Macbook Pro – QuickLook CPU & Temperature Spikes on Mac OS X 10.8

macbook promacosquicklooktemperature

I have consistently been having a problem with my computer overheating due to random processes using 100%+ CPU. Commonly the problem occurs with the process QuickLookSatellite-general, but it is not limited to it. (Please see images below.)

When the QuickLookSatellite-general is the process in question, resetting the Quick Look Manager:

qlmanage -r

…seems to solve the problem. Otherwise the problem continues until the application is closed or the process decides to stop.

QuickLookSatellite-general 196.4% CPU

QuickLookSatellite-general 200% CPU

On Google I found this process is associated with DraftSight, a CAD program. I do not and have never had this program installed.

Restarting does not even fix this problem. It makes my MacBook completely unusable as I do not want it to be damaged running at 90℃.

Any assistance is appreciated.

Thanks!

EDIT *** Addition, found disabling/resetting mdworker helped substantially

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo rm -Rf /var/folder/*
Reboot
sudo mdutil -i on / (I just left it off.)

Best Answer

To see what generators QuickLook has installed, open the Terminal (Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and run the following command:

qlmanage -m

This will give you a quick dump of what is loaded at the moment with QuickLook. Also pay attention to what directories you have open at the time your CPU spikes (QL doesn't generate thumbnails for anything other than a directory or file being displayed in the Finder or other application viewing a file list).

It will output something like this

[uniform type identifier] -> path (version) [uniform type identifier] -> path (version - loaded)

The -m flag also accepts several arguments:

  • plugins Show the generators list (default action)
  • server Show quicklookd life information
  • memory Show quicklookd memory consumption
  • burst Show statistics about the last burst
  • threads Show concurrent accesses stats
  • other Show other information about quicklookd

Additionally, don't bother with man qlmanage as the manual isn't as good as the built-in help found at qlmanage -h.

If you want to see if DraftSight has a plugin loaded (or installed), try running qlmange -m plugins | grep -i "draftsight".

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