iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) Felled by Small Audio Files!?

See bottom for specs. So, I've been using the last Intel iMac build with every feature maxed out – 128 GB RAM, graphics, CPU, ethernet, etc. I bought it to continue editing 4k video and such, but have switched to using it mostly for pro audio (Adobe Audition, Ableton Live, etc.). It's way over-qualified to handle these spec-wise. But, last year it slowly started dragging its heels. And last month it ground to a halt on all sorts of things.

Indexing Spotlight is definitely involved, since when it's on--and it's been turning on like all the time--it'll eat upwards of >1300% of the CPU. No, not 130%. I had a number of projects on iCloud. Most of the media files don't really change much there. Or so I've thought.

First, I upgraded from Catalina to Sonoma. Total nightmare. Realized Adobe doesn't work well with the OS on Intel. Downgrading was harrowing at best. Took 4 days. Erased and reinstalled from backup (nightmare situation where every attempt failed). Finally, using Migration Assistant on a clean volume of Catalina I got my data back. Though applications couldn't be installed, so I've had to reinstall and re-do all licenses for dozens of plugins. Total time: 9 days.

Please talk me off the ledge. Convince me this is some minor easy solvable bug and not planned obsolescence, lol.

All disks are healthy and passed utility checks. I moved all relevant files, projects, media, or otherwise related to audio work (or any Adobe app) off iCloud and onto an M2 external thunderbolt/usb-c drive. Took iCloud local from 280GB to 17GB. Seems to be much better... Though why am I paying for iCloud now?

However, I still need to shut off Spotlight for now because it goes haywire. That sets the fans blowing like crazy. Simple audio files and sequences stutter in playback and grind to a halt. Forget about recording. I know, Adobe. But it also happens with Ableton Live. And I don't think the audio is causing it, since it obviously the md_stores, mdworker and md-related processes trigger the high CPU.

Note: I've done everything in this article about 'mds_stores' and high CPU issues except the program they shill at the end combo colonic or whateves. Ran malwarebytes. Found nothing. Have had bitdefender for years. No apparent malware.

Thoughts?

Sincerely,

SPECS:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac20,2

Processor Name: 10-Core Intel Core i9

Processor Speed: 3.6 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 10

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 20 MB

Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled

Memory: 128 GB

System Firmware Version: 2020.61.1.0.0 (iBridge: 21.16.2057.0.0,0)

iMac 27″, macOS 12.7

Posted on Jan 31, 2024 3:10 PM

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Screaming Panda Author

Level 1

7 points

Posted on Feb 2, 2024 11:23 AM

TL;DR: A major fix occurred yesterday, though I still need to see if it persists and whether I can keep spotlight on.

ADMIN'S LOG:

2024-02-01 – I accidentally moved my working projects (and all docs) to iCloud yesterday to recover a few accidentally deleted Ableton project files, which failed. Then today I moved Docs back off iCloud as the timeline was getting very clunky and taking >12 s of spinning beach ball to play after I hit space bar. It triggered md_stores and Spotlight re-indexing, massive CPU, etc. But then I did this in the below article:

Restart the Spotlight Service

If you refresh mds_stores, it can fix the abnormally high CPU usage.

From: https://www.technewstoday.com/mds-stores-on-mac-high-cpu-usage/

It chilled out. Play latency time dropped to 8-10 s. Still, mad slow.

TBC, that is not how this computer worked before and it's ALL wrong.

Baseline. It's still like I bought a Ferrari and all of a sudden it can't go over 15 MPH unless I remove all the seats and sit on a cardboard box. And even then it's barely hitting 35 MPH—it used to go 200!

Then, I thought to copy and paste all clips into a new 24-bit project. No FX yet, but play is near-instant.

Made a new blank 32-bit project. Same responsiveness!?

Also, project size dipped from 2.7 GB to circa 800 MB... I've made templates, since starting new projects with 'Save As' of the old has hurt before. Maybe there's some baggage or files associated with even the templates. I'm at the end of a project... I'll have to see how this works from the start. It seems to consolidate and eliminate all files not in the timeline, which is great.

P.S. Would this one fix have saved me from burning 9 days (probably way more in added hours since) to troubleshoot a bunch of nervewracking stuff? I *think* not.

Huge headaches included: multi-day breakdown doomloop of the time machine backup restore process utterly failing like a dozen times (b/c I upgraded 'too much' and Adobe apps on Intel don't work w/ Sonoma; then, couldn't go from Sonoma back to Catalina even w/ multiple time machine backups... so, we're talkin' a jalopy of a 'time machine').

Plus, i've had to disable & tweak indexing, upgrade the operating system, completely delete and reinstall everything, and remove all media and project files from iCloud (a huge hassle! I accidentally deleted several music projects. Luckily, it's work I can replicate for the most part. but it caused anxiety and lost hours.) Also, re-linking thousands of media files has been crummy at times it can't 'auto-link' based on the pattern.

I have working project files and active recent recordings on the internal SSD (reads 50% faster than M2), but not iCloud. All other media files are on a thunderbolt M2 raid, which writes a bit faster.

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iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) Felled by Small Audio Files!?

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