Syslogd makes high CPU Load and standby mode doesn´t work.

So I am the latest victim to syslogd terror 🙂

Here is my repeating log

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Oct 4 16:55:00 Macintosh ScreenSaverEngine[491]: * <QCView: 0x13bbd0>: Render failed at time 5.133353s
Oct 4 16:55:00 Macintosh ScreenSaverEngine[491]: * Message from <QCJavaScript = 0x04DBA8F0 "JavaScript_2">:\nExecution failed at time 5.167
Oct 4 16:55:00 Macintosh ScreenSaverEngine[491]: * Message from <QCPatch = 0x04D8DE20 "Patch_8">:\nExecution failed at time 5.167
Oct 4 16:55:00 Macintosh ScreenSaverEngine[491]: * Message from <QCPatch = 0x044D6AC0 "(null)">:\nExecution failed at time 5.167
-----

And this happens when i try to change a screen saver in system preferences or when stopping the screen saver after it came into effect. And it all used to work fine upto two days ago when i got my disk full and had to hard-shutdown. May be the latest java update ? whatever.

Here is the crashreporter log for the screensaver :

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Thread 0 Crashed:
0 com.apple.JavaScriptCore 0x94539bdc KJS::Heap::registerThread() + 28
1 com.apple.JavaScriptCore 0x945307b4 JSContextGetGlobalObject + 36
2 ...QuartzComposer.ExtraPatches 0x04380a2c 0x4375000 + 47660
3 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x92664254 -[QCPatch(Private) _cleanup] + 264
4 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x9265958c -[GFList makeObjectsPerformSelector:] + 96
5 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x926641a8 -[QCPatch(Private) _cleanup] + 92
6 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x9265958c -[GFList makeObjectsPerformSelector:] + 96
7 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x926641a8 -[QCPatch(Private) _cleanup] + 92
8 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x9265958c -[GFList makeObjectsPerformSelector:] + 96
9 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x926641a8 -[QCPatch(Private) _cleanup] + 92
10 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x92664070 -[QCContext stopRenderingPatch:] + 132
11 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x92663fd4 -[QCGraphicsContext stopRenderingPatch:] + 80
-----

So who is the culprit - JavaScript, a specific ScreenSaver, ScreenSaverEngine, SystemPreferences App, syslogd or Leopard ? My guess is that it is caused by one app in this case ScreenSaverEngine but that in turn is due to JavaScript rendering issue only.

Here is my suggestion (not a fix) :
1. use terminal to stop the syslogd and remove the log files asl.log and system.log and restart syslogd - it helps mostly except sometimes it resumes cpu usage (simply changing the error-reporting-level from 5 to 4 doesn't help)
2. repair disk permissions and clean up system caches - this has helped me so far : no cpu eating by syslogd
3. update the app in question or avoid using it : i have still to do it
4. archive and install - this should be the last resort.

It turned out that the real culprit was a specific Screen Saver and not the ScreenSaverEngine.app

But the problem was i couldn't even change the screensaver as it crashed and syslogged enormously. Finally i had to pull out the com.apple.screensaver.12345678abcd.plist from my backup and replaced the corrupted one. And huh, the problem is gone.

So syslogd is not the root cause of high cpu usage but a corrupt app and its pref file are. Despite of this finding, i would have wished a more decent behaviour from syslogd in terms of not logging the same message repeatedly more than a certain no of times.

I've had this problem ever since installing Leopard. My issue seems to be related to using a Huawei Mobile Broadband dongle. It sends the system crazy. I used every fix I could find and had everything working fine until the latest security update from Apple (2008-007). Now, having a nightmare. Had to kill spotlight as mds is going nuts and syslog too. APPLE, WHAT THE F*!!!!!!! Clearly not enough of us are having these problems to warrant a proper fix. Jeesh

I see that same problem - upgraded from Tiger to Leopard 10.5.5 and whenever the HUAWEI Mobile appliation is open the mds process takes huge amounts of CPU. Note I don't even have to be connected to the mobile network, just having the app open causes it.

Is it because the app is quite verbose in logging to system.log? If so, how can I stop it causing mds going crazy.

Have begun having the same syslogd hogging resources problem. One recommendation was to check for runaway apps or apps writing excessively. Another had to do with memory hogs. Don't see any of the above. However, I have the following from the system crash reporter ---

syslogd 2008-11-10-111824Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-10-145620Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-10-145622Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-10-145632Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-10-152004Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-12-011600Bodo.crash
syslogd 2008-11-14-064615Bodo.crash

Since it sounds like most of us have never run into this before, it sure seems as though its got to be an OS-X bug. Has Apple weighed in at all on this (no, i didn't read through all 7 pages of messages.)

te

Got the same problem on my Macbook.... (Leopard 10.5.5).
Apple! Wake up and at least comment on this??

I downloaded Maintidgit, (http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Dashboard-Widgets/Status-Info/Maintidget.shtml) ran the scripts and seem to have solved the problem. My problem appears to have started on the same day as I downloaded the 10.5.6 update

DDdaviking wrote:
Got the same problem on my Macbook.... (Leopard 10.5.5).
Apple! Wake up and at least comment on this??

No comment.