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system.log is full of repeated log messages post-upgrade to 10.15.5

Since upgrading to 10.15.5 (from 10.14.6), I am seeing lots of lines like this in system.log


May 29 10:35:30 mymachine com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[1094]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[187]


What explains these lines?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 28, 2020 5:39 PM

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10 replies

May 29, 2020 2:28 PM in response to jon.seymour

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities jon.seymour,


I see that you have a question about lines that you're seeing in system.log. I'd be happy to look into this with you.


Looking at system logs can be misleading as there are so many processes which may have been used to update or just to normally run.

Instead, let’s take a look at what’s happening which made you look. Were you having an issue? Have you seen an error message?


You can also look at the article below about the Console that can help with viewing log messages.


Console User Guide


Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

Aug 22, 2020 9:37 PM in response to jon.seymour

Hey there! Understand your concern. I see those logs all the time, some can be misleading though, and even seem outright ominous. However those logs are created anytime your computer is running, so I wouldn’t be too concerned with it.


Mdworker process is associated with the Spotlight process, however that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the process that’s malfunctioning, there could be several causes, depending on the PID, network activity, and several other factors, including what symptoms led you to check Console or /Logs in the first place. If there is a specific time a specific incident occurred than all that information helps.


Otherwise, you can get lost all day going over ominous looking logs wondering what this or that does, but if you aren’t experiencing a technical issue, it won’t do any good, and I wouldn’t worry about it.


Those are there for Apple engineers to figure out, in the case you are sharing crash logs with Apple engineers, so that, if many are experiencing a crash of a particular app or process, they are able to debug it. Otherwise, if you aren’t sharing crash data, but are having issues conventional troubleshooting doesn’t respond to, Apple Support may request that information if you call them to investigate further.


Hope that helps!


Here’s an article I find useful now and then:


https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/run-system-diagnostics-actmntr2225/mac


In the event that Spotlight isn’t functioning as it should, (e.g. search results don’t appear), this is also a good article to follow:


https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716


Most likely though, if there’s a technical issue happening and an article out there by Apple not fixing it, I’d give them a call for sure.

Jun 24, 2020 6:29 AM in response to jon.seymour

jon.seymour wrote:

Since upgrading to 10.15.5 (from 10.14.6), I am seeing lots of lines like this in system.log

May 29 10:35:30 mymachine com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[1094]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[187]

What explains these lines?




Independent of this— if you are having an issue with your Mac then state fully the issue.


Otherwise I would not let sys log files occupy my day.

Jul 6, 2020 3:15 PM in response to jon.seymour

Apple people,

I am having the same issue:

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (c.0E000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[6773]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[98]


This led to a system hang/crash (not a kernel panic, but black screen, power light on, no response to any input) on a 2012 Mac Pro running Mojave). These were the last messages in the system log before the boot messages appeared after I had somebody restart it. (I have to work remotely, my work site--a college--where this machine is located is locked down due to the quarantine). I am now seeing the same message (with a different mds process number, of course) after the reboot.


How can I figure out what is causing this? mdsworker is the spotlight indexing engine. For now, I'm going to turn off Spotlight (marking all my volumes Private) and see if that helps. My problem here is that when that system needs a reboot, it can be days before it can get manually restarted, so I need to be pretty gentle with it.


How can

Jul 6, 2020 5:14 PM in response to Ric Getter

Ric, I suspect the fact these were the last messages in the log could just be a coincidence since in my experience these messages do occur quite frequently. It would be more likely to be a causal connection if they only occurred prior to a hang or crash.


A more likely explanation for a hang/crash might be a shortage of memory, so it would be worth ruling that out first, if you can find a way to do that.


That said, the whole reason I was looking at the system logs in the first place were a few instances of an unexplained hang crash &/or reboot so I can't completely rule out there is a connection between these log messages and reliability issues, but the log messages themselves are far short of proof, I think.

Aug 1, 2020 1:16 AM in response to jon.seymour

com.apple.mdworker.shared.02000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[960]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[203]


system log is flooded with these messages. Even after I switched off Spotify and cleared cache by starting up in safe mode, which is found on the internet as a solution. I am upgraded to Catalina 10.15.6 but still no resolution of this problem.


The imac is so stressed that it keeps shutting down. The code for shutdown: 0. That means the power supply is at fault, but I just had that replaced.....for nothing, because now it seems that the above error code is the culprit. Apple : do something about it. I almost scrapped this Imac and bought a new one! I understand this would be great business but as a customer I'd rather have you figure out the problem.

system.log is full of repeated log messages post-upgrade to 10.15.5

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