Macos – How to get rid of com.apple.launchd.peruser errors in the log

launchdmacosmigration-assistant

I'm getting repeated errors in my console log that look (basically) like this:

10-09-29 10:06:08 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[51581]) getpwuid("501") failed
10-09-29 10:06:08 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[51581]) Exited with exit code: 1

This machine was set up using the migration assistant, from a machine where my UID was 501, but here it's 505. I have the same username and group set, of course, but…

So, where is this peruser launchd tool configured, so that I can disable the daemons that are causing this error message?

Best Answer

I can answer your last question, but it will take more work to solve the problem.

The peruser indicates a launchd daemon started by a userland process. The numeric suffix is the UID. In this case, an application attempted load a launchd job as user 501. That failed, since there appears to be no user 501 on your system.

Have you installed software recently? User management utilities changed in Leopard, so an installer intended for an older version (Tiger?) may not work properly in 10.5,6.

Start by taking a look at ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LauchAgents, and /Library/LaunchDaemons. There may be a job that's UID 501.

If not, you could do a (brute-force) search for an application/file owned by 501 -

$ sudo find /Applications -user 501 | less

If anything turns up, that will point to the culprit.

Apps that run on Startup:

/Library/StartupItems - Standard Startup Items are found here

sudo launchctl list or look at /Library/LaunchDaemons and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons for launchd plists that are set to run without someone necessarily being logged in. Note: Some .plist files in the folders listed won't appear in launchctl list as they are not loaded to run.

Apps that run on User Login:

Check your Login Items by going to the Accounts Preference Pane in System Preferences.

Check out ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /System/Library/LaunchAgents for launchd .plists that run when a user is logged in - you can use sudo launchctl list to see which ones are loaded.

Apps that run on a schedule:

In Terminal: crontab -e will show what has been scheduled using cron to run items at certain times. Items in any of the LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons folders may be set to run at intervals as well as defined in their .plist file

Kernel Extensions

To see what Kernel extensions are loaded you can either user Applications/Utilites/System Profiler.app (can be opened quickly by holding option when clicking on the Apple menu - About This Mac... changes to System Profiler... in 10.5+)

Alternatively you can run kextstat on the command line.

Login/Logout Hooks

To find out if a Login or Logout Hook is installed and to find where the script file is you can run the following command:

defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook and defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

or to get both at the same time:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist | grep 'Hook'

Macos – com.apple.launchd: com.apple.launchd.peruser error

Per-user launchd job overrides (e.g. which per-user jobs are disabled for a user) are located in subdirectories of /private/var/db/launchd.db/, e.g. com.apple.launchd.peruser.501.

Open Terminal and see who owns this directory:

ls -ld /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.32697

If the owner (third column) is not a user name, but a numeric ID, that user does not (any longer) exist on your system.

You can just remove that directory and be done with it. If there are special rules in the overrides.plist, it might help you understand the origin of that user and the launchd jobs.

To find out when that launchd per-user directory was created, enter

stat /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.32697

It's the last (fourth) date printed.

To find all files on your system not owned by a known user, enter

find / -nouser -ls

If 32697 is not a user on your system (no user name), this might give you some information (e.g. files related to a particular application you installed could mean that application messed with your user settings)