Continuous 'Service Exited in system log

I just found out something else.

I though it was only 10.15.5+ related but it's not.

I updated both my Macbook Pro's the same day. One with Catalina 10.15.4 and one with 10.14.6

and both my Mac's do this now.

So i think it's a combination of 10.15.5 update and the Security Update 2020-003 for Mojave.

Why else would both my Mojave and Catalina now do this and not only the 10.15.5 ? Only way.

Some of the changed things in 10.15.5+ is also in the Security Update 2020-003 for Mojave.

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.

I'm not particularly familiar with mdutil.

I tried

sudo mdutil -vEsa -i on -d /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

but I get lots of errors

2020-07-23 17:29:23.588 mdutil[250:1286543] mdutil disabling Spotlight: / -> kMDConfigSearchLevelOff

Error: unable to perform operation. (-405)

Error: invalid operation.

Error: unknown indexing state.

and then

/System/Volumes/Data:

2020-07-23 17:29:23.786 mdutil[250:1286543] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /System/Volumes/Data -> kMDConfigSearchLevelOff

Indexing and searching disabled.

So I'm not 100% sure what the right invocation would be

I have this issue as well on a Mac mini running Catalina 10.15.6. I believe it's related to issues I've had with mouse jerkiness and lag. I can't say for 100% but when I've run with Spotlight disabled I hve not seen the jerkiness. It's unfortunate becasue Spotlight is a great feature.

I'm getting the same thing.

Aug 24 07:23:29 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.10000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42259]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:23:29 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42261]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:24:44 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.09000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42266]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:24:56 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.0F000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42272]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:25:02 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.mail.01000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42270]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:25:02 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.mail.06000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42269]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:25:02 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.mail.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42268]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:25:02 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.mail.02000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42271]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:25:40 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42273]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:26:45 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42279]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:27:44 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42284]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

Aug 24 07:30:12 static-27-96-67-159 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.mdworker.shared.03000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000[42290]): Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[94]

I opened a case with Apple and they said it was normal and not anything to worry about. I don't understand that, since it seems to be killing the mdworker indexing process every few seconds.

I see this as well including when I have closed my lid while on power adapter.

I see about 100 such errors every hour, 24 hours a day if the macbook is on power adapter.

My laptop also gets really warm while closed and on power adapter. I suspect it is this error which suggests it is running things and causing my laptop to be warm while closed.

I have unticked 'Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off' and disabled power nap in power settings.

@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.

I am one of the people who has been reporting that this SIGKILL message is seen in the system logs on two different MacBook Pros on 10.15.7 (one is a 2017 model the other a 2019 model), although I could not discern any negative impacts on performance. SO I wasn't worried about it, but have been following the complaints in this forum.

I looked at this more closely and it appears that on my laptops these SIGKILL messages appear every second for a minute or two, and then stop coming in for anywhere from 30 seconds to quite a few minutes when there are no such SIGKILL messages. Then they reappear and seem to stop coming in as fast as they reappeared. Would not have even noticed this if not for this thread. Also noticed some noise from fans for a few minutes on one laptop but was doing other things on the laptop then and also the fans sped up during the period when SIGKILL log entries were NOT present.

Cause and effect here might be tricky to unravel, and this sort of thing might be very system dependent (e.g. what has been installed, or even the model of computer). By the way, my two laptops are very different MacBook Pros, one from 2017, one from 2019, and the 2017 is an employer provided one that has a managed system that requires a smart card to log in to and includes central monitoring and maintenance and even has (mandatory, I can't even remove or change this) an enterprise Symantec Antivirus installation plus Big Fix and other central oversight. The other laptop is a personal one that is very "clean" and has MS-Office but not a whole lot else installed, no background software or kexts. Yet they seem similar with respect to this SIGKILL "feature." I am wondering if it is a normal behavior for the Mac OS and for those who see beachballs and slowdowns, that might be a normally well behaved process getting hung up somehow.

These processes can be closed because the particular mdimporter they apply can't be found or opened. For diagnostic purposes the system log message are almost useless. Running fs_usage and searching for events at the reported times doesn't show any pattern of events. Tinkering to get more information or adding links if mdworker is looking in the wrong place requires disabling SIP.

The duration of the spawned process execution is too short to capture Open Files and Ports in the Activity Monitor manually, yet long enough to see which makes you wonder if it's volume/container sensitive (lacking permissions).

It'd be nice if the system log messages process opening and closing could be disabled, better still selectively. The criticality from end users commenting here appears to be concern from system log message volume, potentially worry over shortening SDD Flash lifetime while there's evidence a lot of logging volume has otherwise been reduced over earlier macOS releases (and we see a lot of message still from to be deprecated calls).

Forensics might be applied with a small volume not blocked from being scanned Spotlight -> Privacy. It may be possible to ascertain behaviorally by Spotlight Search what's failing or if all the mdimporters are not being applied. From an end user's perspective we don't see complaints of things missing from Spotlight Search results.

End user concern about SDD Flash life time comes from the otherwise product useful lifetime being limited by support from Apple (who appear uncaring from the comments here). These on board non-replaceable SDD based M1 Macbooks are limited by SDD lifetime, the batteries can be replaced. As consumers we've seen the effects of life time, DVD players that forget language choice and where to resume play, routers that fail from system logs continuously stored in Flash memory, etc. There's been recent reports of automobiles being limited by Flash lifetime, and it's not possible to limit the useful lifetime of luxury or super cars by failed electronic components. I had an acquaintance, a PCB board designer who designed and sold replacement electronic subsystems for Ferrari's a decade or so ago. Automotive electronic design reliability standards were already evolving.

One could hope system log message volume comes from macOS release testing carelessness and not an evil intention to foreshorten SDD Flash life to match product cycles (first taste is free, we can see long term product planning in Apple switching to their own silicon taking around a decade). The choice to make the SDD non-replaceable would have likely been driven by battery capacity.

MyMacIta wrote:

Please can I help me, I have same problem.

<macbook pro.log>

Another contributor has already mentioned in this thread that these errors occur even on a clean install of macOS without migrating/restoring from backup and without any third party apps installed which proves it is an Apple issue with macOS. It is up to Apple to resolve the issue. It may have even occurred on a brand new system just out of the box with no third party apps.

Just ignore all of the macOS system logs as they are no longer useful for troubleshooting purposes. The only useful remaining macOS log is the Kernel Panic log when your Mac has a kernel panic. Otherwise don't even bother looking at any of the system logs.

MyMacIta wrote:

thanks for your interest. Any act does not unravel from sleep giving Sleep Wake failure in EFI (code :: 0xffffffff 0x0000001f). In addition, the dock bar during shutdown does not go down but siblocks in half

What has led you to believe that the SIGKILL log messages are related to your sleep problem? On two Catalina MacBook Pros, I see this same SIGKILL message a number of times per minute and it seems to have no impact on either computer's operation. I also see it on a MacBook Air with High Sierra, also, no discernible impact from it.

Have you tried an SMC reset? That is one approach to address power issues. Or have you tried booting into Safe Mode to see if sleep behaviors are normal in Safe Mode?

What is most disappointing is the system log is full of huge amounts of noise ... errors that represent sloppy software engineering such as complaints about two versions of this in multiple libraries, complaints about wrong key in some service definition, service killed by mds and all of these are conditions created by Apple itself. Apple introduced the multiple versions, Apple hasn't cleaned up its service definitions in its own configuration files ... and if mds killing a mdworker thread is innocuous, then why write a string in the system.log

Just sloppy software engineering, making ownership of a Mac OS 11 machine somewhat complicated ... I like the idea that the user isn't suppose to look in these files (some Apple person offered that as a reply) ... since Apple doesn't log into any of my machines, who are these messages for ????

Yes I found the same - I tried to experiment with exclusions, but it was taking too long to pin down.

I raised feedback item #FB7733177 a few hours ago (now on 10.15.6b2) with some mds logs etc...

Okay then. We found the reason.

What a stupid Catalina 10.15.5 + Mojave Security Update 2020-003 updates.

We need to send this to Apple some how. Not sure where to report it.