When I look into Console (/Applications…), I see a lot of entries that talk about programs I have uninstalled a long time ago, for instance
01.08.12 10:31:29 com.apple.launchd.peruser.502[206
(de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver[58300])
posix_spawn("/Applications/launch2net/launch2net.app/Contents/
MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver.app/Contents/MacOS/NML2NDeviceObserver", ...):
No such file or directory
The "launch2Net" was uninstalled some years ago! The same thing for "Carbon Copy Cloner", a program I tested some time ago… how can I avoid the causes for those entries? Is there a cleanup?
Best Answer
It's trying to start the nonexistent apps.
From the console entry
com.apple.launchd.peruser.502
we know it's trying to start on behalf of user (instead of system or administrator) that has UID 502.You can get particular user's account name with
id -u -n 502
.I'd look at following places:
Login items
Go to System Preferences->Users & Groups. Choose appropriate user and select Login Items tab.
Look if you recognize uninstalled applications in the list and delete them. You have to select the app and press '-' beneath the list.
Launchd
Start the terminal. Enter
launchctl list
and see if you find uninstalled apps in there. False entries can be removed bylaunchctl remove label
, for examplelaunchctl remove de.novamedia.NML2NDeviceObserver
.Repeat the process, but this time prepend
sudo
to commands, likesudo launchctl list
, to catch all the apps executed in system context.You can find out more about launchd and launchctl by entering
man launchd
andman launchctl
.Launchd configurations
Look into following directories (from
man launchctl
):~/Library/LaunchAgents
- Per-user agents provided by the user~/Library/LaunchAgents
- Per-user agents provided by the administrator/Library/LaunchDaemons
- System wide daemons provided by the administrator./System/Library/LaunchAgents
- OS X Per-user agents/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
- OS X System wide daemonsIf you find a file referring to uninstalled app, remove it (you'll need to
sudo rm
for items in 3, 4 & 5).More about those files in http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html especially 'The launchd Startup Process'.