Mystery - LaunchDaemon respawning issue

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

ls -@BOaen /S*/L*/Caches | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

There's a problem with your OS X installation. The simplest way, but not the fastest way, to fix it is to reinstall the OS. Unless you're in a hurry or have metered network access, that's what I suggest, especially since I don't know whether there are other problems with the installation. Please back up all data before reinstalling. You won't need the backup unless something goes wrong.

The advanced shortcut below, if it works, may save you some downtime (and the cost of a multi-gigabyte download, if applicable.)

1. Back up all data.

2. Disconnect all external storage devices.

3. Start up in Recovery mode. Select a language, if prompted. The OS X Utilities screen will appear. One of the options is to install OS X. That's not what you're going to do.

4. This step is only necessary if you use FileVault 2. If you don't know what FileVault is, you're not using it. Go to the next step. Otherwise, launch Disk Utility, then select the icon of the FileVault volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another drive icon. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar and enter your login password when prompted. Then quit Disk Utility to be returned to the main screen.

5. Select Get Help Online. Safari will launch. While in Recovery, you'll have no access to your bookmarks, but you won't need them. Load this web page.

6. Triple-click anywhere in the line below to select it:

chflags -R norestricted /V*/*/S*/*/Caches

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

7. Quit Safari. You'll be returned to the OS X Utilities screen.

From the menu bar, select

Utilities ▹ Terminal

The Terminal application will launch. Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V.

Wait for a new line ending in a hash sign (#) to appear. Quit Terminal to be returned to the main screen.

8. Select

 ▹ Restart

from the menu bar.

9. This step must be carried out after the restart and while you're logged in as an administrator—not in Recovery mode. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Select and copy this line as in Step 6:

sudo /usr/libexec/xpchelper --rebuild-cache

Paste into a Terminal window as before. You'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. Confirm. You don't need to post the warning.

If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator. Log in as one and start over.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.

10. Do as in Step 9 with this line:

sudo /usr/libexec/*/app_sandbox_cache_builder --rebuild-cache

You can then quit Terminal.

All your data, including software installations, will be preserved, except Xcode and the Apple-distributed Java runtime. If you use either of those (unlikely), you'll have to reinstall them.

If you take the shortcut, nothing will change except some hidden OS files.

Linc,

Thanks for your steps to fix this. I've been looking for a means to correct this issue without re-installing for a while. However when I tried your directions, the RESTRICTED status of the /System/Library/Caches folder and its contents reverted back once I rebooted the system. So the subsequent --rebuild-cache commands didn't work. To correct this, prior to your steps I disabled SIP by using the "csrutil disable" command when in the recovery mode Terminal. Then changed the flags of the folder and its contents and then rebooted and did your remaining steps. Then went back into Recovery mode and enabled SIP by "csrutil enable", then rebooted. All worked fine then.

Linc, you're an absolute genius. And your instructions are the best written and the clearest i've ever found. Thanks to you and to Randy Weber (I disabled SIP before changing flags too) I also get rid of those nasty respawn messages due to the restricted conditions revealed by your first command. I reenabled SIP --without debug (XtraFinder needs it this way) after rebuilding the xpc helper cache.

I must say that i even reinstall 11.11.3 prior to finding this thread. And the respawn messages were there even after the reinstallation.

But I'm still having the /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd folder with a prohibitory sign over its icon.

I don't know if it's normal. I think that I've always had that prohibitory sign over com.apple.coresimbolicationd. But there's a lot of people that talks about the size of tthat folder growing to absurdly high sizes, and I cannot even know the size because the folder is locked for me.

On the other hand, I'm still getting a restricted condition on something that i cannot identify. I don¡t know if the prohibitory sign and this restriction are related. See line 3:

total 736

drwxr-xr-x 12 0 0 - 408 19 mar 10:56 .

drwxr-xr-x 79 0 0 restricted 2686 19 mar 10:52 ..

drwxr-xr-x 6 0 0 - 204 19 mar 10:54 com.apple.CVMS

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 42890 18 mar 21:10 com.apple.Components2.SystemCache.Components

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 59864 18 mar 21:22 com.apple.Components2.SystemCache.QuickTimeComponents

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 8820 19 mar 10:56 com.apple.IntlDataCache.le

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 36652 19 mar 10:56 com.apple.IntlDataCache.le.kbdx

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 17883 19 mar 11:56 com.apple.app-sandbox-cache.plist

drwx------ 3 0 0 - 102 19 mar 10:56 com.apple.coresymbolicationd

drwxr-xr-x 4 0 0 - 136 19 mar 10:52 com.apple.kext.caches

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 6559 19 mar 11:56 com.apple.xpc.extensions.cache

-rw-r--r-- 1 0 0 - 189195 19 mar 11:56 com.apple.xpchelper.cache

Thanks again for your help.

Well. Things are not so great. After updating to 10.11.4, the System/Library/Cahes folder is not there. And Console is plagued with messages about trying to write in it.

I've disabled totally SIP. It's the only way I can find El Capitan usable.

confirm: respawning is gone after rebuilding caches.

Tnx.