click the cpu tab so it sorts highest to lowest...should show what is using most
where the hell is biff???

once you've sorted the list by CPU usage, i wonder if you'll find anything listed as PPC, rather than Intel in the "Kind" column. Apps that run under Rosetta gobble my processor.

Don't be shy about pushing that "Quit Process" red button at the top of the window. If it's vital to your computer's running, it will just restart.


I still rely on using Applejack after starting in Safe mode (hold down CMD-s when restarting) as an initial trouble-shooting step. Applejack is an install, but it's sorted me out more than a few times.


Applejack Info

download.

if you decide to use it, don't be put off by "tech-y looking" safe-mode screen. Just type "applejack" at the prompt, and follow the onscreen directions.

Applejack may not be the solution in this case, but it's darn handy in general.

good luck, veedot. maybe the nice Apple Repair Home Visit Technician will massage your CPU for you. they have to be good for something. *nod*

probably some spotlight related activity. mdworker proces can do this from time to time. Repairing permissions with the Disk Utility application in your Utilities (inside Application) folder should fix it.
btw, AppleJack is not compatible with Leopard, so only install if you're using 10.4 or lower.

oh good groan!

i was sure i'd installed Applejack! damn, i've been leaning on something i thought was there. heh.. story of my life.

so... veedot. you would have liked Applejack. *sigh*

Hey thank you one and all!!! I mean it. I don't feel so worried now. Thanks mick for telling me that it is ok to press a stop process button! I wasn't sure.And orson,zippie,McKs,flak and Biff...I shall come back here and re-read YOUR comments if this happens some more...Biff I'll let ya' know if it continues to happen.

I shut her down when I got home last night before I went to bed. She's cool right now(processors) we'll see what happens...

Thanks again, Folks!!!!

A Grateful Ve. in NYC

Flak is more appropriate for this conversation, he's more familiar with Vera's file structure and how many megabytes of user-bits she has that has to be indexed.

Always good to get other opinions, though my doctor might not agree with me.

The processes were definitely GPG - there were two of them, both pushing her processors to the max. I force quit them in Activity Monitor, and the processor usage went down considerably. Go figure. Nothing relevant in the console or system logs.

We then tried to make use of GPG, as we had just killed two processes belonging to it, and things still seemed to work. I'm not sure what GPG was doing at the time, and it's been running without issues for weeks with the exact same configuration. We did a clean install when she got the new iMac - moved some things over from the old eMac, but reinstalled a lot (basically anything system-level).

I'm thinking we'll probably do a reinstall of GPG, and go from there. I'm just not sure what's the problem here, but if something's corrupted, we can try replacing it.

We might have fixed the problem tonight!

Quit Mail. Replaced the GPG Mail bundle with a fresh copy (though same version), and then opened com.apple.mail.plist in the Property List Editor (comes with the Mac OS X Developer Tools). Removed every item that was related to GPG. Then, ran the two GPG Terminal commands to insert default preferences for Mail bundles.

Not sure about the processors spiking, time will tell if that still happens - but she was having issues where emails wouldn't automatically encrypt if she had a matching key (but they would encrypt if she told it to), and doing this solved that problem.

I know a few technical types that sign emails but don't encrypt them.

If you set it up correctly, you can encrypt and decrypt email on the fly, no intervention required. Easy security - at least, prevents someone from intercepting in the middle, which is better than nothing.

same here - always seemed to me to be too much trouble over shit i'm sending through emails...

Wow, holy crap!