Plane Wryter

Q: distnoted CPU Runaway...

Mavens,

 

On Thursday, 15 Oct 2015, I updated Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

 

  • Not sure if this update is related to a new problem in El Capitan (10.11), or not.

 

Since the update, I've had to force shutdown and reboot my iMac (27-inch) ~4 times. On three occasions the system was so locked up, Activity Monitor didn't respond. A few moments ago (the fourth occurrence), I was able to determine that disnoted is the culprit.

 

Any ideas as to how to remedy this issue?

 

Thanks!

 

Plane Wryter

OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Oct 18, 2015 1:29 PM

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Q: distnoted CPU Runaway...

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  • by Ondray Wells Jr.,

    Ondray Wells Jr. Ondray Wells Jr. May 10, 2016 1:31 PM in response to Plane Wryter
    Level 2 (258 points)
    May 10, 2016 1:31 PM in response to Plane Wryter

    I've noticed this as well in OS X 10.11.4. Seems to occur every day or so. Force quitting the DISTNOTED process (i.e. Distributed Notification Services) tied to my login account returns things to normal. Unfortunately, this breaks the hot corner functionality I use to invoke my password protected screensaver so I end up having to logout and then login (or reboot) in order to get everything working again. Outside of system updates or the once in a blue moon total system lockup this is the only reason I have to reboot my machine. Given the frequency that this occurs for no discernible rhyme or reason it's very frustrating to say the least.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris May 10, 2016 7:46 PM in response to Ondray Wells Jr.
    Level 6 (19,633 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 10, 2016 7:46 PM in response to Ondray Wells Jr.

    Unfortunately, this breaks the hot corner functionality I use to invoke my password protected screensaver so

    Try Command-Control-Eject, or if you do not have an eject key Command-Control-Power.  This should just turn your screen off, and Security should kick in requiring your password to get back in (assuming you have require password enable).

  • by timcnelms,

    timcnelms timcnelms May 16, 2016 12:23 PM in response to Plane Wryter
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 16, 2016 12:23 PM in response to Plane Wryter

    I have experienced this problem on MBP Retina 13" late 2012 29 Core i7 El Captian 10.11.4. 4 lockups today with distnote consuming 100% CPU. Very frustrating although after 5 minutes the system unfreezes. Clearly an Apple issue but since I do not have a current support contract I am contributing here in the hope that Apple will listen or a community response will come to the rescue.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris May 16, 2016 2:04 PM in response to timcnelms
    Level 6 (19,633 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 16, 2016 2:04 PM in response to timcnelms

    ...in the hope that Apple will listen...

    That does not happen in this forum.  This is strictly user-to-user

     

    You can use feedback or file a bug report

    BugReporter

    <http://bugreporter.apple.com>

     

    Free ADC (Apple Developer Connection) account needed for BugReporter.

    Anyone can get a free account at:

    <https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action>

     

    And/Or

     

     

  • by AhharrrMeHearties,

    AhharrrMeHearties AhharrrMeHearties May 25, 2016 4:55 AM in response to BobHarris
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 25, 2016 4:55 AM in response to BobHarris

    Folks,

    Anyone have any joy solving this issue? My story and next steps below.

     

    I've been having the runaway disunited problem for a couple of months. I've been through all the hoops (OS reinstall, step by step OS re-install etc). After that, I slowly removed, reinstalled all major apps like Skype. I wiped and reconnected iCal and Mail too.

     

    Nothing seemed to work.

     

    In a last step, I've had to start contemplating using other apps like Outlook (for cal and mail), Safari or Firefox instead of Chrome etc

     

    So far, I've migrated to Safari only and the signs are good. Running 48 hours now and not a single runaway Disnoted process. Still using Mail and iCal.

     

    For the record, in Chrome I was using these extensions:

    App Launcher for Drive (Google)

    Cisco Webex

    Dropbox for Gmail

    Google Doc Offline

    Nimbus Screenshot

    Rapportive

     

    Assuming next few days continue well, my next step is to move back to Chrome and disable the extensions one by one.

     

    Let me know if this resonates with any of you.

  • by Michael Warhurst,

    Michael Warhurst Michael Warhurst May 25, 2016 5:48 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties
    Level 1 (9 points)
    May 25, 2016 5:48 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties

    I also have been having this problem in the last couple of months, including just now, running 10.11.5 on a mid-2014 Retina MacBook Pro 13".

    I've been trying to identify what creates this problem, and have sometimes thought that Skype was involved, but I've just had the problem without Skype being loaded.

    The symptoms are that one application (e.g. word) freezes (spinning CD), then this spreads to others (tweetbot then excel today). I was running activity monitor and distnotd had gone to 355%; I force quit  it & everything went back to normal, including the force quit I'd earlier done on Excel & Tweetbot actually happening.

    I have another Mac - a Mac Mini - which is also regularly crashing on its password screen, so I don't know if this is due to the same problem as I have to force restart it. One strange feature of the console log after the force re-start is that I see the line on booting up is following by the console messages from the hours earlier when (presumably) the machine was somewhat crashed. This implies that the crash is preventing the log from updating.

  • by AhharrrMeHearties,

    AhharrrMeHearties AhharrrMeHearties May 26, 2016 3:35 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 26, 2016 3:35 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties

    update, happened today, was up to 72 hours without incident. Caught it and killed "Disnoted"  process.

     

    So it's not Chrome.

     

    Rich

  • by timcnelms,

    timcnelms timcnelms May 26, 2016 3:39 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 26, 2016 3:39 AM in response to AhharrrMeHearties

    Agreed. Installed update MacOS 10.11.5 and the situation is much improved. Wish I knew exactly why...

  • by aymiphone,

    aymiphone aymiphone May 29, 2016 12:23 PM in response to timcnelms
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 29, 2016 12:23 PM in response to timcnelms

    I haven't yet installed 10.11.5, but after being VERY frustrated about the same issue (MBP, Retina 13 inch, early 2015, 10.11.4), I found this webpage:

     

    http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/111197/runaway-distnoted-process

     

    and, reading down the page, installed a shell script and a crontab entry which checks every minute to see is the distnoted process is running amok, and then kills the distnoted process when it is using >100% CPU time. It is a shame that no one from Apple has noted this bug. I will upgrade to 10.11.5 and see what happens...

  • by drowsychicken,

    drowsychicken drowsychicken Jun 5, 2016 5:05 PM in response to aymiphone
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 5, 2016 5:05 PM in response to aymiphone

    I'm having the same issue and installing 10.11.5 did not fix the issue.

  • by oktan,

    oktan oktan Jun 9, 2016 5:01 AM in response to Plane Wryter
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 9, 2016 5:01 AM in response to Plane Wryter

    Hi and good day,

     

     

    Same annoying problem here since OS 10.11.4 and also with ~ .5

     

    Apple support can't help. Happens when you least need it. I agree with most of the folks' observations. Thanks for the sudo killall disunited trick.

     

    Others have written a script to kill it regularly. (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/111197/runaway-distnoted-process/133165 #133165)

     

    The way it looks here on this machine:

     

    liv-isl.in/_osx100


    Really hope Apple can fix this soon!

     

    /

    with best regards,

    Omar K N

    Stockholm, Sweden

  • by i.lewis.au,

    i.lewis.au i.lewis.au Jun 9, 2016 10:07 PM in response to Plane Wryter
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 9, 2016 10:07 PM in response to Plane Wryter

    I'm having the same issue since the last update.  I've had to use the power button 3 or 4 times as the UI becomes completely unresponsive.  As others have noted, sometimes the situation recovers after a few minutes.  I've now found that I can SSH to my MBAir from another host (or my phone) and request a reboot - which at least makes the shutdown somewhat cleaner. 

  • by Michael Warhurst,

    Michael Warhurst Michael Warhurst Jul 3, 2016 10:26 AM in response to i.lewis.au
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 3, 2016 10:26 AM in response to i.lewis.au

    I can confirm, that I'm still getting this problem - to an extent - with the latest 10.11.6 Beta (15G24b).

    There may be a change though, in that I got the spinning pizza when right clicking with one app (e.g. Things), force quit it from activity monitor, then noticed that it had spread to tweetbot. I then searched for distnoted & force-quite the process that had the longer overall cpu time (which was the one for my user), even though it was hardly using any CPU %. Immediately tweetbot re-activated & Things re-opened.

     

    My conclusion: distnoted may be jamming up your machine even if it isn't using a lot of CPU time. It's also possible that the latest 10.11.6 beta reduces processor usage by distnoted without resolving its ability to crash your machine

  • by enthusuast,

    enthusuast enthusuast Jul 6, 2016 5:01 AM in response to Plane Wryter
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Jul 6, 2016 5:01 AM in response to Plane Wryter

    Hi,

     

    MacBook Pro 2015, El Capitan 10.11.5 + Latest updates.

     

    Sympton is distnoted running +700% CPU load. GUI unresponsive. (Normally, Lync for Mac, Outlook 2016, Safari, Word 2016, Calendar.app and Acrobat reader running.

     

    How do i get around this:

     

    1. From device that can run ssh terminal connection to my MacBook run top command:

    top -o cpu -O +rsize -s 5 -n 20

    2. And wait top to list cpu hogs

    3. Remember PID number for distnoted

    4. Press ctrl+C

    5. Run command (Replace PID with distnoted PID number from top)

    sudo kill -9 PID

    6. distnoted has been stopped

  • by Michael Warhurst,

    Michael Warhurst Michael Warhurst Jul 6, 2016 6:14 AM in response to Michael Warhurst
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jul 6, 2016 6:14 AM in response to Michael Warhurst

    To update on my previous post, I'm still getting slow-downs every day or two, which can be cured by force-quitting my user's distnotd process, even if it is using v little CPU %. I'm still using 10.11.6 Beta (15G24b)

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