Why do I have so many log files?

Yes, you can delete logfiles. That's one of the few system level files you can delete. Usually they delete if you leave your machine on screen saver as opposed to Energy Saver overnight. Additionally, you can use Macjanitor or Anacron to delete them manually.

Yes you can delete them, but you will be asked to authenticate to do so. And it is possible that they will simply start being created all over again. This can be the result of either of two things:

1. The asl log process itself is having a problem (it is so prone to problems that I have not updated my working drive to 10.5.6, but decided to stay at 10.5.5; I have an extremely clean install of 10.5.6 on another drive)

2. You have some other process that is going mad and sending out continuous log notes

For the second problem try launching Console from your Utilities folder and take a look a look at the Console log, watch it in real time and see if there are constant messages appearing, and what is sending them. Then you can start figuring out what needs to be fixed. For instance, one fairly common problem involved software installed by Canon for one of their popular scanners which constantly, several times a second, sent an error message. There are many other possible sources for such a problem.

For problems caused by asl itself, see:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1831184

http://www.powerpage.org/2009/01/how-topreventing_the_asl_manager_from_overrunning_thecpu.html

If you do a Google search on ASL you'll find many similar reports.
Francine


Francine
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