QTKitServer Safari Web Content

I elimated the appearance of QTKitServer in Activity Monitor by disabling the extension ClickToFlash. I disabled it a week ago and haven't seen any occurences of QTKitServer in Activity Monitor since.

I'm now using the Safari Privacy feature that allows one to mangage website settings to block adobe Flash Player. (Preferences -> Security -> Manage Website Settings...) Here's a description of how to use this feature:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57609106-263/manage-plug-ins-on-a-per-site- basis-in-safari-7/

According to the article, this feature is new to Mavericks Safari version 7.

GrandGizmo wrote:

That doesn't solve the problem for many people. I don't even have the ClickToFlash extension, and I still get QTKitServer not responding processes in Activity monitor. Also, these QTKitServer not responding processes do NOT only appear in Safari web content, but they have appeared in Mail.app for me, too. However, the QTKitServer associated with Mail.app has only appeared once for me. Most of the time, QTKitServer is not responding with Safari web content. Other people have had QTKitServer not responding processes associated with other applications as well.

Try uninstalling things like Perian, Flip4Mac and Silverlight. You will need to download their uninstaller packages (usually come with the installer package) from the respective web pages.

They seem to still be using Quicktime for their component support, while Apple have shifted away from Quicktime components to CoreMedia components for their A/V support.

I have just done a sample process on the QTkitserver loop and it shows three components trying to open ports to QTkitserver. Elgato EyeTV, Perian and Flip4Mac.

If you get any more QTkitserver loops, run a sample process and any component trying to connect to QTkitserver will show up. I would then remove/uninstall any plugin components related to those apps, or look for an update.

I believe this has happened because Apple have moved away from using QuickTime as their backend A/V component support and gone to using CoreMedia instead. Somewhere along the way, certain background processes continue to look to QTkitserver to perform a process, that it is no longer supported under Mavericks, hence the non responsive action from QTkitserver.

I originally thought that Perian & Flip4Mac, and other components that used QuickTime support, were the issue, because they all work across the system to provide support for unsupported media within applications like Safari, iPhoto and Aperture, as well as system services like quicklook, and use QuickTime to support their plugins. This is as close as I've been able to come to pinpointing the issue, but I'm certain it stems from a process that has been made redundant by Mavericks using CoreMedia to support A/V media in the backend.

My only suggestion is to remove things like Perian, Flip4Mac and other plugins that use A/V component support from the system and applications like iPhoto, iMovie and other third party media editing apps, for the time being, until updates are pushed out to fix things.

Just to let you know, for me the culprit was "ClickToFlash"-Extension even with it's currently latest version 2.9.1.

This is on Mavericks with 10.9.1 installed.

Maybe the plugin's flash-blocking works in a way that it causes the QTKitServer to hang.

I removed the plugin and Safari works alright now, haven't had problems anymore after that.

Check /Library/Internet Plug-Ins

If you see: DefaultBrowser.plug-in In the Internet Plug-Ins folder, move it to the Trash.

Quit and relaunch Safari and the Activity Monitor > CPU.

See if you still see the Safari Web Content not responding in red.

woowooz, I hate to bust your bubble, but after updating to 10.9.1 Mavericks last night, I saw a QTKitServer hang in Activity Monitor once again. However, Apple told me I should remove Flip 4 Mac WMV.Plugin.plugin and Silverlight.plugin from Internet Plug-ins, so I went ahead and did that. So far, no QTKitServer not responding has shown up in Activity monitor. So, I am just going to leave it like this, but if this doesn't work, I'm going to put the plug-ins back in the Internet Plug-ins folder.

starmatgeorge, I did what AppleCare told me to do: I removed Flip 4 Mac.Plugin.plugin and Silverlight. So far, I've had to issues with QtKitServer Safari Web Content not responding in Activity Monitor. But, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll let you know if it happens again. Good luck! 🙂

Details are important, and if someone cannot be understood, how can anyone help if statements are unclear, filled with spelling errors and uses nonsensical jargon?

Did you read any of his previous posts? Perhaps you should first, to gain some context. It helps nobody if all one can do is make nonsensical, unhelpful, disparaging remarks, and after making many (reasonable) requests for some sort of data to support his crazy claims, he never provided anything, not once. Which leads me to think this person did not come here for answers, just to vent his bile towards Apple, for whatever reason. But hey, go right ahead if you want these forums to be hijacked by trolls like him. People like me will just leave, if thats what you want. His rant was totally misleading to those who ARE looking for answers and nothing but unhelpful and wastes peoples time.

Others here do give a **** and give up their time to provide answers, solutions, to help people with questions. I spent the most part of yesterday replicating this problem, scouring through data for hours and reading other forum posts, to pinpoint to source of this issue. So you think I should entertain unhelpful fools who only wish to behave like children then? I have neither the time or the patience. Also his posts breached the terms of use of these forums, and I think some may have been removed. That says a lot, don't you think?

In reference to the original problem, it looks like the issue stems from an redundant background process that causes a loop creating the QTkitserver non response issue. You have Flip4Mac installed, so perhaps uninstalling that, and Perian, if you have it, may help. The issue doesn't create any problems for the CPU or memory, so it can be ignored until the issue has been addressed by Apple.

<Edited By Host>

Apple will never openly discuss any issues like bugs or hardware, unless it is an systemic issue, across the board and reported widely.

If you haven't already made a report about your issues through the Apple feedback pages, I would suggest that you do.

Early generation Mac Minis had cooling issues as the heat syncs were located right next to the heat sensors, I know, I had one myself. A little bit of re-engineering on my part fixed the problem. They also had wifi antenna problems because of its location.

As for MacBooks, I have always advised my clients to never ever place them on flat hard surfaces whilst doing CPU intensive work, like movie editing, photoshoping, encoding, etc. One client burnt out his motherboard on his MacBook Air within 2 years of purchase as all he did was video encoding. When he showed me where he kept his MacBook, it was obvious why. Motherboards will cook, no matter what computer you use, be they Mac or PC, if simple precautions are not taken, it is inevitable. This is why Apple don't call their laptops, laptops. Propping up the back at least an inch, is enough to avoid cooking your motherboard. It is physics, not a design flaw.

I've not had an issue with my 4 year old MacBook pro, except for swapping out bigger HD, and a 12 year old iMac that hasn't skipped a beat. I believe if you treat them right, they will repay the favour.

On other forums, regarding this issue, software engineers believe that it a latency issue of redundant processes left behind when Mavericks was installed. It points to the fact that Apple have shifted their A/V component support from Quicktime to CoreMedia. There's something going on there, but nobody has been able to pinpoint it. This is why I suggested removing any plugin components that rely on quicktime to handle A/V support. Perian certainly did, as did the previous version of Flip4Mac.

If you use iMovie then check your user library for older plugins from older version of iMovie, and or third party ad-ons. Until then, we just have to wait it out for a fix, but I assure you, there's plenty trying to pinpoint this issue.

The culprit is not Clicktoflash for everyone. I don't even have any extensions installed, and I still have QTKitServer not responding every so often in Activity monitor. I've also heard of people wiping their whole hard drive, reinstalling Mavericks and still having the problem. This problem also is not only associated with Safari Web Content. It occurs in other applications as well. It's got to be a bug in Mavericks.

Yep, seems to be non-extension related. I fooled around a bit with it and seems it's triggered by certain websites which I did not visit during testing.

I found one website which seems to trigger this often for some reason, Helsingin Sanomat - newspaper 😀

If I open safari to http://www.hs.fi/ it will immediately launch QTKitServer process, this does not happen with other web sites though what I've used regularily so seems I missed the effect.

If HS page is open for couple of minutes, the QTKitServer process will go red and go to "Not Responding" state.

This bug seems to have been resolved in 10.9.2.

You can go to your user library and remove the plugins yourself. User/Library/Quicktime

And System plugins via Library/Quicktime

If you have Perian or Flip4Mac installed, that might explain why Apple Mail was trying to connect to QTkitserver. Those apps would be looking to preview video inside an email.

Update. If you have Perian installed it can be removed from the Perian preference pane in system preferences.

And Flip4Mac provide an uninstaller package in Applications/Flip4Mac folder.

The problem seems to stem from the user Library, so if you did a clean install and reinstalled from a backup, all the redundant processes return. Others have mention the QTkitserver not responding issue does not appear when logged in as root user. I haven't tested if it presents under a new user account.

If it isn't causing you any CPU issues, then ignore it. It has been recognised by Apple engineers, and we can hope a fix is coming down the pipeline.

In my case it isn't a Safari issue - I've been noticing my QTkitserver freezes since updating to Mavericks. Turns out in my case it was that I was using the new iPhoto/iCloud features of allowing family to upload their photos/videos to my shared photo streams. Prior to Mavericks this wasn't an allowed feature... in fact sharing videos is new to iPhoto 9.5.1

Today I removed all videos posted to my photo streams - since QT is a video-based process - and the QTkitserver has stopped freezing up.

My issue was that every time I opened iPhoto it would hang once it started the process of attempting to update iCloud photostreams. IPhoto itself would beachball out, and Activity Monitor would show both iPhoto and QTkitserver as red.

The same held true with Aperture, which makes sense since it shares the exact same library as iPhoto.

I know this isn't a Safari-based issue in my case, but perhaps it can help to lead you on your way to discovering the cause of why it also happens in Safari as well as other applications.