Console Messages - Every 10 seconds

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Console Messages - Every 10 seconds

I recently checked the Console Messages for my system and notice the following messages being posted every 10 seconds:

com.apple.launchd[1] 1 Warning (org.xinetd.xinetd439) Exited with exit code: 1
com.apple.launchd[1] 1 Warning (org.xinetd.xinetd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
com.apple.launchd[1] 1 Error (org.xinetd.xinetd440) posix_spawnp("xinetd", ...): No such file or directory

Is this normal?

If not how should I go about troubleshooting the cause of these messages.

I am a recent convert to Apple and OS X and not familiar with the terminology.

Can anyone help?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Sep 16, 2008 7:55 PM

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Answer 1

glsmith

Level 3

875 points

Sep 17, 2008 12:22 PM in response to Jcira

launchd is the system process responsible for launching (and relaunching) other system or background processes that your system needs to function correctly. It knows to do this based on lots of configuration files, each of which describes a unique process for launchd to monitor. Most of these configuration files are kept in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/. You can take a look at some of them if you're curious -- they're just XML and usually pretty short.

xinetd is another program/process/daemon (all these words are basically synonymous) that behaves very much like launchd. xinetd, however, is not created by Apple, but is an open source piece of software. OS X, pre 10.4, used to use xinetd to perform the actions now being done by launchd. As of 10.4, launchd replaced xinetd.

For whatever reason on your system, launchd is trying to start xinetd. Odd. Have you recently installed something, perhaps via Mac Ports or Fink or something like that?

Making this message stop is not overly difficult, since all you need to do is tell launchd to disable it as a service it monitors. This is easy to do from the command line, but since you're a new Mac user maybe that's not so simple 🙂 An easier (i.e. graphical) way to accomplish the same thing is to download and install Lingon:

http://lingon.sourceforge.net/

This will allow you to browse these launchd configuration files and make changes to them. Via this program, you can disable xinetd and you should see those console messages stop.

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Answer 2

Jcira Author

Level 1

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Sep 17, 2008 7:08 PM in response to glsmith

glsmith

Thank you for your description of the launchd process and what could be the problem.

Based on your suggestions, I located configuration in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/, which is the culprit of the problem. From its creation, date I have determined that it was created at the same time as I installed a demo of ImagePrint, a commercially available product for fine art image printing.

I uninstalled the demo but the configuration file persisted. I finally deleted the configuration file and rebooted. Presto! my problem disappeared.

I will now take up the issue with Colorbyte the manufacture of the demo.

However, thank you for responding to my query and pointing me in the right direction.

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