Friday, February 25, 2011

I was getting a lot of MDS related errors in my system logfile (visible via the Console.app in Mac).
Like these:

Feb 25 12:42:00 paradigm /System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityFoundation.framework/Versions/A/dotmacfx.app/Contents/MacOS/dotmacfx[89682]: MDS Error: unable to create user DBs in /var/folders/PO/PO-GUydDF4mpVHTQxsRatE+++TI/-Caches-//mds
Feb 25 12:42:02 paradigm /System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityFoundation.framework/Versions/A/dotmacfx.app/Contents/MacOS/dotmacfx[89699]: MDS Error: unable to create user DBs in /var/folders/PO/PO-GUydDF4mpVHTQxsRatE+++TI/-Caches-//mds
Feb 25 12:42:34 paradigm /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GoogleContactSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/gconsync[89761]: MDS Error: unable to create user DBs in /var/folders/PO/PO-GUydDF4mpVHTQxsRatE+++TI/-Caches-//mds
Feb 25 12:55:34 paradigm /System/Library/Frameworks/PubSub.framework/Versions/A/Resources/PubSubAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/PubSubAgent[91445]: MDS Error: unable to create user DBs in /var/folders/PO/PO-GUydDF4mpVHTQxsRatE+++TI/-Caches-//mds
Feb 25 12:59:30 paradigm /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Safari Webpage Preview Fetcher[91954]: MDS Error: unable to create user DBs in /var/folders/PO/PO-GUydDF4mpVHTQxsRatE+++TI/-Caches-//mds

and many more.
I thought that can't be good for performance so I digged around a bit and found that the caches of the kernel modules can become a bit problematic after security updates from Apple.
But there is a very simple remedy: Boot in safe mode, because then the caches are automatically deleted and renewed at the next boot.
To do that you keep pressing the SHIFT key while rebooting. Once you are fully booted into safe mode, just restart again and you will see (if you are as sensitive as me to the snappiness of a GUI) that things move a tad snappier now, like it was when the Mac was still fresh. ;)

Good luck!

3 comments:

  1. Errors came back, so this is not a long time solution. :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I was going NUTS! Please let me know if you find a permanent solution, and I'll do the same for you by posting a comment with my findings.

    thanks,
    robbie [at] robnrob [d0t] com

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am eternally grateful for your post!

    I noticed similar error messages while trying to figure out why I could not unmount a couple of mapped network drives that were created by Jungle Disk. I have been living with these unmountable, yet unejectable drives for months until I decided to systematically address each and every problematic event in my system log.

    Not only did your suggestion fix the system errors, it solved the larger problem I was having with the mapped volumes. As soon as I rebooted they were gone.

    Thanks again!

    Zach

    ReplyDelete