart=0

Will this bring my iChat back to life? I will have to restart to see.

Well. I couldn't do anything wiht iChat as the accounts were gone and preferences were grayed out, so I decided to do a restart and then trash all plists related to iChat.

Upon launching iChat I was welcomed to the start up screen and re-entered my account info and password for the AIM account.

iChat couldn't get up. Instead, just gave me an error:

Any suggestions?

ok. you think I meant maddening before, now it's nuts!

I quit, restarted, launched iChat and was able to log in, buddy list loaded and I seemed to be logged in.

I tried opening a text chat and in the window typed a quick message, hit return and nothing. No sending sound. No transcript of my text above the text entry field. It's as if I didn't enter anything.

Then iChat dropped the other shoe. Or should I say, the secret iChatAgent -- my new iMac fell to its knees and started to crawl. Painfully. Two minutes after I tried to launch Activity Monitor, and another 60 seconds or so as the screen freshed and populated, the nemesis was back. iChatAgent sucking up 40% CPU and hogging all the real memory and a good 30GB of virtual memory.

Deja vú all over again (apologies Yogi)

So now that I've pacified my iChat installed with Pacifist, built new foundation by replacing all Frameworks. Destoryed preferences.

What's going on?

I know. It's the buddy icons, right? Where in the name of Snow Leopard are those "local" buddy icons stored. Can't find them. Sure, they're in the address book, but where are those that I can scroll in icon view in the finder that are populating the list of my buddies—at least those that don't have an icon online....

I've spent a whole day on this. And many others before.

UPDATE

I found the images in the Home>Library>Images>iChat Recent Pictures

New developments and more problems

1. I deleted the AIM account again, and re-entered it.
2. iChat loaded and I was able to log in
3. Now there are no buddies (this is an AIM account)
4. When I try to add a buddy, the buddy doesn't appear in my buddy list
5. Then iChat "lost the connection to the aim account...the server connection was unexpectedly lost"
6. I don't quit, but instead change status from Offline to Online and iChat loads. This time buddies (at least some of them) show up.
7. When I type in the iChat text window, I get the sound and transcript appears
8. Currently it's late here and none of my 'buddies' are online so I can't see if they see me. SMS text to my phone worked and the reply is working.

This is quirky behavior

The saga continues

Thanks for this info. I also found images in the Images>iChat Recent Pictures.

But I'm battling these demons with ferocity and purpose.

This is stupid. This is annoying. This is frustrating.

I'm done. Through. I quit.

I've done everything and anything anyone has thrown at me. With purpose.

Now just 55 minutes after my longer post, which I felt that maybe the shining shaft of light signaled the tunnel. But no. I'm sure it's the great one calling my iChat secret agent and the rest of his devlish crew to the gallows or the fiery dungeons of hades.

The iChat secret Agent fell off the wagon and in less than an hour is sucking up every last bit of CPU and Memory that this i7 27" with 12GB of RAM can dole out. And the agent is thirsty for more.

More!

The machine is crawling on the knees, barely able to get up from the filthy gutter it fell into. And nothing, no one and note a possibility of return. No 12 step or anything is going to recuperate this abuser.

I'm done. at 55% CPU and 44 GB of RAM,  I'm out of options and ready to toss this out the window.

I'm never a quitter. But I guess with Google+ and Skype, I don't need to court this paramour called iChat nor her philandering beaux iChatAgent any more.

Saluté.

Hi,

Earlier I wrote

Things to Check.

Strangely, check the Buddy pics stored in your Home Folder/Library/Caches/com.apple.ichat/Pictures

If you use a View that shows icons (you may have to set this in the Finder's View Menu > Show View Options) and Info the pics should show the icon and the size should be 64 X 64

As my first Reply to Slithy, The Original Poster.

He posted back that he had deleted the whole Cache File for iChat and let it get rebuilt.

(this is probably OK if  you don't have  Jabber account as there is also some Jabber stuff stored in there as well)

I then restated that you may need to change View and the View Options to get pics to display as  icons (of those pics) when I replied to your Number 5.

I did take it you were aware of where they were and were lacking the info about how to Check them.  (Short of Selecting All and opening them in a graphic app)

This is a two in one pic showing the Finder's View Menu > View Option Panel over the top of the said Buddy Pics folder displayed as Icon View so that the Buddy pic show as Icons  (If they are faulty they tend not to Display correctly as icons)

So, Yes you can see the Buddy Pics as pictures in the Finder.

Using the View Options you can see the pics as Icons (of those pics) without having to open them.

Hopefully you are now on the way to sorting this issue.

7:39 PM      Tuesday; July 12, 2011

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.7),

"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously