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Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
#50771 12/26/18 07:50 AM
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grelber Offline OP
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Every so often my iMac goes through a lengthy spasm of activity:
Every 30 seconds the following message pops up (in Console), always in a pair of identical entries, and carries on essentially interminably.

2018-12-26 2:35:36.981 com.apple.cts[263]: com.apple.suggestions.harvest: scheduler_evaluate_activity told me to run this job; however, but the start time isn't for 22040 seconds. Ignoring.

Anybody know what this is about? And why would whatever it is "want" to run such a job more than 6 hours before supposedly needed/required?

And is there any way to "subvert" it (ie, to make it stop)?

Running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 on iMac (21.5", mid-2011), 2.5GHz Intel Core i5.

Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
grelber #50913 01/14/19 08:36 AM
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Lots of looky-loos but no responses. Which makes the problem even more bizarre.

The problem seems to have been resolved: I shut down my iMac for a couple hours, fired it up, and the weird message has not reappeared for the past couple weeks. So, who knows?

But just as weird is why some programmer would stuff a "diagnostic" message such as
"com.apple.suggestions.harvest: scheduler_evaluate_activity told me to run this job; however, but the start time isn't for 22040 seconds. Ignoring."
into the OS to begin with.

EDIT:
Wouldn't ya know it?! Within 18 minutes of the post above the following (similar) message started appearing — twice, every 20 seconds, with the same sort of "countdown":
2019-01-14 3:54:55.072 com.apple.cts[245]: com.apple.suggestd.persist-stats: scheduler_evaluate_activity told me to run this job; however, but the start time isn't for 600 seconds. Ignoring.

Now does anyone have anything to offer?

Last edited by grelber; 01/14/19 09:15 AM. Reason: Additional info (in red)
Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
grelber #50915 01/14/19 09:53 AM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
Now does anyone have anything to offer?

Condolences. frown

A search of macOS 10.14.2 turns up these three items; if you've got the same launch agent, it could be your culprit.

Does it rise (and if not it, what does rise) to the top of Activity Monitor's %CPU column when those messages are generated?

More: I'd suggest running/rerunning 10.11.6 Combo, but I don't think it's possible for you.

I can't find any details about that launch agent, and I hesitate to advise trashing it because it's in /System/Library, and I doubt that it would be recreated if it is trashed, and I don't know what you'd lose without it.

Last edited by artie505; 01/14/19 11:51 AM. Reason: More

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
artie505 #50916 01/14/19 05:22 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: artie505
Does it rise ... to the top of Activity Monitor's %CPU column when those messages are generated?

Not to my knowledge.

Originally Posted By: artie505
More: I'd suggest running/rerunning 10.11.6 Combo, ....

I've got same [osxupdcombo10.11.6 for El Capitan] in reserve but can't see the point in rerunning it since installing it originally just over a year ago. The current issue only first showed in December 2018 and so would not likely be due to a faulty installation of the update.

Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
grelber #50917 01/14/19 06:03 PM
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Originally Posted By: grelber
Originally Posted By: artie505
Does it rise ... to the top of Activity Monitor's %CPU column when those messages are generated?

Not to my knowledge.

Something's got to be using CPU cycles when those messages are generated, and although it may be for just an instant, it should rise to the top of a %CPU sort, i.e. make sure that the %CPU column is selected.

Originally Posted By: grelber
I've got same [osxupdcombo10.11.6 for El Capitan] in reserve but can't see the point in rerunning it since installing it originally just over a year ago. The current issue only first showed in December 2018 and so would not likely be due to a faulty installation of the update.

Like V1 has said many times (well, it's a paraphrase), it ain't broken 'til it is broken.

Just because that launch agent functioned properly until December doesn't mean that it didn't become corrupted in December.

I can't honestly say that that launch agent is at the root of your problem, nor do I even know if the Combo actually touches it, but rerunning it can't hurt. It's a, perhaps the, tried and true troubleshooting technique (and your only other option may be reinstalling Yosemite in its entirety).


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
artie505 #50918 01/14/19 08:55 PM
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grelber Offline OP
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The only thing that's using CPU to any great degree is Dashboard. I don't know what that indicates.

Since there's no real time log associated with that, there's no way to know what %CPU.

There are hundreds of processes going on at any given time, most of which I don't recognize.

These are for me all dead ends.

I'm not going to pursue it further since there doesn't seem to be any 'damage' done.
I just was curious about why such diagnostic messages would be generated at all (since they're tantamount to nothing and the system 'ignores' them anyway).

Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
artie505 #50919 01/14/19 09:27 PM
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Whatever the launch agent com.apple.suggestions.harvest: was supposed to do, the launch agent has disappeared or perhaps subsumed in another launch agent in subsequent releases of MacOS, at least is does not appear on any of the Macs here running Mojave. Launch agents and launch daemons are text files similar to a property list (.plist) and like a .plist there is a small but still finite risk of damage. Unlike .plist files, launch agents and launch daemons are NOT automatically rebuilt when they are deleted so that is not a viable fix option.

If this is being being caused by a damaged launch agent I can think of at least three possible fixes...
  1. Take Artie's suggestion and re-run the combo updater (this option has the added benefit that it may solve the problem if it is caused by something other than the launch agent).
  2. If you have a Time Machine backup, go into Time Machine and restore com.apple.suggestions.harvest: from a point in time prior to the date when the error evinced itself.
  3. If you have a bootable clone of your system that does not evince the error, restore com.apple.suggestions.harvest: from the clone.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Yet another weird iMac message (El Capitan)
joemikeb #50921 01/15/19 09:35 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Whatever the launch agent com.apple.suggestions.harvest: was supposed to do, the launch agent has disappeared or perhaps subsumed in another launch agent in subsequent releases of MacOS, at least is does not appear on any of the Macs here running Mojave.

All three of us missed the fact that grelber's original and subsequent posts reference what turn out to be different functions of the same launch agent:
  • 2018-12-26 2:35:36.981 com.apple.cts[263]: com.apple.suggestions.harvest: scheduler_evaluate_activity told me to run this job; however, but the start time isn't for 22040 seconds. Ignoring.
  • 2019-01-14 3:54:55.072 com.apple.cts[245]: com.apple.suggestd.persist-stats: scheduler_evaluate_activity told me to run this job; however, but the start time isn't for 600 seconds. Ignoring.
Both com.apple.suggestions.harvest and com.apple.suggestd.persist-stats are functions of /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.suggestd.plist in El Cap 10.11.6 (which I determined by extracting it from my El Cap 10.11.6 installer with Pacifist and openig it on my desktop).

I then examined the El Cap 10.11.6 Combo and found that it overwrites the launch agent in question.

It appears, then, that grelber's launch agent may be may be corrupted, and if that's the case, rerunning the 10.11.6 Combo ought to solve his problem. (Or could it be the functionality that causes the launch agent to fire that's misfiring?)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

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