iconservicesagent OS Mojave issue

I did have some custom icons, but I removed them and restored default icons, but have still continued to have the problem of others. The files are on an external drive, which as soon as I point Finder to the drive, shows iconservicesagent gradually taking up all RAM and then virtual RAM (up to 93 GB!) and then crashing my Mac. It all started after updating to Mojave. Since the update a couple of weeks ago, my computer can now open files and not freeze the desktop, but iconservicesagent still gradually consumes all RAM until the Mac crashes. So I would say it's a very, very mild improvement for me. And I seem to be the only one on this board who has removed all the custom icons and still has the problem. :(

If I dismount my external hard drive and plug it into another Mac which is still running High Sierra, everything works just fine.

Holy ****!

You just saved me from buying a new $3000 MBP. My finder went insane when accessing a SD card on my old but reliable MBP mid 2009. The problematic files were large > 2 GB disk image files.

There were several files with custom icons or special file flags. I used TinkerTool System 6“ to remove all flags on all files on the SD card and kernel_task / iconservicesagent shut the fuck up and I can use my MBP again.

Thank you so much!

I had the same problem. Iconserviceagent take all the memory and crash the Finder.

I delete the custom icon of all my Apple Disk Image Files (.dmg).

I restart.

Everything are fine now.

Hope this can help you.

Hi

Mac mini (Late 2014)

2,6 GHz Intel Core i5

I had the same problerm. I read all the articles I found but no proposed solution worked. I have many external drives with movie files, especially with the mkv extension. I noticed that it was starting to suck memory when scrolling I arrived to a movie that I named War.Inc. I rename the file removing the dot like War Inc and noticed that the problem was now solved on my computer.

Hope this was helpful.

You can delete the Resource Fork of this folder with a Terminal command, as indicated in precedent messages.

I copy here to help you :-)

The only real solution must provide Apple, restoring the correct operation of the Resource Fork. In this regard, the solution provided by another user to delete the Resource Fork through the Terminal is a permanent solution valid but, unfortunately, eliminating the Resource Fork, you delete the previews of images, videos, PDFs and other files created by Finder and then it is almost impossible to get them back. To do this, in some cases, you can use an application like GraphicConverter, select all the photos and with the right mouse choose to rebuild the EXIF ​​Preview.

Although I do not recommend doing so, however, I tell you the command to copy in Terminal to solve the problem of opening folders to those of you who fail with other methods. Remember to replace the correct path name of the folders that interest you instead of 'INSERT-PATH-NAME-HERE'. Keep in mind that the command also deletes the Resource Fork sub-folders!

find INSERT-PATH-NAME-HERE/* | while read f ; 
do xattr -d com.apple.ResourceFork "$f" ; 
done

It appears this has been resolved in 10.15, at least as of DP Beta 2. I just wrote up a whole detailed thing about this and my testing, but I accidentally closed out my browser window...so for now just know that it seems to be working fine in 10.15. Hopefully they bring the same fix to 10.14.6, because while 10.14.5 works better, it's still not what it used to be in 10.13 and older.

Let's hope 10.15 stays that way!

I can't believe i am going to ask this but i have to . . . . . . IS APPLE TRYING TO SIMULATE "WINDOWS". I clearly remember the day i threw in the towel on windows. I took my laptop out to the drive way and ran over it multiple times until it was pulverized at the same time I would never own another windows as long as apple is in existence! Am I being hyperbolic? I think not. I just came home after a loooooog shift at the my hospital and wanted to do some shoping on Amazon. My mac mini basically to "F" off and go use some other computer. After much research (as many of us appleaddicts do) I realized that apple "f"d us with installing

"iconservicesagent" making it impossible for my mac mini to be USEFUL. So I ask apple this . . . . . my iphone acts weird whenever you are about to come up with new iphone release. You admitted that you messed with the operating system to "preserver the battery so that iphone owners are not affected by low battery [blah blah blah]". I have to say this . . . . it is almost as bad as breaking up with someone you LOVE SO DEARLY to even consider outfitting my entire enterprise with windows! have we come to that???? or am I out of this world crazy? I ask that because, the ONE reason i murdered my "compaq laptop" was because apple gave me a reliable product. Maybe I was wrong. I just remember my windows laptop giving me grief just AS MY MAC MINI IS NOW!!!!!!! Do i take all my "mac" stuff to my drive way to "pulverize" it? And go begging back to Bill Gates??? How embarrassing!

I hope someone considers me really really inept with computers and gives me a "ok use your words" type of instructions on how to KILL iconservicesagent because, as i am writing this ridiculously long message, my macmini tells me "iconservicesagent" is using up . . . . . i kid you not . . . . . .7.3 GB.

SO PLEASE HELP ME KILL THIS **** THING!!!!

I've had this iconservicesagent problem for quite a while, and I think it started with Mojave. But I'll tell you that the problem is NOT confined to custom icons. I have no custom icons and don't want to spend my time making them up. At first, my problem began when I opened dedicated movie folders that were being used as libraries by Plex. At first, it was one library, then the problem spread to all of them, and now the problem has spread yet again to folders of movies that AREN'T libraries for Plex. I recently thought that Plex was making custom icons that sent iconservicesagent into the stratosphere. But then the problem began on non-Plex folders. If I catch it soon enough, I can stop the onslaught of the daemon if I quickly relaunch switch away from the movie folder and to another external hard drive, then relaunch the Finder. But "touching" any movie folder restarts the problem anew.

IconServicesAgent has eaten up all 16 GB of RAM and another 4 of VM at times. Someone on another forum wrote a Terminal command that kills ISA every three seconds. ISA doesn't take over RAM if you do this, but the Finder then goes in and out of freezes. Not a good solution. But here it is if you can find no other way of handling the issue:

while : ; do PID="$(ps -fe | grep '/System/Library/CoreServices/iconservicesagent' | egrep -v '^\s+0\s+' | awk '{print $2}')"; if [ -n "$PID" ] ; then kill -9 $PID; echo "$PID killed"; fi; sleep 3; done

I wrote earlier today that, if you have Activity Monitor opened and watching the Memory tab, and your Finder points to a movie folder (I have a handful), you can watch ISA take over RAM. What I've done is immediately exit the Finder window, force Quit ISA, then relaunch Finder, all in quick succession. The ISA problem then vanishes so that you can perform other functions as normal. But if I open up another movie folder, the problem repeats.

Okay. I've found something that, although it doesn't solve the fundamental problem with iconservicesagent, it can lessen the symptom:

This issue only affects movie files and, presumably icons. I have the Activity Monitor sitting in a corner of my screen, and I've been watching what happens to our favorite daemon. When I open or select the folder containing the movie files, iconservicesagent takes over and runs up the RAM. So yesterday, I opened did a large transfer of movie files from one external hard drive to another (I've been having separate problems with one of the drives). ISA started to go wild, as predicted. Then, in the Finder window, I selected another directory. Doing so took the Finder's "attention" away from the movie folder while the copying continued. So while the copying was going on in the background, I force quit ISA a few times, then it stopped and settled down into its rightful place near the bottom of the activity list. It stayed there for HOURS. I tried this again with the same result. So... what I learned is that if the target movie files (I'm assuming that certain icons are giving ISA some fits, but I've got hundreds of movie files, none of which have "custom icons") are not visible on the screen, ISA goes about doing other tasks, and the Finder ignores what's not visible. Weird. So I copied around 1.4 TB of movie files without any interruptions from Finder crashes or anything else.

No, it's not a software solution. ISA is still an undisciplined toddler that throws fits when it gets upset. But take away the sight of those movie icons from the Finder, and it doesn't react to what it doesn't see.

And thank you all for your input once again. I've got a feeling that the fundamental issue will be there for as long as Mojave is in play, and for as long as Apple's software engineers don't attack the issue. I'd also venture a guess that, since this issue has been going on since before Mojave, as the Discussion forums attest, it's likely that it will continue into the Catalina era. I'd be wonderfully surprised if the issue dissolves after Mojave.

Thank you for that detailed examination of the problem. I have thousands of custom icons for my movie files that I created from the title page of each movie. Yes I’m crazy, but I’m also retired so have time to do this. If I use Path Finder to uncheck the “Custom Icon” info box, it hides the icon without deleting it from the resource fork. ISA then gets quiet, though it still has to do some work to display the default icon for each movie, so it isn’t perfect. Anyway, using Path Finder I can recheck “Custom Icon” and restore the icon instantly, so can see if there are any improvements to the operation of ISA. I’m looking forward to trying Catalina and hope it solves this ridiculous problem.

I'd go back to High Sierra but my movie computer is a new Mac mini that can only run Mojave!

Yesterday I used the new MacBook Pro of a daughter and by connecting the external disk full of large .DMG with customized icons I saw that the slowdown is acceptable, compared to my ultra-boosted 27 ”BTO iMac (end of 2013) This means that Apple no longer devotes itself to verifying the systems with Macs that are still current, but the programmers think of their convenience, using only the most current and most powerful Macs. So they don't optimize the Code like they did before Mountain Lion, when older Macs were reborn every time a new system came out ...

I’m running Mojave on Mac mini. Connected to it are my time capsule and my WD CLOUD with a lot of movies. If I **** down both ISA does not come up. If I turn them on it eats up the entire RAM rendering my Mac mini useless. The only new change was that I upgraded to Mojave. Next - turn my WD Cloud server on but keep time capsule shut down and see what happens. Then reverse the experiment and see what happens. The one found to be at fault will face the reaper. I will update when I get a chance to do it.

I've been on this train wreck for months and have tried pretty much everything on this thread and more

Removing external drives improves things sometimes but not consistently

Creating a whole new MBP with the account transfer wizard copied the same behavior from a MBP to a MB Air (basically the same thing as a clean install and restore from Time Machine with different hardware which excludes the hardware as a cause)

I worked through 3 drive that are mounted to my MBP as follows

Day 1 - No attached drives (Veracrypt Mounted) - overnight no processes consuming memory

Day 2 - Lightening drive attached (Veracrypt mounted) - iconservicesgent up to 3.4Gb of memory in the morning

Day 3 - USB drive attached (Veracrypt mounted) - iconservicesgent no processes consuming memory

Day 4 - USB drive attached (Veracrypt mounted) - iconservicesgent no processes consuming memory

Concurrently on Day 4 mounted the Lightening Drive into my MacBook Air which was an account clone of the MBP overnight - no processes consuming memory

The MB Air clone behaves relatively normally as long as no drives are mounted

Reformatting external drives and copying back information did not solve the problem

Killing the iconserviceagent is a short term fix and it recurs over hours an the persistence fo the memory it consumes that climbs to >9Gb one morning with nothing running overnight is debilitating and unsustainable on a MBP that has max memory of 16Gb

Day to day challenges occur with frequency that brings the machines to their knees with 10 secs to open a file 13 secs to open a word document of one page - waiting 5 mins to regain control and kill everything and kill tconservicesgent restores some level of usability and enough to reboot the Mac to bring normal operations for a limited period

Rebooting has been the only viable fix and has been required up to x3 per day to keep the machines operating

A Clean system/fresh install and restore of files & account via Time Machine failed to resolve the problem

Total wipe of hard drive and fresh install of OSx and setting up the account from scratch importing no settings and going through 2 weeks of adding back most of the applications and data manually worked for a period of time but the behavior has returned with Iconservicesgent now persisting with holding Gb's of memory when left running overnight

If I have custom Icons I am not aware of them except for 2 external drives and 1 VeraCrypt Drive container icon that are custom to differentiate them visually.

Based on the above I believe I can rule out hardware faults, rule out OS corruption on my setup which leaves OSx bug that affects a small minority of users or maybe it is more but others are unaware, or have desktop machine with more memory so its impact is diminished and they just hard reboot without knowing why they have to, or they don't have attached external drives so the problem does not occur

I had detailed discussions with Apple support who guided me through the testing of the above and at the last point of contact said the next step is to bring it in as it must be hardware.

The external drives are the key problem and in my case the drive connected via Lightening which was not resolved when I wiped and reformatted it and currently it contains 1 directory and consuming <1% of the space that was in use before. The return of the behavior is not as large as before - so iconservicesagent consumes Memory and holds it forever but has not risen above 2Gb overnight so the effect appears to be proportional to the number of files and imo has nothing to do with actual custom icons. The one directory is my Mobilesync directory offloaded from the main drive using a symlink to relocate the huge backup consuming space from syncing my iPhone and iPad to my Mac and storing backups

Hope this helps someone