Month 13 out of bounds

Question

Level 1

24 points

Month 13 out of bounds

Hi all,

I noticed today my RAM is being seriously depleted, getting fan noise which has almost never happened previously, some applications running super slow.

Specs: Macbook air, 13 inch, early 2014, 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, running 10.13.1.

Checked Activity Monitor. memory usage is at 7.5 of 8 GB (normally it's around 4-5), UserEventAgent is up around 80-90% CPU. Checked Console: getting continuous "Month 13 is out bounds" error messages across many processes.

Checked around online, noticed a few others having same problem (e.g. high sierra - Month 13 is out of bounds? - Ask Different). The suggested work-around there is to change the system date so current date is no longer Dec. This did in fact work, RAM usage back to normal, but it messes up other applications (e.g. dates in FileMaker database), so not really a viable solution.

Anyone else coming across this, have ideas or fixes?

Thanks.

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014), macOS High Sierra (10.13.1)

Posted on Dec 2, 2017 12:45 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tgray

Level 1

18 points

Dec 4, 2017 2:08 PM in response to rd_8888

Ok, I figured this out for me. The issue was a LaunchAgent plist I have in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. It's a simple plist file that calls StartCalendarInterval, which is a valid key for launchd plists. The LaunchAgent job calls a shell script that copies some files to a backup location on the first day of the month. The job is not being called at all - I think it is launchd checking the loaded jobs against the Calendar which is causing the issue. As soon as I unloaded this plist and moved the file out of the directory, UserEventAgent was fine (after a force quit). The second I loaded the plist (launchctl load xxxx), UserEventAgent went nuts.

For anyone who says "this is a 3rd party issue", it's not. StartCalendarInterval is a valid key for launchd as seen here in Apple's docs.

So for anyone having issues, check your LaunchAgent directories and looks for the StartCalendarInterval key (or any other calendar related key). I did not have any issues with the time based interval plists.

I have a call with Apple in 20 minutes. I will report this to them, but I doubt the info will make it up the chain and reach anywhere useful.

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Answer 2

Dec 6, 2017 1:30 PM in response to rd_8888

The 10.13.2 update seems to have fixed at least the major issues. Like others, I still see the "Month 13 out of bounds" error in console, but it's showing up as either a console error or loginwindow error now. Doesn't show anymore as a UserEventAgent error. So it seems they've fixed it so it at least doesn't launch the UserEventAgent which was what was sucking up the CPU and RAM. Might not have solved the underlying issue, but at least it's not crippling my computer anymore and I don't have to worry about the other issues that result from backdating my computer to November 🙂.

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Answer 3

Tgray

Level 1

18 points

Dec 3, 2017 9:08 AM in response to Roncurl

As stated above, this isn't a tenable workaround for me, but if you change your date and time and then force quit the offending application (UserEventAgent for me), it's ok until the next reboot. However, the wrong date and time breaks to much form.

I found a lot of date related method calls in the sample I ran of UserEventAgent, which were missing when I booted up in Safe Mode (and there was no problem). I think it is definitely date related, and it suspiciously seems related to the iOS bug to me.

I instead wrote a shell script that is running continuously that kills UserEventAgent. The high CPU usage is there, but at least RAM usage doesn't go through the roof and consume all of my disk space with VM.

#!/bin/sh -

i=1

while [ "$i" -ne 0 ]

do

pid=`ps ux | grep "UserEventAgent" | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`

echo $pid

kill -9 $pid

sleep 10

done

Reply

Answer 4

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Dec 6, 2017 11:27 AM in response to rd_8888

Update to macOS 10.13.2 and see if that takes care of everything.

Reply

Answer 5

rd_8888 Author

Level 1

24 points

Dec 2, 2017 8:23 PM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric,

OK, here's the report, see what you think:

EtreCheck version: 3.4.6 (460)

Report generated 2017-12-02 20:19:03

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 3:51

Performance: Good

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Click the [Remove/Report] links to remove adware or update the whitelist of legitimate software.

Click the [Clean up] link to delete unused files.

Problem: Computer is too slow

Hardware Information: ⓘ

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

MacBook Air - model: MacBookAir6,2

1 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-4260U) CPU: 2-core

8 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Handoff/Airdrop2: supported

Wireless:
en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 477

iCloud Quota: 4.98 GB available

Video Information: ⓘ

Intel HD Graphics 5000 - VRAM: 1536 MB

Color LCD 1440 x 900

Disk Information: ⓘ

APPLE SSD SD0256F disk0: (251 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

[Show SMART report]

EFI (disk0s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) /Volumes/firmwaresyncd.Esi7hy
[EFI]: 210 MB (182 MB free)

(disk0s2) <not mounted>
[APFS Container]: 250.79 GB

USB Information: ⓘ

USB30Bus

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Virtual disks: ⓘ

Macintosh HD (disk1s1 - APFS) /
[Startup]: 250.79 GB (76.54 GB free)

Physical disk: disk0s2 250.79 GB (76.54 GB free)

(disk1s2) <not mounted>
[Preboot]: 250.79 GB

Physical disk: disk0s2 250.79 GB

(disk1s3) <not mounted>
[Recovery]: 250.79 GB

Physical disk: disk0s2 250.79 GB

(disk1s4) /private/var/vm
[VM]: 250.79 GB

Physical disk: disk0s2 250.79 GB

System Software: ⓘ

macOS High Sierra
10.13.1 (17B1003) - Time since boot: about 10 hours

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

Possible adware: ⓘ

Unknown file: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/Com.fixity.iTunes.demon.plist

/Applications/fixity-osx-0.4/Fixity.app/Contents/MacOS/Fixity -a=iTunes

One possible adware file found. [Remove/Report]

Clean up: ⓘ

com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist

/Applications/Adobe Acrobat XI Pro/Adobe Acrobat Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Updater/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper semi-auto

Executable not found!

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[redacted]@me.com-SharedServ ices.Agent.plist

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/OSServices.framewor k/Versions/A/Support/CSConfigDotMacCert -l ~/Library/Logs/CSConfigDotMacCert.log -u [redacted]@me.com -t SharedServices -s

Executable not found!

2 orphan files found. [Clean up]

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] 9 Apple tasks

[loaded] 181 Apple tasks

[running] 55 Apple tasks

[killed] 43 Apple tasks

43 processes killed due to insufficient RAM

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[not loaded] 37 Apple tasks

[loaded] 179 Apple tasks

[running] 78 Apple tasks

[killed] 37 Apple tasks

37 processes killed due to insufficient RAM

Launch Agents: ⓘ

[failed] com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a2 3d420d.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-01-10) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2017-09-27) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.intego.backupassistant.agent.plist (INTEGO - installed 2015-02-18) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist (? 62630d08 72ac4dde - installed 2017-10-27) [Lookup]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-04-12) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-04-12) [Lookup]

[running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-10-01) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (? 2afb3af7 a56d5fc2 - installed 2017-10-25) [Lookup]

[not loaded] com.apple.installer.cleanupinstaller.plist (? 1963bf56 0 - installed 2017-11-11)

[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2017-10-12) [Lookup]

[running] com.intego.BackupAssistant.daemon.plist (INTEGO - installed 2014-08-27) [Lookup]

[running] com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist (Malwarebytes Corporation - installed 2017-12-02) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2017-11-22) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist (? 6d8cb30e afb3bef0 - installed 2010-08-25) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist (? 689758eb 56e8a673 - installed 2015-07-01) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist (Shell Script e3fefdd2 - installed 2017-09-05) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.rogueamoeba.instanton-agent.plist (Rogue Amoeba Software, LLC - installed 2017-07-24) [Lookup]

[running] com.tunnelbear.mac.tbeard.plist (TunnelBear, Inc. - installed 2017-11-07) [Lookup]

[loaded] uk.co.canimaansoftware.ClamXavHelper.plist (Mark Allan - installed 2017-09-13) [Lookup]

[loaded] uk.co.canimaansoftware.ClamXavHelperUpdater.plist (Mark Allan - installed 2017-10-26) [Lookup]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] Com.fixity.iTunes.demon.plist (? 9a5d0af8 db718d98 - installed 2014-10-01) [Lookup]

[failed] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist (? 881a4a1c 0 - installed 2015-10-28) [Lookup] - /Applications/Adobe Acrobat XI Pro/Adobe Acrobat Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/Updater/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Acrobat Updater Helper: Executable not found!

[failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[redacted]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist (? ? ? - installed 2013-12-14) - /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/OSServices.framewo rk/Versions/A/Support/CSConfigDotMacCert: Executable not found!

[loaded] com.rogueamoeba.loopbackd.plist (Rogue Amoeba Software, LLC - installed 2017-09-24) [Lookup]

[running] com.tunnelbear.mac.tbeara.plist (TunnelBear, Inc. - installed 2017-11-07) [Lookup]

[loaded] uk.co.canimaansoftware.clamxav.UninstallWatcher.plist (Mark Allan - installed 2017-12-02) [Lookup]

User Login Items: ⓘ

sfuvault Application

(/Applications/sfuvault.app)

ClamXav Sentry Application

(/Applications/ClamXAV.app/Contents/Resources/ClamXav Sentry.app)

TunnelBear Application

(/Applications/TunnelBear.app)

MemoryCleanHelper SMLoginItem - Hidden (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-07-02)

(/Applications/Memory Clean.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/MemoryCleanHelper.app)

Photo Stream URL SMLoginItem - Hidden (Apple, Inc. - installed 2015-03-21)

(/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/PhotoStreamAgent.app)

LoginHelper SMLoginItem - Hidden (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-03-23)

(/Applications/Battery Health 2.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/LoginHelper.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 27.0.0.187 (installed 2017-11-14) [Lookup]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2017-10-25)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (installed 2017-12-01) [Lookup]

AdobePDFViewer: 18.009.20050 (installed 2017-12-01) [Lookup]

Flash Player: 27.0.0.187 (installed 2017-11-14) [Lookup]

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.7.7 (installed 2017-11-22) [Lookup]

PepperFlashPlayer: 27.0.0.187 (installed 2017-11-15) [Lookup]

Silverlight: 5.1.41212.0 (installed 2016-04-24) [Lookup]

JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 151 build 12 (installed 2017-10-27) Check version

Safari Extensions: ⓘ

[enabled] LastPass - LastPass - https://lastpass.com/ (installed 2017-10-11)

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

Flash Player (installed 2017-10-25) [Lookup]

FUSE for OS X (OSXFUSE) (installed 2014-06-09) [Lookup]

Java (installed 2017-10-27) [Lookup]

Xmarks for Safari (installed 2015-03-04) [Lookup]

Time Machine: ⓘ

Mobile backups: ON

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 250.79 GB Disk used: 174.25 GB

Destinations:

Data [Network]

Total size: 3.00 TB

Total number of backups: 100

Oldest backup: 2014-10-04, 3:01 AM

Last backup: 2017-12-02, 11:36 AM

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 3.00 TB > (Disk size 250.79 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

98%
UserEventAgent

49%
soagent

23%
kernel_task

11%
CommCenter

4%
CommCenterRootHelper

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

1.49 GB
UserEventAgent

911 MB kernel_task

117 MB Opera

84 MB Opera Helper

56 MB Opera Helper

Top Processes by Network Use: ⓘ

Input Output Process name

364 KB 87 KB mDNSResponder

47 KB 17 KB netbiosd

20 KB 13 KB Opera

9 KB 12 KB apsd

12 KB 904 B akd

Top Processes by Energy Use: ⓘ

92.32 UserEventAgent

2.62 Opera Helper

0.68 Opera

0.44 Battery Health 2

0.36 Opera Helper

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

522 MB Available RAM

53 MB Free RAM

7.49 GB
Used RAM

469 MB Cached files

12.19 GB
Swap Used

Software installs (last 30 days): ⓘ

Adobe Flash Player:
(installed 2017-11-14)

Adobe Pepper Flash Player:
(installed 2017-11-15)

Disk Doctor: 3.8 (installed 2017-11-16)

VOX: 3.0 (installed 2017-11-16)

Slack: 2.9.0 (installed 2017-11-17)

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (18.009.20044):
(installed 2017-11-17)

Microsoft AutoUpdate:
(installed 2017-11-22)

Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac:
(installed 2017-11-22)

Microsoft Excel for Mac:
(installed 2017-11-22)

Office 2011 14.7.7 Update:
(installed 2017-11-22)

Microsoft Word for Mac:
(installed 2017-11-22)

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (18.009.20050):
(installed 2017-12-01)

Install information may not be complete.

Diagnostics Events (last 3 days for minor events): ⓘ

2017-12-02 14:22:27 corespotlightd Crash [Open]

Cause: Initializing

2017-12-02 11:47:50 systemsoundserverd Crash [Open]

2017-12-02 10:13:12 com.malwarebytes.HelperTool High CPU use [Open] [Details]

2017-12-02 10:02:09 Last shutdown cause: 3 - Hard shutdown

2017-12-02 08:59:15 ClamXAV.app High CPU use [Open] [Details]

2017-12-02 08:47:36 locationd Crash [Open]

Cause: /BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/CoreLocation/CoreLocation-2236.0 .11/Daemon/Shared/Utilities/CLSqliteDatabase_OSX.mm:397: assertion failure in handleSqlError

2017-12-02 08:10:31 UserEventAgent High CPU use [Open] [Details]

Reply

Answer 6

Roncurl

Level 1

14 points

Dec 3, 2017 8:32 AM in response to micalclark

I think we're creeping up on a workable workaround, tedious as that may be. Below is a response I was going to send which summarizes my situation.

*****

I'm cautiously agreeing. For me, it was the sequence of steps that 'micaclark' outlined that makes (made?) a difference. I restarted BEFORE I Force Quit the UserEventAgency in the Activity Monitor... that didn't result in a shutdown of the process. But this one does. So, I change the Date & time settings, save, lock as 'micaclark' suggests THEN I Force Quit the UserEventAgency. But I don't restart the machine or I'll have to reset Date&Time again... ugh!!!

*****

When I restart the machine the Date & Time reverts to today's date. I appreciate your efforts, it's made a difference here! I, too, hope Apple fixes this soon.

Reply

Answer 7

remaker

Level 1

9 points

Jan 23, 2018 3:17 PM in response to rd_8888

I chased this down with Apple escalation and they assure me it is fixed in macOS 10.13.3 and later.

Since the problem stopped for me in early January, I have no way to test. Anyone still seeing it should see if the update fixes it.

Reply

Answer 8

Dec 3, 2017 8:05 AM in response to Roncurl

Roncurl, Not sure this is your issue but check to make sure the option for "set date and time automatically" is disabled.

Once I set the date manually and did that the UserEventAgent issue stopped and so far hasn't returned for me.

This date change is causing some other issues, as some other users mentioned. It seems gmail accounts in the Mail app have certificate issues with it and such, so hopefully Apple will patch this soon.

Reply

Answer 9

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Dec 8, 2017 5:44 AM in response to michelefromwassenaar

michelefromwassenaar wrote:

10.13.2 does NOT fix this. Still thousands of "Month 13 out of bounds"

I never said that it did. What I said was that the high CPU/RAM use seems to have been fixed for everybody who has responded. The "Month 13 out of bounds" is just a log entry that does not impact functionality, according to Apple Engineering.

Are you having any other problems?

Reply

Answer 10

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Dec 18, 2017 10:23 PM in response to t-hansen

Although macOS 10.13.2 update didn't stop the “month 13 is out of bounds” messages, it did seem to have taken care of all the other issues mentioned by users here. Appears that the log entry was a red herring that had nothing to do with those issues. There were also some serious security issues patched so I see no reason to wait to update.

Reply

Answer 11

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Dec 8, 2017 5:48 AM in response to CheesedOffWithIT

Download macOS High Sierra 10.13.2

or

macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Combo Update

Reply

Answer 12

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Dec 3, 2017 9:08 AM in response to rd_8888

Try running this program in your normal user account, then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. On the screen with Options, please open Options and check the bottom 2 boxes before running. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy Report” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown.

Etrecheck – System Information

Reply

Answer 13

Dec 3, 2017 4:34 PM in response to MadMacs0

There is no problem here other than the month 13 problem. I discovered the month 13 problem when I tried to build an application that i'm in the process of making. I discovered two things: 1. MacOS seems to think December is the 13th month of the year, rather than the 12th month. This throws errors because there is no 13th month, so whenever a process that needs to use the date runs, it can't understand the value of 13; hence "Month 13 is out of bounds". 2. In my application, I needed to use plist files to load various elements of my application. Though the application did not crash, it wouldn't load any of the data due to the month being 13. This is also what I discovered with UserEventAgent, and what is explained here. Therefore it makes complete sense to me that when ClamXAV attempts to access it's database and can't due to the month 13 error, it reacts similarly to UserEventAgent and spikes RAM and CPU.

Reply

Answer 14

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Dec 3, 2017 9:20 PM in response to HudsonGraeme

HudsonGraeme wrote:

it makes complete sense to me that when ClamXAV attempts to access it's database and can't due to the month 13 error, it reacts similarly to UserEventAgent and spikes RAM and CPU.

I held off responding until I could get back to running High Sierra to check a few things.

First off, there have been no reports to the developer of excessive RAM user by ClamXAV Sentry since the #month13 issue began. In fact, the OP's observations here are the first I've found anywhere. Now that I'm in macOS HS and observing "Month 13" errors in Console I can see that none of them are showing up credited to either ClamXAV Sentry or clamd. Activity Monitor indicates that the sum of those two processes are a shade over 600MB RAM. Further checking reveals that neither involve the user level's UserEventAgent in any way.

I do see a wide variety of other Apple & 3rd party apps & processes are involved and agree that there does seem to be a connection with the UserEventAgent. I would conclude that with all High Sierra users seeing the "Month 13 is out of bounds" error but only a small fraction having CPU/RAM issues that it's the log entries are Apple's problem but the other issues are 3rd party dependent. That's also what I'm hearing from Apple.

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Answer 15

Dec 5, 2017 4:12 AM in response to MadMacs0

I'm having to run a script to kill the UserEventAgent process otherwise it uses all my Physical Ram and then goes into VM, 99.2% of CPU rendering my iMac useless. This only started AFTER the obviously rushed out security and file sharing patch.

Apple are aware of an issue and are 'supposed' to be looking into it. If it's still the same at the end of the week. I will be wiping and returning to Sierra. No one I know on Sierra is having issues, everyone else I know on High Sierra has issues on at least one machine. Over to Apple to sort it out. I had to send them logs yesterday, whether it helps I'm not sure.

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