After the 26.5.1 update, my Mac’s started to overheat: usually first thing in the morning, after initial boot up.
Checking Activity Monitor, yesterday?
I saw that the corespotlightd process was hogging resources.
So used the solution, here, to correct it.
For The rest of the day, at least.
This morning?
I’m still getting overheating.
How do I stop this?
On a long term basis?
Mac mini, macOS 26.5
Paul Downie wrote:
I saw that the corespotlightd process was hogging resources.
Prevent Spotlight from searching the external Media drive.
see > Prevent Spotlight searches in specific folders or disks on Mac - Apple Support
It seems to be happening when Time Machine is active: my machine’s main drive, and my external media storage drive, are both backed up to a separate external drive.
Exclude the external Media drive from the TM backups.
see > Exclude files from a Time Machine backup on Mac - Apple Support
Basically only allow Spotlight to Index the Macintosh HD and Time Machine to backup the Macintosh HD.
Then Restart the Mac mini and test it for a day or two.
Paul Downie wrote:
I saw that the corespotlightd process was hogging resources.
Prevent Spotlight from searching the external Media drive.
see > Prevent Spotlight searches in specific folders or disks on Mac - Apple Support
It seems to be happening when Time Machine is active: my machine’s main drive, and my external media storage drive, are both backed up to a separate external drive.
Exclude the external Media drive from the TM backups.
see > Exclude files from a Time Machine backup on Mac - Apple Support
Basically only allow Spotlight to Index the Macintosh HD and Time Machine to backup the Macintosh HD.
Then Restart the Mac mini and test it for a day or two.
If Spotlight must index two HUGE external drives, that could well account for it. Once, you could tell Spotlight NOT to index a Time Machine drive but that is no longer possible since Tahoe. [Apple ref: Prevent Spotlight searches in specific folders or disks on Mac - Apple Support }
Still, you can exclude a non-Time Machine external drive.
Apple has a weird strategy for cooling all Macs.
The computer is allowed to get hotter and hotter until just before the point of destruction the fans kick in at full blast. I have observed this in every eMac, iMac and mini I have owned plus others have corroborated my findings with their own Macs.
Why Apple does it is a mystery but 2 things come to mind . . . maybe they want the computer to be silent most of the time or more sinisterly perhaps they want to shorten their lives to ensure you will soon need a new one.
By using MacsFanControl you can ensure that any heat build up is gradual and the danger levels are never reached.
I have just checked out your temperature of 87°C which equates to 188°F!
Mine never reaches that sort of temperature unless I am doing something extremely intensive.
You are concerned about Spotlight.
I turned mine off a couple of years ago when I discovered it was writing nearly 100 GB of data daily, thus reducing the life of my drive dramatically.
The weird thing is that although Activity Monitor/Disk showed the data being written, there was no trace of it on the SSD . . . almost as though it was being erased as soon as it was written.
So I turned off Spotlight in System Settings.
To do this I deselected everything in Spotlight and then scrolled down to the bottom right and clicked on "Search Privacy . . . " when a window will open.
You then need to add every drive (including the internal) that you have connected to the Mac so that Spotlight will never try to index them.
Allan Jones wrote:
If Spotlight must index two HUGE external drives, that could well account for it. Once, you could tell Spotlight NOT to index a Time Machine drive but that is no longer possible since Tahoe. [Apple ref: Prevent Spotlight searches in specific folders or disks on Mac - Apple Support }
Still, you can exclude a non-Time Machine external drive.
Allan, I’ve removed the 12 terabyte media storage drive from Time Machine.
And I’ve also excluded it from Spotlight, under Tahoe.
The ability to do that is in Settings>Spotlight, and can be done by pressing the ‘Search Privacy’ button at The bottom of the panels.
It’s not helped, much …
[Edited by Moderator]
For a start turn off Spotlight in System settings. You should be able to live without it and there are several free third party apps which can do the job better.
I don't use TimeMachine as it is more trouble than it's worth. Simply manually copy anything that is vital. TM copies everything . . . mainly rubbish . . . over and over again.
Regarding the overheating . . . download the free version of MacsFanControl and configure it to start increasing fan speeds at say 130°F reaching a maximum at around 180°F. That will keep your machine running really cool.
Long shot: Disconnect the WD MyBook and test for a while without it.
I used a MyBook on a older iMac to which I had fitted a probe reporting the iMac's exhaust air temperature. With the MyBook connected, in addition to constant stalls in use, I saw the exhaust air temps running 10°C higher than when it was not connected. 10C at the exhaust slot was probably about 50-60% of the component heat increase.
It was not very good enclosure. "Pretty is as pretty does," as my sainted mom used to say.
I opened the MyBook enclosure (interesting chore) and removed the drive inside it. I put the bare drive drive in an OWC enclosure, then used Disk Utility to remove WDs odd-ball formatting and reformat to Apple standards. Mischief managed. The enclosure was recycled long ago; years later, the HDD lives on in its new home.
Paul Downie wrote:
I’ve Started a new thread, here: Where do I move my music library to?
As per your EtreCheckPro report, it looks like the Mac Studio is preforming properly and your large Music Library is on an external drive that is formatted correctly.
At this point I second Ian's suggestion about using MacFanControl to monitor Mac Studio's temperature and use the Sensor-Based Fan Control to help keep the temperature in check.
If you must use TM set it to backup something like every day rather than every hour.
Cheers, Ian.
I *have* managed to stop backing up my media storage drive to Time Machine: that seems to have helped, for now.
stop using anti virus apps or cleaning apps they take more computer memory space hence make your make like a fireplace
Post the Etrecheck data, please.
Turn off Spotlight as I suggested and see whether it improves matters.
You will never know unless you try. There's nothing to lose.
It won't take you a minute!
Given what everyone’s said, and what I’ve seen, today?
The overheating issue is happening when I open Final Cut Pro, and it accesses my music library.
I got overheating as the app was accessing my music library: which is on an external drive, the drive that Spotlight’s been having difficulties indexing.
I’m assuming I could prevent this by moving the music library back onto my main internal drive.
Would I be right in saying that?
My music is currently in External Drive/iTunes/iTunes Media/Music/Music/Media/Music
Where do I move it to? Given there’s no equivalent in /Users/Home Folder/Music … ?
Time Machine doesn’t copy everything, it uses Spotlight and the file-change data to only copy what has changed.
If Spotlight search is somehow corrupted or otherwise malfunctioning, then Time Machine will quite possibly also malfunction.
If Time Machine isn’t routinely connected to its backup (directly or wirelessly), then it can need to copy a whole pile of data, or can rebuild the whole thing, and it will use local.disk storage to try to provide some redundancy using what it calls Snapshots.
As for this thread, FCP is routinely crashing, and that looks like a good culprit for the overheating, and for the Spotlight issues.
How can I stop my Mac overheating?
