Continuous 'Service Exited in system log

The real problem seems to be the mds_stores process since the "Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[6]" messages stop once indexing is finished (i.e. when all mdworker_shared instances have stopped and no new ones are created).

Then mds_stores continues to run for days at 30 to 100% CPU writing 10GB/Day to disk and keeping the fans running continuously.

I've stopped the indexing using mdutil, cleared the index, rebuilt the index etc. It always ends up with mds_stores running amok

This problem appeared right after the Security Update 2020-003 on Mojave.

Currently the only way to fix this is by stopping the indexing service rendering Spotlight inoperable.

In short Security Update 2020-003 broke Spotlight

What, also in Big Sur. Thats f****d up big time.

Thats is indeed disappointing. Its even shocking if you ask me.

I wonder why Apple or a developer docent see this when they

mess around with the software/updates etc.

I guess someone have reported this to Apple right ?

I tried yesterday and hope i did it the right place but we need more

people who send it the same bug report.

If you want assistance, then see my previous suggestion for the OP here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251433748?answerId=252794728022#252794728022

As @Barney-15E mentions the Apple system logs are worthless these days for troubleshooting problems. While I've never seen those errors in any logs before my earlier suggestion may help to locate the app which is causing these errors. You have a software issue and we cannot help without knowing details about your system which the EtreCheck report will show us.

I had the same issue.

Disappeared after adding all disks to exclusion list of Spotlight.

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

They appeared again after removing my main disk (=SSD) from the list, which rebuilds the Spotlight index.

When rebuilding this message shows up (2x):

Aug 19 13:56:56 myserver mdsync[11877]: objc[11877]: Class MDSPathFilter is implemented in both /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Metadata and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdsync. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

Aug 19 13:56:56 myserver mdsync[11877]: objc[11877]: Class _MDSPathFilter is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpotlightIndex.framework/Versions/A/SpotlightIndex and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdsync. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

Having this same issue which is causing frequent slow downs, beach balling, crashes (especially in Lightroom). Having big issues with Lightroom--drains battery faster than ever before and will go black in the middle of working in the program.

Read through the replies and ran EtraCheck. Could someone give me some input based on my report, please? I've already deleted some of the files listed in the report such as Flip4Mac, Wacom files, etc.

Thanks,

CAW

CAW68 wrote:

Having this same issue which is causing frequent slow downs, beach balling, crashes (especially in Lightroom). Having big issues with Lightroom--drains battery faster than ever before and will go black in the middle of working in the program.

Read through the replies and ran EtraCheck. Could someone give me some input based on my report, please? I've already deleted some of the files listed in the report such as Flip4Mac, Wacom files, etc.

Thanks,

CAW

Run Disk Utility First Aid on the SSD. I would even run First Aid on the Container which will require you to click on "View" within Disk Utility and selecting "Show All Devices" so that the Container and the physical drive appear on the left pane of Disk Utility so you can select the Container. Even if First Aid shows everything as "Ok" click on "Details" and look to see whether there are any unfixed errors. If there are any unfixed errors, then you need to backup the drive and erase it to put down a fresh file system before restoring the backup.

See if your laptop qualifies for this free Apple SSD repair program:

https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-solid-state-drive-service

FYI, here is the current list of the publicly acknowledged free repair programs for various Apple products (some products such as your laptop have multiple programs available):

https://support.apple.com/service-programs

I can confirm this is still happening on Big Sur Beta 8.

I used dtruss to get a bit more info

sudo dtruss -n mds

 ...

 2800/0xe4de:  open_nocancel("/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Resources\0", 0x1100004, 0x0)		 = 6 0
 2800/0xe4de:  fstatfs64(0x6, 0x70000CACAC78, 0x0)		 = 0 0
 2800/0xe4de:  getdirentries64(0x6, 0x7FC60C026C00, 0x0)		 = 2080 0
 2800/0xe4eb:  workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000CBD3B80, 0x1)		 = 0 Err#-2
 2800/0xe4ec:  workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000CC56B80, 0x1)		 = 0 Err#-2
  263/0xe157:  workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x700003378B80, 0x1)		 = 0 Err#-2
 2800/0xe4e9:  read(0x5, "\002\0", 0x23FE0)		 = 2152 0

The last line is where the mds process crashes with SIGSEGV for me, repeatedly.

@steve626, Excellent post and advice! The only thing I would add is to contact Apple to let them know about the issue and provide product feedback here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

There is no guarantee Apple knows about this issue (or how widespread it is) unless users make Apple aware of it. Apple already litters the system logs with tons of useless entries so it could go unnoticed by them.

Me, too. I am on latest release Mojave 10.14.6 on iMac (27-inch, Late 2013).

Does anyone running Mojave or Catalina with Spotlight enabled and running NOT see this repeated in system.log?

This might be some "normal" sloppy operation of mdworker using processes instead of threads . I notice multiple queries about this on various Mac forums. Here is what I see:

1. When I drag all of my HDs into exclusion list (System Preferences:Spotlight:Privacy) then all of the "mdworker" processes with argruments "-m com.apple.mdworker.shared" eventually go away.
2. When I remove any disk then it begins again.
3. The same three mdworker processes are always running in both "1." and "2." above, one for the two "Admin" users I have on this machine and one dedicated to spotlight, 89 in my case:

$ dscl . -list /Users UniqueID | grep 89
_spotlight               89

... snip...  com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.mail.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[6758]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[89]

and I can see multiple processes "mdworker_shared" with argument -"s mdworker-mail" being created and killed...

It does not seem to matter if I have "Mail & Messages" selected in the "Search Results" of the Spotlight System Prefs.

It does not seem to being any harm other than spewing on the system log. Only one of three User accounts on this machine actually uses Apple Mail, so maybe that is why I see the process spawned to scan Mail messages being killed. If so, seems sloppy to do it this way...

This is the 'quick fix' to this problem: Disable spotlight.

For me it's happening on a 10.14 Mac, it is introduced by installing the 2020-003 or 2020-004 security updates for at least 10.14+

Here is how to disable Spotlight:

1. Open Terminal
2. run: sudo mdutil -i off -a
3. type your password if requested.
4. you should see output like the following:

# sudo mdutil -i off -a
2020-09-14 11:48:43.091 mdutil[1010:20698] mdutil disabling Spotlight: / -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
        Indexing disabled.

To test and make sure indexing is off, try: sudo mdutil -s -a (-s is for "status" and -a means "show all drives")

it should also say Indexing Disabled as well.

Later on, when/if lazy Apple fixes this issue, you can re-enable indexing with sudo mdutil -i on -a

So, as promised....

1. Performed a bog standard re-install of Catalina. (I read that Big Sur and Creative Cloud have/had some issues, so....)
2. Created Admin account.
3. Looked at console, activity monitor, etc. and all seems quiet on the western front. CPU is 95% idle, Memory pressure is minimal.
4. Installed the available update. CPU and Memory pressure remain minimal.

Attached USB Time Machine volume (month old 4 TB SATA HDD in USB 3 dock) to prepare for Migration Assistant.

CPU load graph looks like a small mountain range, going up and down, but not yet crossing 50%

Memory pressure is unchanged

Console (system.log) mdworker.shared is going nuts. At 13:30:34, PID 2027 was killed. At 13:35:45, PID 3379 was killed. That's 1350 processes spawned and killed in just 5 minutes.

Unmount the TM disk

mdworker messages instantly stop

followed by burst of ~15 messages 30 seconds later

no more messages for 7minutes, two messages appeared 4 minutes ago, but nothing since.

CPU back around 90-95% idle

Just as a side note, I tried to add the TM disk to Spotlight Privacy, but got the error message: can't add a TM volume to privacy. Curious.

It sounds like you have other things going on that need to be addressed. When they are, I expect that you won't care about the SIGKILL messages anymore because your Mac will be working fine then. Those messages will still be there, here is from one second in the system log (however this was a particularly busy 1 second internal, sometimes a number of seconds go by with no SIGKILL messages) of a healthy and responsive Mac -

If your network is problematic that can absolutely cause a machine to "hang" or stutter as it retries over and over to re-establish the connection, and of course browsers and email etc. will appear slow or erratic. This entire thread about the SIGKILL messages has diverted a number of people from troubleshooting their problems because they feel that the SIGKILL messages are somehow the cause, which I am convinced is not the case because I see those messages on multiple healthy Macs.

Some have found that killing the MDS process or Spotlight or indexing "fixes" the poor performance, but that is a clue about root cause because Spotlight and indexing works properly and well on maybe 99.99% of Macs. When it does not work, there can be an underlying problem with the disk, the file system, or a custom installation or configuration that interferes. Those are the clues I would follow up[ on.

That's normal. It's associated with Spotlight, probably indexing. I have the exact same entries in my system log. It's nothing to be concerned about.

There's nothing in the Console that's intended for the user. It's more for the hardcore software engineers at Apple for diagnostics, etc.

I have the same problem, login takes a minute waking from sleep, the only thing I could actually find is this

Bolded is the time it seems to hang upon logging in.

Login starts from 17:13:22

Jun 7 17:13:22 **** syslogd[100]: ASL Sender Statistics

Jun 7 17:13:26 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0300-0000-0000-000000000000[11773]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:13:30 **** timed[141]: settimeofday({0x5edd041a,0x2a165}) == 0

Jun 7 17:13:30 **** xpcproxy[11782]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper_userdir: 557: bootstrap_look_up returned (ipc/send) invalid destination port

Jun 7 17:13:31 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0B000000-0600-0000-0000-000000000000[11772]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:13:38 **** timed[141]: settimeofday({0x5edd0422,0xbc147}) == 0

Jun 7 17:13:39 **** syncdefaultsd[11793]: objc[11793]: Class SYDClient is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SyncedDefaults.framework/Versions/A/SyncedDefaults and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SyncedDefaults.framework/Support/syncdefaultsd. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

Jun 7 17:13:39 **** syncdefaultsd[11793]: objc[11793]: Class SYDJournal is implemented in both /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SyncedDefaults.framework/Versions/A/SyncedDefaults and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SyncedDefaults.framework/Support/syncdefaultsd. One of the two will be used. Which one is undefined.

Jun 7 17:15:19 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[11771]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:15:27 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[11783]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:15:27 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0B000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[11789]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:15:27 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0E000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[11769]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:15:29 **** diagnosticd[7813]: allowing Console (11796) access to stream due to admin status

Jun 7 17:15:29 **** diagnosticd[7813]: Posting stream filter: "{global = 47245099008;}"

Jun 7 17:15:31 **** diagnosticd[7813]: System mode client started - Console (11796) - mode: 0xb, filter: "<empty>"

Jun 7 17:15:58 **** AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[407]: Entered:_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:937

Jun 7 17:15:58 **** AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[407]: Entered:__thr_AMMuxedDeviceDisconnected, mux-device:937

Jun 7 17:15:58 **** AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[407]: tid:6b33 - Mux ID not found in mapping dictionary

Jun 7 17:15:58 **** AMPDeviceDiscoveryAgent[407]: tid:6b33 - Can't handle disconnect with invalid ecid

Jun 7 17:16:03 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[11803]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[127]

Jun 7 17:16:07 **** com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.backupd.11798): Failed to bootstrap path: path = /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd, error = 2: No such file or directory

Getting the same spam in my console

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.08000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[10504]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.07000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10506]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.06000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10508]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[10509]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[10511]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.09000000-0600-0000-0000-000000000000[10510]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.02000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[10507]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:38 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.04000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[10512]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:50 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.02000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[10408]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:50:51 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0A000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[10505]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:51:02 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0D000000-0400-0000-0000-000000000000[10403]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:51:10 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.09000000-0600-0000-0000-000000000000[10398]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:51:19 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.04000000-0500-0000-0000-000000000000[10531]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:51:35 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0500-0000-0000-000000000000[10416]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.04000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10556]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0600-0000-0000-000000000000[10561]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0A000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10549]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.05000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10560]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.02000000-0200-0000-0000-000000000000[10558]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.07000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[10563]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.01000000-0200-0000-0000-000000000000[10559]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.08000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[10562]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.06000000-0100-0000-0000-000000000000[10564]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]

Jun 9 10:52:03 Mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.09000000-0700-0000-0000-000000000000[10557]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[1447]