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macOS Mojave - Terminal error - pointer being realloc'd was not allocated

My upgrade to MacOS Mojave on a late-2013 MacBook Pro (Retina) seemed flawless until I opened the Terminal. I see a message like this, repeated every few seconds:


Broadcast Message from root@Davids-MacBook-Pro-7.local

(no tty) at 9:15 MDT...

mms(17538,0x12010f5c0) malloc: *** error for object 0x7ffee0a0b0c0: pointer being realloc'd was not allocated


I have tried:


- deleting the Terminal preferences (~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist)

- reinstalling macOS through command-R.


No luck.


Any suggestions? Thanks,


Dave


Message was edited by: xarkon - corrected year of MacBook

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), macOS Mojave (10.14), null

Posted on Oct 10, 2018 8:18 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Oct 10, 2018 9:31 AM

Create a new folder in your home directory, and call it old_bashdot. Move the following files into that folder. Some of them may not exist:

  • ./bash_history
  • ./bash_login
  • ./bash_profile
  • ./bashrc
  • ./bash_logout
  • ./profile


Also, ensure that in Terminal Preferences : General : Shell tab, that the Startup Run command is unchecked, and there is no application name in that field. Like this:

User uploaded file

Quit Terminal, and launch it again. Has your malloc error disappeared? If so, reintroduce a single bash dot file at a time, followed by quitting the Terminal, and relaunching it. If the malloc error returns, the causal command will be in your most recently reinstated bash dot file.

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13 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Oct 10, 2018 9:31 AM in response to xarkon

Create a new folder in your home directory, and call it old_bashdot. Move the following files into that folder. Some of them may not exist:

  • ./bash_history
  • ./bash_login
  • ./bash_profile
  • ./bashrc
  • ./bash_logout
  • ./profile


Also, ensure that in Terminal Preferences : General : Shell tab, that the Startup Run command is unchecked, and there is no application name in that field. Like this:

User uploaded file

Quit Terminal, and launch it again. Has your malloc error disappeared? If so, reintroduce a single bash dot file at a time, followed by quitting the Terminal, and relaunching it. If the malloc error returns, the causal command will be in your most recently reinstated bash dot file.

Oct 18, 2018 9:36 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks - I had come to the same conclusion and started looking at third-party extensions yesterday. After some pruning, I'm down to none - at least that's what kextstat | grep -v apple shows. Yet the problem persists.


Which implies, perhaps, that one of the Apple drivers is not loaded in safe mode and is causing the issue in regular boot.


Or something else?


Dave

Oct 17, 2018 4:24 PM in response to xarkon

Tried some other things.


- booting into Safe mode (Shift key) - Terminal works and does not display the error message

- then booted normally, disabled all login items for the user, rebooted - Terminal continues to display the error message

- re-added login items, rebooted and reset parameter RAM - Terminal continues to display the error message.


So, something else is being changed by Safe Mode that allows the Terminal to work correctly, but not sure what it is.

Oct 19, 2018 8:14 AM in response to xarkon

Fixed late yesterday. I opened the Console and looked at the system.log file. A constant stream of malloc errors and errors relating to trying to spawn the Acronis backup software run by our IT team. Ran the Acronis cleanup script, problem solved. Don't know whether the Acronis software is just not compatible yet or something in it became corrupted during the Mojave install, but it's working.


The nice thing about this was that in addition to re-learning a bunch of UNIX stuff (and about Apple's implementation), I cleaned out a whole host of third-party kernel extensions that were ancient or were for hardware I no longer use.


Thanks to all who helped!


Dave

Oct 24, 2018 5:21 PM in response to xarkon

Hello, if you check the console in the system log, you will find the PID and the process name that is causing the problem, in my case it was an incompatible application. When you find the process name, in the same console, in system reports, the crash report associated to the problem. In my case, the application acronis backup client was causing it. I deleted (for testing purposes) the folder associated to the application (/Library/Application Support/Backup Client) and voila, the error dissipated.

Nov 20, 2018 8:32 PM in response to jaam1086

Hello


I'm having the same problem - console log shows this;


Nov 21 17:26:48 Pauls-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (acronis_mms[3848]): Service exited due to SIGABRT

Nov 21 17:26:48 Pauls-MBP com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (acronis_mms): Service only ran for 2 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 8 seconds.

Nov 21 17:26:58 Pauls-MBP mms[3868]: mms(3868,0x1107d45c0) malloc: *** error for object 0x7ffee34c20c0: pointer being realloc'd was not allocated


I don't have Acronis installed (not that I can find!).


Any ideas?


Thanks

macOS Mojave - Terminal error - pointer being realloc'd was not allocated

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