ionodecache: CPU >100% on Sierra

I have this issue too. I upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra yesterday, and I thought it was indexing/caching something. But after 24h it continue very high on CPU usage and the fans are boosting non-stop. Googling doesn't help. I even rebooted the Mac twice but the process still persistent.

I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)

Hi Markus

This should be a normal part of the overall indexing that Sierra is doing. It will be going through various processing setting up in the background while this goes on. Leave it be.

100% only means 1 core is being used. 4 cores computers could show 400% (more with hyper threading). This is background, leave your computer plugged in while this is going on. It will pause if batteries get low. Resume later, so interrupting it will only make the process longer.

Try to keep your computer cool by making sure air can circulate all around and under the case. Add a fan if needed.

Got a big Photos library? Be prepared to be really worried.

Might take a couple of days to finish everything. Chill, don't worry be 🙂

Hope this helps, Greg

Oddly the Activity Monitor shows no disk usage for this process.

Ok, I found the root cause: I had a running process called flexihubd. This process belongs to a solution which allows one to share USB devices with remote computers (http://www.flexihub.com/).

That process is supported by 3 kexts:

• com.eltima.kext.vusb
• com.eltima.kext.elogger
• com.eltima.kext.vic

Those kexts have dependencies with I/O Kit registry, with the following class entries:

• EltimaVirtualUSBRoot
• EltimaPCIBridgeDevice
• EltimaPCIBridge
• EltimaVirtualInterruptController

So, I found that ionodecache is not related with inodes, but instead with IO devices (PCI, ...). It outputs (caches) a device tree to a json file at /var/db/ionodecache.json.

That being said, I managed to try update the software, when I noticed that the latest version is only compatible with OS X 10.9-10.11. Well... trashing the app didn't uninstall the daemon nor the kernel extensions, so I disabled it from launchd.

Now, I ionodecache only took 52 seconds of CPU Time in 7 hours of uptime 🙂 fans are sleeping... shhh!

Hope it helps!

Ruben P.

Hey Ruben

Good catch, thanks for updating your find.

Appreciate the in depth technical report. Helps all

Sorry if I led you astray

Happy Computing, Greg

Hi Ruben,

When I can look for those files? I had some like that called USB Gate from Eltima, same remote, but I have uninstalled it.

I've searched my Mac for any file named "Eltima" but no success.

How I can disable a daemon from preventing it to start up?

Thanks

Thanks Ruben!

Here was the same problem... I removed out USB Network Gate and my MAC is normal now...

You can follow these steps to uninstall USB Network Gate...

http://wiki.eltima.com/user-guides/usb-mac/oem.html

Sincerely,

Elysio

Works like a charm to me too.

Thumbs up!

Thanks.

Hi Ruben,

You save me !!! Thank you very much!

By the way, as a embedded software engineer, I'm curious about the root cause of this bugs.

Once again, thank you very much.

Best regards,

Luck Hoang

Apologize for my absence, I've been offline for the past two weeks. I'm glad I've been able to help you all.

From the Eltima's support team: "To completely uninstall Flexihub from your Mac, you should open the GUI and select 'Uninstall Flexihub...'". Maybe it works the same way with USB Network Gate.

Anyhow, i0n1ca, if you just want to stop the daemon from running without uninstalling the product, you can use launchctl command to do so, or use a great app called LaunchControl. In my case I found a Global Daemon called com.eltima.flexihub.daemon.

In the meantime, Eltima updated the products to add preliminary support for macOS 10.12 Sierra and is now aware of this issue http://blog.eltima.com/2016/09/flexihub-and-usb-network-gate-vs-macos-sierra.htm l

Regards,

Ruben P.

Thank you Ruben. Found here http://www.isay.ro/how-to-fix-ionodecache-hogging-cpu-and-memory-on-macos-sierra / how to delete those files and uninstall UNG 🙂

Cheers.

An update of macOS 10.12.1 was released, and ionodecache process doesn't appear anymore. I have USB Network Gate installed on my Mac, and it works without any CPU overload. Eltima even published the information about the update in their blog http://blog.eltima.com/2016/10/macos-cpu-overload-fixed.html