PDANet process trying to spawn but it does not exist

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Level 1

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PDANet process trying to spawn but it does not exist

PDA Net was a mac application I downloaded a while ago but has since been deleted. I looked at my system.log for the first time today and noticed that this message is coming up literally non stop. I navigated to the said directory but it does not exist anymore because I deleted. How can I stop this?

Jun 3 10:20:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83341]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:20:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83341]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:20:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:20:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83342]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:20:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83342]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:20:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:20:40 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83343]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:20:40 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83343]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:20:40 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:20:50 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83344]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:20:50 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83344]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:20:50 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:21:00 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83345]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:21:00 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83345]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:21:00 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:21:10 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83346]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:21:10 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83346]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:21:10 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:21:19 andrews [0x0-0x29ab9a9].com.vmware.fusion[82613]: 2010-06-03 10:21:19 CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!
Jun 3 10:21:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83347]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:21:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83347]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:21:20 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Jun 3 10:21:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83348]): posix_spawn("/Applications/PdaNetMac.app/Contents/MacOS/PdaNetMac", ...): No such file or directory
Jun 3 10:21:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac[83348]): Exited with exit code: 1
Jun 3 10:21:30 andrews com.apple.launchd[1] (com.jft.PdaNetMac): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

Macbook Aluminum, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Jun 3, 2010 7:23 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

54,339 points

Jun 3, 2010 7:47 AM in response to apierce

You stop these messages by telling launchd to stop trying to relaunch the application. Deleting the app won't help (that's what got you into this state in the first place 🙂 )

Somewhere on your system there will be a launchd preference file that's telling launchd to start the app. It's likely to be at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.jft.PdaNetMac.plist

Either delete this file and reboot, or use /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and run:

cd /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo launchctl unload -w com.jft.PdaNet.plist

This will tell launchd to stop trying to launch the app. The -w switch makes the change permanent, so it won't try to relaunch it after a reboot.

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Answer 2

apierce Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 3, 2010 9:01 AM in response to Camelot

I thought this would work but the strange thing is that there is no plist file for PDANet.

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Answer 3

Camelot

Level 9

54,339 points

Jun 3, 2010 9:43 AM in response to apierce

There has to be a file somewhere. It could (although should not) be in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.

It could also be in a specific user's own ~/Library/LaunchDaemons

You may have to dig around to find it.

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Answer 4

apierce Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 3, 2010 10:39 AM in response to Camelot

Thanks a lot! It was in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. I don't know why but it was. What could be the effects of having com.jft.PdaNetMac.plist continuously trying to launch?

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Answer 5

Camelot

Level 9

54,339 points

Jun 3, 2010 11:30 AM in response to apierce

What could be the effects of having com.jft.PdaNetMac.plist continuously trying to launch?

Pretty much two or three log lines added to your system log every 10 seconds, along with a few CPU cycles to go with it.

The CPU load isn't high, though, since the first thing launchd does is look to see if the target process exists. It would add more CPU if the app launched and subsequently crashed, but that's not the case here.

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Answer 6

apierce Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 3, 2010 11:50 AM in response to Camelot

Ok. Thanks for the quick lesson.

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