Lion freezes as it can't fork new processes

Question

damianguy Author

Level 1

0 points

Lion freezes as it can't fork new processes

Been having a problem with my Mac Pro for some time, so decided to monitor and see what the cause is:

I have been seeing a lot of this in kernel.log

Feb 15 02:25:24 wamphyrii kernel[0]: proc: table is full

And Also this:

Feb 15 01:33:20 wamphyrii kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_allocate_cluster - send HI_WAT_ALERT

Feb 15 01:33:20 wamphyrii kernel[0]: macx_swapon FAILED - 12

Feb 15 01:39:24 wamphyrii kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: System is out of paging space.

So, i ran a cron job every 10 minutes to try and find out if i have something that is continuoulsy forking new processes.

At the time of my latest crash I had over 700 processes like this:

14885 322 0 1:21AM ?? 0:00.01 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FamilyControls.framework/Resources/logoutHelp er 502

99 of these:

/System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

381 of these:

0 5549 5537 0 8:00PM ?? 0:05.51 /System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.app/Contents/MacOS/ManagedClient -s

and so on.

1065 of these

0 5559 236 0 8:00PM ?? 0:00.70 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

Parental Controls Broken?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Feb 15, 2012 12:12 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Pardner

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2012 7:39 PM in response to damianguy

Good investigation. My 2011 mini has been suffering from something similar, and parental controls are enabled on one of the accounts. It would seem that it only hangs when my son logs in and leaves his account running beyond the time limit I set. I've disabled parental control for now. If it is indeed parental control that's busted, I will have to move him to Windows 7, unfortunately.

Reply

Answer 2

lytzen

Level 1

9 points

Mar 28, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Pardner

I'm have the same problem with my iMac 2008. I have parental control activted on the my kids accout. If they do not log out, and the iMac enters sleep mode before the parental control time limit runs out, I can no longer accss the iMac. It just starts running the disk like mad.

If I am quick, I can sometimes log in using ssh and kill all my kids processes. That helps. But if I am too slow, I can't even login with ssh. Sometimes I can't even ping the iMac..

Has anyone found a solution, apart from switching off parental control?

Reply

Answer 3

lytzen

Level 1

9 points

Apr 11, 2012 2:27 PM in response to lytzen

I have just filed a bug report on this issue at bugreport.apple.com

I hope they come up with something.

Reply

Answer 4

MMC_au

Level 1

4 points

Apr 21, 2012 7:40 PM in response to lytzen

lytzen, do you have the report number? I'm experiencing the same problem.

I see loginWindow and SecurityAgent repeatedly spawned:

...

0 38140 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

92 38144 1 0 8:06pm ?? 0:02.42 /System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

0 38152 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

92 38156 1 0 8:06pm ?? 0:02.46 /System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

0 38160 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

92 38164 1 0 8:06pm ?? 0:02.05 /System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

0 38172 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

92 38176 1 0 8:06pm ?? 0:02.02 /System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

0 38180 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

92 38184 1 0 8:06pm ?? 0:02.14 /System/Library/CoreServices/SecurityAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/SecurityAgent

0 38192 123 0 8:06pm ?? 0:00.35 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow

...

(Many more of these).

I didn't have the other ones spawning.

I have MacMini 2009, Lion and Parental Controls on my Kid's account. Turning Parental Controls off stops this happening.

Reply

Answer 5

lytzen

Level 1

9 points

Apr 22, 2012 1:59 AM in response to MMC_au

My original Bug id is: 11230235

However, Apple wrote back to me, saying that it has been identified as a known issue which is already being investigated, and that they have filed my bug report under the origial which is: 10036352

I also sometimes have these Loginwindow and SecurityAgent spawing. It is not in by bug report though.

I have "solve" this problem by having my kids log out, every time the leave the mac. They don't allways remember though..

Reply

Answer 6

acyclone

Level 1

13 points

May 20, 2012 4:33 AM in response to damianguy

I have the same problem, but it seems intermittent (though it usually does freeze). I've seen at least twice where it lets us try to log in and gives us the "extend time" dialogue box (as it should). Hope to hear an answer from Apple.

Reply

Answer 7

MMC_au

Level 1

4 points

May 20, 2012 4:49 AM in response to acyclone

10.7.4 doesn't fix it :-(

Reply

Answer 8

gujamin

Level 4

1,051 points

Aug 28, 2012 7:24 AM in response to MMC_au

Having the same issue on a newer Mac Mini, no parental controls set, Mountain Lion 10.8.1

Reply

Answer 9

dstyley

Level 1

10 points

Dec 5, 2012 8:21 PM in response to damianguy

Any update on this. I'm having this exact problem on an iMac with 10.7.5 installed. Very annoying....

Reply

Answer 10

va3jme

Level 1

4 points

Apr 2, 2013 9:24 PM in response to damianguy

Has anyone resolved this? I don't have parental controls on, but every couple of days I get the proc table is full messages, and I need to reboot. 10.8.3 here

Reply

Answer 11

Aug 16, 2013 10:25 AM in response to damianguy

In addition to being caused by parental controls, this problem (in 10.7 and 10.8) can also be caused by third-party network control and security software, with one particularly bad example being the third-party browser add-on called Ghostery. Ghostery 5.0.1 and earlier will cause this problem; it's fixed in 5.0.2 and later.

Reply