Since updating MacBook Air to Sonoma I had multiple processes called 'CGPDFService'

I've been meaning to trace this down a bit better.

But it looks to me like the initial pass has completed, and so these processes aren't popping up any more. I did see on two separate occasions that my machine was running "hot" - due to this activity - but that was when I wasn't using it. When I started to poke around, the processes disappeared which leads me to believe that they were configured to only run when the system was idle.

Of course, if you're going to go to the trouble of checking for being idle, I'd assume you'd also check for whether a Macbook is on battery, since it's not nice to chew up capacity like that in the background (which was the original complaint). But that would also be a target for a bug to be fixed quickly - so perhaps it is.

Yeah, I don't like seeing lots of copies of processes pop up that I don't understand, but absent more information I think this is "mostly harmless". It certainly does seem limited (I did check) to just scanning PDF files.

Dear Zayadk,

> U gave the manual to roll back if we want activate.It works.

You want to turn indexing off and then turn it back on.
All operations will be performed using the Terminal app, 
so please enter the commands as follows.

> ## To turn indexing back ON for all volumes.
> mdutil -a -i on

> ## To confirm indexing status
> mdutil -a -s

If you want to turn on indexing for only a specific volume, 
type as follows.

> ## To Turn indexing ON for any specific volume, please do not use -a option.
> mdutil -i on /Volumes/AnyVolume

You can find out how to use the mdutil command by entering man command.

> ## To find out how to use mdutil.
> man mdutil

Warm regards

Hello,

since yesterday morning I have had the same problem as you with the CGPDF process.

I apologize for my English but it is not my native language.

I have an Apple iMac M1 with Sonoma 14.1.1.

Yesterday morning I did some cleanup on the Mac's HD and moved some files (including many pdfs) from the HD to iCloud.

Despite all the care and following your suggestions, the CGPDF process problem, followed on the Activity Monitor app continues to crash my system to the point of having to force a reboot via the power button.

The very tedious solution is that at Mac startup I have to open Activity Monitor and force the CGPDF process which burns more RAM.

How can I solve this problem?

If it persists I will take the Mac in for service.

Thank you all.

hmmm ... not really. I'm on 14.4.1 too, and CGPDFService goes on steadily. I have turned off PDF indexing, but apparently it is not enough. The processes are still there.

And it seems to insist wanting to index files on a Timemachine volume ... but Spotlight does not allow including such a volume in the privacy veto list. Catch-22 🙄

How is it possible Apple did not foresee a timeout, so to skip a PDF file taking too long to index, instead of stubbornly keep hammering it?

This is it! Finally they pushed out a corrective update! Same for me, spotlight problem is apparently solved! I'll check in the next days :-)

With Sonoma 14.5 the CGPDFService bug is back using 25% CPU.

It works manually by adding Macintosh HD to Privacy in Spotlight.

But after stopping all indexing, all files come in Others category, when Grouped by Kind.

How to solve?

By the way, I have this process "mds_stores" too taking about 20-25% of the CPU work. Does it have something to do with CGPDFservice processes?

After switching to Sonoma update, a number of applications (Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, MS Office, etc.):

1) load much slower

2) work with slowdowns

3) take a long time to save files

Good morning

Thank you for your replay.

But is the CGPDF process new to Sonoma?

Because before Saturday, Nov. 11, I never had such problems.

Working on many editorial graphics files I produce a quantity of pdf version and as I said before Saturday I never had any problems.

That said, I have noticed that removing pdf files from iCloud still triggers the CGPDF process, I still get the pop up advising me to close open programs (sometimes it advises me to restart the Finder because I don't open programs intentionally) but it doesn't crash like before.

In the meantime, I will follow your advice and let the Mac work to redirect the files and see what happens.

Have a good day.

Thank you very much for pointing his out.

Now I know the cause of the high CPU load.

What's more, I now know the CPU is actually doing something very useful.

It's just that a big shared NAS volume is a bit much for my MacBook6,1 running 14.2.1!

Same here. Every time I get enticed to try using Spotlight again, I find that the resource management of the indexing processes is terrible. It causes my system to overheat and shutdown repeatedly, interferes with regular work, etc. There really needs to be a setting that says something like "only run indexing when the lock screen is active" but also one that won't cause my system to flat-out overheat.

I have the same problem with multiple CGPDFService processes. After updating Mac Mini M2 to MacOS Sonoma 14.0. Please, solve this issue in future update.

Update: I let the CGPDFservices processes run: don't know how long they ran, however after about an hour they're not running any more. Will see if they'll come back again.

Thank you. I prefer disable spotlight indexes on my mac. U gave the manual to roll back if we want activate.

It works.