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User profile for user: bearboykahlo
bearboykahlo Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Odd console messages when ethernet cable is NOT connected

Summary: 3 Symptoms, all recurs simultaneously every minute or so when an ethernet cable is NOT connected:
1) Console: *"Firewall krb5kdc is listening"*...
2) HardwareGrowler *"Ethernet Deactivated Interface: en0"*
3) Network Preference Panel: Ethernet panel flickers. The Status changes from *"Cable Unplugged"* to *"Unknown State"* and then back to *"Cable Unplugged"* in less than a second.

I just bought a new 17" MacBook Pro (2010) to replace my old white MacBook that was running Snow Leopard. I used the migration assistant to transfer everything on the first bootup.

I use Growl and HardwareGrowl, which basically just alerts me to system changes such as mounting drives, connected and disconnected to networks, etc. I noticed that almost every minute I would see two identical consecutive Growl notifications pop up: *"Ethernet Deactivated Interface: en0"*.

Also, at the same exact time as the Growl notification this would print in the Console Log:
-----
4/20/10 11:35:24 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:35:24 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6

Then Oddly enough, if I leave the Network Preference Pane open, I can see the ethernet status go from its normal *"Cable Unplugged"* to *"Unknown State"* then in a fraction of a second, back to *"Cable Unplugged"*.

Weird, right!

The messages will stop if I insert a network cable into the MacBook Pro. The messages appear regardless of whether Airport is on. The messages even appear when there is no network cable and Airport is disabled.

I never saw this behavior on my old Macbook.

I went ahead and uninstalled Growl and a few other apps that mess with the networking (such as VMWare). I also created a 'virgin' test account. I am still having these entries show up in the log.

*I'm concerned that this may be a hardware issue. Does anyone have idea what may be going on?*

Sample log output:
------------------
4/20/10 11:36:35 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:36:35 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:37:46 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:37:46 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:38:56 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:38:56 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:40:07 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:40:07 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:41:18 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from :::88 proto=6
4/20/10 11:41:18 PM Firewall[44305] krb5kdc is listening from 0.0.0.0:88 proto=6

Activity Monitor:
-----------------
Active Memory: 533.2 MB
Free Memory: 2.40 GB
Wired Memory: 738.8 MB
Used Memory: 1.47 GB
Inactive Memory: 235.6 MB
Total VM: 141.14 GB
Number of processes: 54

PID Process Name User CPU Real Mem Virtual Mem
0 kernel_task root 11.1 141.9 MB 2.31 GB
1 launchd root 0.4 1.3 MB 2.36 GB
10 kextd root 0.6 3.3 MB 2.35 GB
11 DirectoryService root 0.0 5.1 MB 2.36 GB
12 notifyd root 0.0 640 KB 2.35 GB
13 diskarbitrationd root 0.0 1.7 MB 2.35 GB
14 configd root 0.0 3.4 MB 2.38 GB
15 syslogd root 0.0 752 KB 2.36 GB
16 blued root 0.0 4.8 MB 2.37 GB
17 distnoted daemon 0.0 1.4 MB 2.35 GB
20 mDNSResponder _mdnsrespo 0.0 2.0 MB 2.36 GB
23 coreservicesd root 0.1 29.5 MB 2.40 GB
26 securityd root 0.0 3.0 MB 2.36 GB
33 ntpd root 0.0 1.1 MB 2.32 GB
34 krb5kdc root 0.0 2.0 MB 2.34 GB
35 cron root 0.0 900 KB 2.32 GB
37 usbmuxd _usbmuxd 0.0 1.2 MB 608.1 MB
38 SystemStarter root 0.0 1.0 MB 2.34 GB
42 RFBRegisterMDNS root 0.0 1.7 MB 2.33 GB
44 mds root 0.0 70.2 MB 2.91 GB
45 loginwindow test 0.0 8.3 MB 2.65 GB
46 KernelEventAgent root 0.0 1.0 MB 2.34 GB
48 hidd root 0.0 1.5 MB 2.34 GB
49 fseventsd root 0.0 2.3 MB 2.36 GB
51 dynamic_pager root 0.0 796 KB 2.32 GB
57 autofsd root 0.0 1,008 KB 2.33 GB
65 socketfilterfw root 0.0 3.8 MB 2.36 GB
67 WindowServer _windowser 3.8 48.9 MB 2.99 GB
80 cvmsServ root 0.0 844 KB 2.33 GB
95 coreaudiod _coreaudio 0.0 1.8 MB 2.35 GB
115 launchd test 0.0 1.4 MB 2.36 GB
119 Dock test 0.0 28.7 MB 2.67 GB
120 SystemUIServer test 0.0 23.9 MB 2.73 GB
121 Finder test 0.0 13.6 MB 2.66 GB
126 pboard test 0.0 852 KB 2.32 GB
138 fontd test 0.0 4.6 MB 2.40 GB
142 UserEventAgent test 0.0 5.9 MB 2.37 GB
144 AppleVNCServer test 0.0 3.8 MB 2.60 GB
149 SIMBL Agent test 0.0 6.6 MB 10.67 GB
150 PenTabletDriver test 1.6 7.9 MB 2.66 GB
153 LMILaunchAgentFixer test 0.0 2.0 MB 630.7 MB
158 CCacheServer test 0.0 1.7 MB 2.35 GB
163 ConsumerTouchDriver test 0.3 6.7 MB 2.64 GB
165 TabletDriver test 0.0 5.3 MB 2.63 GB
192 Activity Monitor test 9.0 24.8 MB 2.74 GB
194 cvmsComp x8664 test 0.0 6.4 MB 2.34 GB
195 activitymonitord root 0.5 1.2 MB 2.33 GB
197 Console test 0.1 21.1 MB 2.69 GB
206 mdworker Patrick 0.0 6.0 MB 2.37 GB
208 mdworker test 0.0 9.6 MB 2.37 GB
218 DashboardClient test 0.0 21.1 MB 4.68 GB
234 Safari test 0.0 162.6 MB 5.02 GB
237 ocspd root 0.0 1.9 MB 2.37 GB
238 WebKitPluginAgent test 0.0 1,016 KB 2.35 GB

Message was edited by: bearboykahlo

Macbook Pro 2.53GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 20, 2010 10:50 PM

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109 replies
User profile for user: glennrempe
glennrempe
User level: Level 1
0 points

May 6, 2010 1:05 PM in response to bearboykahlo

Adding my name to the list. MBP Core i7, I did not do any automated software migration and the OS is factory clean. What brought it to my attention was the install of Hardware Growler. I am connected to only a wifi (via TimeCapsule) and have not yet plugged an ethernet cable into this laptop.

When it occurs I see the following entry in the system.log

May 6 13:01:46 mbp configd[14]: network configuration changed.

There is no entry in the kernel.log when this happens.
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User profile for user: Jim Tsigros
Jim Tsigros
User level: Level 1
10 points

May 8, 2010 5:21 AM in response to bearboykahlo

Hi,

Just bought a brand new Macbook Pro 15" i7 With antiglare HiRes, 7200 RPM Drive. I can confirm that the problem exists by checking the network settings and monitoring the status. 70 seconds later it goes orange, status: "unknown" then to Red Status: "Cable Not Connected". I didnt use migration assistant and didnt install any other software yet. I don't have anything in the console logs to show the issue and it doesn't seem to be noticeable if you were not looking for it. I happened to cross this forum and just checked to see. I installed growl and I now get the "Ethernet Deactivated" message every 70 seconds.
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User profile for user: Jim Tsigros
Jim Tsigros
User level: Level 1
10 points

May 8, 2010 5:34 AM in response to bearboykahlo

Oh another observation, if you use wireshark to capture packets, every time the ethernet deactivation occurs, there is a DHCP request, so it actually looks like the interface is reset every time this happens.

No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info
1 0.000000 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 DHCP DHCP Discover - Transaction ID 0x4931c1c9
2 70.866548 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 DHCP DHCP Discover - Transaction ID 0x4931c1ca
3 141.734011 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 DHCP DHCP Discover - Transaction ID 0x4931c1cb
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User profile for user: xmatt
xmatt
User level: Level 1
0 points

May 9, 2010 10:25 AM in response to bearboykahlo

Just bought a 15" i7 and am seeing exactly the same issue; I'm very happy I'm not the only one! I get a pair of ethernet disconnect messages every 70 seconds, if I'm connected to a wireless network.

I also noticed this due to having Hardware Growler installed, but I can also confirm that it's not a problem with that -- it's just doing the right thing and showing me that something is going on.

I don't suspect this is a functional "problem", but it is a bit of a nuisance since it clearly shouldn't be doing this and I don't prefer to just tell HwG to ignore my ethernet port entirely (it's really useful for knowing if sketchy ethernet jacks at hotels work or not). Here's hoping that this is a quick OS X fix.

One final note: I also discovered that removing the ethernet connection in the Network control panel (assuming you don't need ethernet) stops the problem. You can also create a new location with the ethernet connection disabled so you can quickly turn it on and off depending on what you're doing.
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User profile for user: streamfx
streamfx
User level: Level 1
4 points

May 11, 2010 8:35 AM in response to bearboykahlo

Same exact problem. MBP core i7 2.66 15". very annoying, especially when using SSH. Apple please find out whats wrong. Even with a ifconfig en0 down the issue still happens over wireless. If you run a constant ping to a gateway address it will time out every 70 seconds..

Console shows:
5/11/10 11:33:20 AM kernel Auth result for: 00:24:6c:ba:72:e0 MAC AUTH succeeded
5/11/10 11:33:20 AM kernel AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1

Which is interesting since I use WPA2-PSK not MAC auth.

Message was edited by: streamfx
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Odd console messages when ethernet cable is NOT connected

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