Constant high CPU after Security Update today

I am assuming from this thread that the software update version was fine, and no manual download and install is needed of Security Update 2011-003 (since we determined the MRT app was a shortlived thing).

If I remember correctly the Font update did require a restart, which would explain why you saw that one was needed (for the font update).

Thanks for confirming and researching what you saw.

Intego is still reporting some kind of bug with the preference panel, however.

Thank you so much ikovacev ... your Terminal command works -

"sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mrt.plist"

I have no idea why, but since I installed the latest Apple security update on BOTH of my MacBook Pro and iMac (both running OS X 10.6.7), CPU utlization has been fluctuating with fan-on between 40% and 90% constantly - I have never seen this before. This type of 'upgrade' reminds me so much of the ill-fated Windows security releases and why I switched over to Mac in the first place! I hope this isn't typcial.

Until I read something official from Apple, I will continue to run ikovacev's Terminal command - thank you!

Greg

Also kudos to dahtah - once I appled ikovacev's sudo unload command, I removed this file, restarted and all is back to normal - /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mrt.plist

No MRT process is now running. CPU usage is back to normal, 5-8% at rest on both my MacBook Pro and iMac. Thank you both.

Greg

If the mrt processes do disappear from Activity Monitor's list of processes, I think it is safe to assume that the update went smoothly. If not, it may well indicate a local problem with the file system or something similar on the affected Macs.

Regarding my confirmation & research, I should have done that before posting inaccurate info in the first place. I'm thankful that others are around to goad me into rechecking things & not relying so heavily on my aging memory. Aging is no fun but it beats the alternative. 😉

Speaking of rechecking, I cannot (so far) reproduce the bug Intego mentions. Has anyone else been able to do so?

This is not a recommended approach to dealing with this problem. Instead, learn how to use the launchctl utility to either stop or unload the named launch process.

"Thanks for confirming and researching what you saw."

I did mean that as a compliment....

I am really glad you dug into what you were seeing about the restart being needed. I could have easily been wrong too..

Yep also having similar problems here. Installed the update and ever since my MacBook Pro 2.66 has been locking up every 5 to 10 seconds. Tried all the usual disk permissions, verified disk etc. to no avail. I have indicators for disk usage and network activity and they were not corresponding with the lockups. Then I remembered something similar happening with an Apple 'Security' update a while back, so came back to this forum to, lo and behold, find a bunch of people with similar issues...

So, it's a Malware Removal Tool probably causing the trouble is it? Reminds me of how Norton Antivirus used to sometimes cause more problems with people's pcs than help. Being 'protected' is not always what we require, so some of these updates should be more clear about what exactly they are up to with our systems. I would rather run my mac sin over bearing antivirus programs (I do use ClamAV however) than deal with the Sony Vaio next to me that is crippled by database updates, system scans and checking every byte of data that comes over the internet (just in case!) Windows Defender can be a pain like this too..

So advice to the users please, so they can make informed choices about whether they want to overload their system processes with this kind of stuff, and better labelling on updates (with built in decent descriptions, not just links to web pages) pls!

I await the fix as I'm ****** if I'm spending another day backing everything up and reinstalling then updating everything, as I've just had to do this with a Windows pc...

Interz, no need to wait and suffer, the solution (for me) took less than 10 seconds. Take a read of the thread before your post, it's a two-step process.

Open Utilities/Terminal, run the command to unload the process:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mrt.plist

Open Finder, select the file and Move to Trash:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mrt.plist

Restart. Worked for me.

Greg

Thanks Greg, that appears to have worked! Seems Apple in their infinite wisdom deemed this MRT tool to be more important than the free running of our systems, a presumption too often made by security conscious types. I will be reading all the security 'update' readmes before installing from now on!

Interz wrote:

I will be reading all the security 'update' readmes before installing from now on!

Perhaps Apple should rename "Read me" files to "No, really -- we aren't kidding. Read Me!" 😁

Topher Kessler posted this article yesterday on CNet/MacFixIt with a few recommendations for getting it to work properly or, as a last resort, disabling it in a similar manner to what has been suggested here.

His bottom line:

"If you decide to remove MRT without allowing it to complete its routine, be sure your system does not have any malware on it. If you have a third-party malware scanner that has been updated to identify these new malware threats, then be sure to use that to scan your system, or manually check for any installed malware on your system...."

R C-R wrote:

Perhaps Apple should rename "Read me" files to "No, really -- we aren't kidding. Read Me!" 😁

Asked for that I suppose! 😊 You have to be so careful what you say in these forums... Mind you it doesn't really even say 'readme' it usually says something along the lines of 'for more information about this security update go to ...'

My earlier point was that most people are far too busy (or impatient) to bother reading up on the machinations of potential vulnerabilities within pdfs (or whatever). Do You read all these? Does anyone read all those SLAs? So we have to Trust Apple to update our systems appropriately and not to go breaking them or installing the inverse equivalent of malware that does the same..

Besides better be careful as many 'readme' files are actually the ones infected with malware in the pc sphere! 😉

Interz wrote:

So we have to Trust Apple to update our systems appropriately and not to go breaking them or installing the inverse equivalent of malware that does the same..

No Mac is immune to preexisting issues that can cause problems with an update. Applying an OS update is a delicate procedure because the existing OS is updating itself. It is sometimes compared to modifying an airplane while it is in flight or performing brain surgery on yourself. One bad file used for the update procedure can cause unexpected results, as can third party additions that modify the OS in ways Apple can't anticipate.

Of course, it is always possible that the problem is in the update itself, but when it is we expect large numbers of users to be affected. If it is something that affects only certain models, we expect fewer reports but the numbers still should be significant since there are many thousands of each model in use.

Since the reports of this issue are not widespread, it is highly unlikely that there is anything wrong with the update that would affect all users. It may be that there is an issue that affects certain MacBookPro models, but without clear info about that we can only guess about that.

You can help by supplying the model ID of your MBP. To get it, open System Profiler. The second line will display a model identifier like "MacBookPro7,1." It is also helpful to list any third party add-ons you might be using that modify the OS. Occasionally, update problems have been traced to that sort of thing.

Reading through this thread it does seem to be affecting the MacBook Pro (maybe older models like mine) more than others. Here are my details, hope it can help:

Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz

3rd party addons could include Growl, Disk LED, Dropbox and Little Snitch amongst other apps..

Don't think it's specific to a model. More than likely, as you suggested, it's probably due to some specific configuration, migration, upgrade, ????.

Mine for example was affected:

Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2

Processor Name: Intel Core i5

Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz

But my 2nd MacBook Pro is the same model as you have and it had no issues, but it's also pretty out of box configuration. I also have a MacBook that experienced no issue. All with various 3rd party software installed. To bad there wasn't some sort of crash report that could be looked at to see why it was crashing continuous.