Friday, July 28, 2006

Damned zombie python processes...


If you're running Mac OS X, and you've installed XCode, try this:

open up a Terminal window, and type
ps -x |grep -i python

Do you see dozens and dozens of processes named (python)? Then you'll probably be interested in the discussion here.

This turns out to be due to a bug in XCode 2.3's distributed builds functionality. There's this sctwistd process that gets launched at startup, and every time you log in and out (even switching to another user counts), it spawns off a couple of python processes that get orphaned from their parent. These zombies accumulate over time, eventually leaving your Mac unable to launch any more programs.

Long story short, if you don't use dedicated network builders and you don't want to fill up your process table with Zombie Python Processes from Hell, perform these commands in a Terminal window, then reboot:

cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo launchctl unload -w com.apple.dnbobserver.plist

Now if I can just figure out why Nikon View Monitor is being launched, even though I don't even use Nikon View anymore, I'll be a happy camper. I just don't like running software that I don't need.

6 comments:

Yvette said...

What a kindly, helpful person you are. Wanna Marry Me?
-The Wife

Anonymous said...

might want to grep Python instead of python, depending on your install...

Mark Bessey said...

Thanks for the suggestion. I changed the grep command to use the -i option, which should get any possible capitalization of "python"

Anonymous said...

You can get rid of the Nikon View Monitor by removing it's entry from
/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist
or by removing/renaming the file if nothing else is in there.

Cheers,
Peter.

Anonymous said...

You can get rid of the Nikon View Monitor by removing it's entry from
/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist
or by removing/renaming the file if nothing else is in there.

Cheers,
Peter.

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