Questions tagged [activity-monitor]
macOS' task manager utility application. It is used to perform different tasks on computer processes, as well as monitor system resource usage.
225
questions
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1answer
33 views
How to know how much CPU and RAM I need for new computer?
I got a pimped up macbook pro (i7 3.3GHz i7) from late 2016 atm, but I feel like I could use a less powerful machine.
I would like to find out what's my current/peak average CPU and RAM usage to see ...
4
votes
3answers
583 views
Why is my external HDD active when I'm not using it?
I have a partitioned external HDD (orange LaCie), with one partition for Time Machine. All partitions are Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted). The HDD is GUID Partition Map.
I'm not (consciously) ...
0
votes
2answers
40 views
MacBook without battery kernel_task 100% CPU utilization
After removing the battery from a MacBook late 2009 following a battery fault, the computer always runs kernel_task at 100% CPU utilization. I assume the process ends up in some kind of spin lock when ...
-1
votes
1answer
26 views
Activity Monitor Always Open Without Me Opening It
Why is Activity Monitor randomly open all the time on my work laptop even though I never open it?? I'm using a Macbook Pro on Mojave.
1
vote
1answer
36 views
Show “Activity Monitor” in every “Desktop”
I find much joy in monitoring my Apple computer's fan roll through monitoring CPU use.
However, I don't know how to make multiple "Activity Monitor" windows, each for one of my "Desktop"s.
I ...
3
votes
1answer
35 views
Activity Monitor, my system always runs in the red for CPU load - how to fix?
According to Activity Monitor my system is always running too high for CPU load. It’s always in the red in the CPU load graph and nothing I do corrects this.
I’ve tried resetting NVRAM, SMC and ...
1
vote
1answer
30 views
What is the difference between Memory, Real Mem, and Compressed Mem?
I've already seen this question:
What's the difference between Real, Virtual, Shared, and Private Memory?
but I think it might be outdated. Specifically, there is a Memory column, as well as ...
0
votes
3answers
73 views
How can I monitor an employee's activity on a remote Mac?
I have a remote worker for my project and I am letting him use the Mac with the source code on it. I want to monitor his every activity, if that is possible.
1
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0answers
192 views
What is DataclassOwnersManager?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8563977
A strange process is running on an un-logged-in user and taking up tons of resources. It's called "DataclassOwnersManager."
I was able to force quit the ...
0
votes
1answer
172 views
What is this process, “usagetrackingagent”, and why is it showing under activity monitor on MacBook
What is this process, “usagetrackingagent”, and why is it showing under activity monitor on MacBook? Does anyone with Mojave or a MacBook in general have this process under activity monitor. I quit ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
Why does my Macbook overheat and use so much CPU and energy when on YouTube?
For a long time now, my Macbook has been overheating and hogging my CPU. According to Activity Monitor, Google Chrome Helper is the culprit. Whenever I am browsing the web, there are usually ten ...
2
votes
1answer
43 views
Is there any command line alternative to Activity Monitor that would yield the same results?
I know there's top and htop commands, but they lack a lot of information. For example there is no way to list processes from Energy tab. Or is there at least some kind of API for Activity Monitor ...
2
votes
1answer
85 views
Launchd process behavior
just wanted to ask a quick question I can't seem to find a straight answer to. What is normal "launchd" process behavior I should be seeing in Activity Monitor? Right now it is writing GB's of data ...
1
vote
1answer
463 views
Missing CoreAudio process in Activity Monitor
I have always had the buzzing audio issue that comes with the 2018 MacBook Pro Models (I'm still convinced its an audio buffer size mismatch error). Up until now, I have always used the Kill CoreAudio ...
6
votes
2answers
4k views
Process “warmd” keep busy mac after upgrading to macOS 10.14.4
After upgrading my Mac mini to macOS Mojave 10.14.4, every time I restart the computer the process "warmd" keep busy CPU and hard disk for 10-15 minutes, with great "spooling" noise and slowing down ...
2
votes
0answers
25 views
System process logger
I have been having repeated issues with my MacBook Pro where it freezes during trivial finder tasks like scrolling through directories or opening relatively small files. Sometimes the computer is able ...
0
votes
1answer
581 views
My activity lists a lot of processes. Is it normal?
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
macOS Mojave 10.14.3 (18D109)
Profiling a little bit my system I found that the activity Monitor is showing a huge amount of processes what I am not even ...
0
votes
1answer
23 views
Activity Monitor - Dock Icon - dual core is displayed with 4 columns
View > Dock Icon has two CPU choices:
Show CPU Activity
Show CPU History
I am on a dual core (MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014).
In both views, I see 4 items.
Using High Sierra.
3
votes
1answer
3k views
VS Code - Code Helper process using more than 100% CPU on macOS
I noticed that my MacBook gets hot and noisy (fans) when using VS Code (v1.31). The Activity Monitor shows the process Code Helper using more than 100% of CPU. It started happening with one repository ...
0
votes
0answers
16 views
How to get time-dependent CPU usage logs?
Sometimes my MacBook pro 2017 starts rotating the fan very fast. It's hard to see if there is anything abnormal in the Activity monitor because it looks pretty much as always but the total CPU load. ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
How do I kill pboard from command line?
I'm sick of manually killing the pboard process in Activity Monitor to recover my copy & paste.
Is there a Terminal Command I can run instead?
4
votes
0answers
591 views
UserEventAgent Not Responding (MacBook Pro 2018 Mojave)
I opened activityMonitor and covered that UserEventAgent lighted red color.
How can I fix this?
0
votes
1answer
439 views
iCloud Sync activity log
Trying to figure out how to see activity happening while iCloud Files is syncing. The macOS Console application shows messages from cloudd, but nothing very useful:
The Activity Monitor does not show ...
6
votes
2answers
430 views
How can I distinguish a service form a process in Activity Monitor?
Is there a way to determine if an entry listed in Activity Monitor is a service (daemon) or a process (application)?
Examples:
Firefox (application)
com.apple.audio.SandboxHelper (daemon?)
Is there ...
0
votes
0answers
65 views
How do I relate Activity Monitor's Disk “Data read/sec” and “Data written/sec” to overall data transfer rate?
I'm trying to understand just how much speed I'm getting when writing big files out one of my MacBook Pro's USB 3.0 sockets to an external drive, also with USB 3.0. An example is the copying -- via a ...
5
votes
1answer
789 views
What is this mystery process: “-i”?
I have a mystery process visible in Activity Monitor, simply called "-i" - don't remember ever seeing this before. Its parent process is launchd, and belongs to root.
Persists between reboots;
...
7
votes
2answers
4k views
com.apple.hiservices-xpcservice results in frequent hangs and freezes in my mac
Update (2019): The issue still persits even in macOS Mojave, tried everything I could find, nothing seems to solve the issue as of yet!
Problem:
com.apple.hiservices-xpcservice hangs repeatedly ever ...
1
vote
1answer
189 views
What do Memory and Compressed Memory columns mean exactly in Activity Monitor
I'm aware what compressed memory is from answers like this and Apple support but what I can't find is what exactly the usage means.
Take my system right now:
Is it telling me the top process is ...
8
votes
2answers
2k views
Wi-Fi taking up lot of memory
Since the last major upgrade to macOS Mojave, I have the Wi-Fi process taking up a lot of memory and in an exponentially way. Time to time I need to force quit it in Activity Monitor because it takes ...
1
vote
1answer
42 views
What is the process „Tornit“? It wants to access Safari documents & passwords
I was using Safari a couple of days ago, when I got a pop-up window:
Tornit wants to control Safari and access your documents and passwords.
Do you allow it?
I clicked No.
Tornit is a process I ...
0
votes
1answer
30 views
Activity monitor stops updating or intermittently updates
Since I upgraded to High Sierra, the Activity Monitor has been relatively unusable for me. When I launch it, it updates for a while, but after a while (especially after a time of high CPU load), it ...
0
votes
1answer
61 views
How can a process have 970% CPU usage on a dual-core computer?
My MacBook has a dual-core processor with hyperthreading, so 4 software cores. Seems like the maximum CPU usage would be 400%? I missed the screenshot, but today kernel_task shot up to 970% CPU for a ...
3
votes
0answers
2k views
Macbook performance issues with browsers
I have a MacBook Pro from 2013, and I'm having issues in both Chrome and Firefox - both are slowing down to a crawl, and when I check Activity Monitor I have multiple processes (in all the 'tabs' at ...
1
vote
1answer
712 views
Why is Adobe Acrobat using only one core for a heavy task, and how can I make it perform faster?
Adobe Acrobat is performing Optical Character Recognition on a document with thousands of pages. This is a heavy task which will take hours.
Activity Monitor tells me that Acrobat is only using one ...
2
votes
1answer
34 views
Tracing real-time filesystem calls by process?
I suspect my backupd is performing a full filesystem scan. I can't tell because I don't know how to use Activity Monitor (or something else) to see what directories and files backupd is reading or ...
2
votes
1answer
543 views
How process hierarchy works in macOS
I'm wondering how Activity Monitor relates these two process if the child (Safari Web Content) doesn't have the ppid of the main one (Safari). pstree, which uses the ppid to organize the tree, shows ...
1
vote
1answer
61 views
How can I display Activity Monitor's “Memory” columns through Terminal?
Activity Monitor has a number of columns that show different measurements of memory usage for each process. Including:
Memory
Real Memory (various)
Compressed Memory
How can I display these for a ...
8
votes
2answers
636 views
Why is Illustrator throttled to 2% speed when it's in the background?
I regularly run a .jsx script in Adobe Illustrator that saves a bunch of files in a particular format.
while Illustrator is the active app, running the script on 5 files takes 23 seconds.
When ...
2
votes
4answers
800 views
Activity Monitor dock icon CPU history aggregate
On my old Mac I have a CPU history icon showing single aggregate graph.
On the new Mac running the same OS version and having the same number of cores I can't seem to find this option. History only ...
0
votes
1answer
21 views
What is portProxy.bin and why is it sucking/eating/using up my CPU?
Through today, portProxy.bin has been eating up my CPU, constantly using about 60% and making the fans in my computer whizz up.
I'm guessing it might be connected to my VPN use, but now I haven't ...
3
votes
1answer
446 views
Why is “Real Memory” greater than “Memory” for kernel_task process?
What exactly does Activity Monitor's Memory column mean?
How come in the example situation below (from a macOS High Sierra system) the Real Mem column is greater than the Memory column?
According ...
0
votes
1answer
219 views
the `Flash Player` occupy CPU is very high after I open a Flash page
In Safari I open a page that contains Flash, after I close the page. in the Activity Monitor, the Flash Player occupy CPU is very high, and whats the meaning of the red color?
My model is Macbook Pro ...
0
votes
0answers
39 views
Safari shows blue dot below Dock icon though it's not in process table [duplicate]
Summary:
Safari is running according to the Dock (icon has dot below it, and right-click shows "Force Quit"); however Activity Monitor doesn't show it and ps -ef | grep -i saf returns nothing. ...
2
votes
2answers
440 views
Why aren't my cores more busy?
just purchased a 2010 Mac Pro, running High Sierra. It has 12 lovely cores.
But, when I look at the CPU activity in the CPU History half of the rows are blank (image below).
Does this suggest one ...
0
votes
1answer
204 views
What is this no-name item in Activity Monitor's Energy tab?
I'm running macOS High Sierra and just noticed a couple of these processes with an icon but no name. See screenshot below.
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Processes in Activity Monitor with gray lettering
Why are there some processes listed in Activity Monitor for applications that I've recently quit? They are displayed in light grey characters under the Energy tab, and the only column with data is the ...
5
votes
1answer
4k views
Random extreme CPU spikes on random browser tasks
I've noticed that every once in a few days (sometimes daily) my CPU spikes to a 120% or such usage when any of my browsers are open.
The scenario is weird, today I was watching a movie using VLC ...
2
votes
1answer
624 views
What's the normal value for cached files?
My computers been randomly shutting down. I've noticed on activity monitor that cached files is almost always at 8GB+, even with no programs running.
Is this a normal value? If not, how do I diagnose ...
4
votes
1answer
5k views
What is mediaremoteagent under Activity Monitor?
Under activity monitor there's a process called mediaremoteagent. I can't find any information about this process. What is this process and is it safe to disable it?
1
vote
1answer
28 views
What could cause swapping when there is no memory spike?
I had a performance issue recently, which I was able to capture in the Monitor. It looks like there was plenty of free memory, but then suddenly the graph goes red, with no real spiking.
Could this ...
