Ok guys, here's the deal. Randomly, I wasn't doing anything specific -- my system starts getting sluggish. I checked the activity viewer -- wow, finder is at 150% CPU!
I have scoured the internet for fixes, and franky, I have tried them all (except one -- which I may need help with -- more on that later).
SYSTEM: Snow Leopard with a Mac Pro (Twelve Core 2.66 Westmere)
This is what I have tried and the results:
Trashing com.apple.finder.plist, com.apple.systemuiserver.plist, com.apple.loginwindow.plist. -- NO FIX
Trashing ALL apple.* namespaced .plist files -- NO FIX
Turning off "calculate all sizes" in finder -- NO FIX
Turning off "show view options" in finder -- NO FIX
Disabling all startup items -- NO FIX
Unplugging external hard drives -- NO FIX
Getting rid of all data on desktop. -- NO FIX
However, if I create a new account or use my wife's account -- the FINDER CPU USAGE IS NORMAL.
I analyzed the finders cpu pattern, it goes like this. If active, its always between 70 and 150% cpu usage. If i kill it, and stay 100% idle -- it goes from 0-ish% to 100+% slowly, and the Real Memory column in activity viewer goes from 0mb to ~2gb+ slowly, and when it gets around there, it dies and cycles all over again.
Here's where I need help from people smarter than me in this area. What are some methods I can use to trace what's happening in Finder?
I am pretty new to Mac and this has been a big blow to me -- I am loving the rest of it after being on Windows for over 17 years.
Would appreciate any help I can get!
I am getting the following when I issue the fs-usage -f filesys
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000401 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000404 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000340 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000339 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000535 W Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000192 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000326 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000462 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000194 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000127 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000410 W Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000198 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000600 W Path Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000188 W Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.001019 W Finder
18:03:19 getdirentries64 0.000416 W Path Finder
Any ideas? I disabled path finder after and it still happens, but with just Finder.