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10 points

Folder Action Dispatcher

Folder Actions Dispatcher sits in memory, and grows and grows until it consumes over 2 GB. It will typically ask for as much as 50% of the CPU as well. Then it usually crashes, but not before consuming the RAM that should be available for other applications.

I did some sleuthing, and found a com.apple.FolderActions.folders.plist file in the ~Library/Launch Agents folder. Something is changing it very frequently.

Inside, the file contains the following script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<dict>

<key>Label</key>

<string>com.apple.FolderActions.folders</string>

<key>Program</key>

<string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>osascript</string>

<string>tell application "Folder Actions Dispatcher" to tick</string>

</array>

<key>WatchPaths</key>

<array>

<string>/Applications</string>

</array>

</dict>

</plist>

I conclude that some application somewhere is causing AppleScript to watch /Applications for changes, for some reason. I don't knowwhy this would cause Folder Actions Dispatcher to grow and grow as it does.

Questions:

is there a way to find the "author" or "owner" (a program) of the script and stop it?
I cannot delete the file -- are there innocuous changes to it that might cause it to stop behaving this way?

thank you

Mac Pro

Posted on Jul 26, 2014 9:00 AM

52 replies

Mar 1, 2015 5:50 AM in response to Rjkjr

So this morning, I simply unchecked Dropbox 's Finder integration preference and FAS came back to normal. I then reselected the pref and FAS was still working. Time will tell if that fixes completely the problem.

I also found a Dropbox article talking about problems related to that pref ... but not mentionning anything about FAS though. Here is the article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/7183

I'll keep you posted, if that can be of some interest.

Mar 11, 2015 9:59 AM in response to Robert Lesperance

Hi,

I have the problem too and like others, only on some machines, not others. And I've tried most of the solutions described here with no success.

But the reason is that is crashes. So it launches, consumes a lot of CPU at startup, fails and is relaunched.

You can check if yours crashes too by launching the console and checking messages like this one:

11/03/2015 17:57:15,701 ReportCrash[4146]: Saved crash report for Folder Actions Dispatcher[4147] version 1.0.4 (1.0.4) to /Users/pascal/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Folder Actions Dispatcher_2015-03-11-175715_MacProBoulot.crash

Another solution is to launch it from the terminal with:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Folder\ Actions\ Dispatcher.app/Contents/MacOS/Folder\ Actions\ Dispatcher

I get a Segmentation fault: 11. I've looked under a debugger but was not able to find an obvious reason.

Mar 11, 2015 5:17 PM in response to pascal_meheut

Hi Pascal,

I have tried to understand the Folder Actions Script (FAS) problem for at least 6 days ... The problem is experienced by many users but the context seems to vary so much. I have been having this problem while using a OS 9 emulator called SheepShaver. After posting threads in this forum, in MacScripter and in Emulation the only possible conclusion that I came to is that there is not a Apple way of fixing the problem.

Depending on the activity, FAS generates a problem with the Folder Action Dispatcher (FAD) that begins to use increasing amout of memory until the process crashes or that you can avoid by force quitting the process in Activity Monitor. Avoiding the crash does not fix the problem. I have tried to stabilize FAD and to relaunch FAS so many times .. to conclude that there is no solution to this problem. Having also read many different threads, I can tell you that the only consensus is to forget FAS completely. It's behaviour is to flaky and unpredictable. Forget FAS ...

But there is a solution ... for launchd pros. I am not a pro, so I needed something else. I found a definitive solution that fixed completely my problem. It's called Hazel. Click here. When using Hazel, deactivate FAS. It does exactly the same thing has FAS without the FAD problem. It has a simple UI and the learning curve is short and not steep. I created an Automator workflow instead of a script. So easy.

Give it a try ... You have 14 days of free trial. You will see if that helps.

Good luck !

Mar 11, 2015 10:41 PM in response to Robert Lesperance

Thanks. However, on at least one of my computers, FAS reactivates itself at reboot and I have not found yet how to prevent it.

Mar 12, 2015 2:51 AM in response to pascal_meheut

CTRL+CLICK any folder ... and a the bottom of the menu you should see a choice regarding FAS. In the next window, you can I unselect it. It will deactivate.

Mar 12, 2015 2:56 AM in response to Robert Lesperance

Yes and as said above, it reactivates after a reboot (on my machine at least)

Apr 24, 2015 10:15 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Thanks Frank- was finally able to shut it down thanks to you. I now have my machine back!!!

Folder Action Dispatcher