Snow Leopard Halloween "Trick:" SystemUIServer >90% CPU Reported

**Paul Daniel Ash** · 11-01-2009, 11:24 AM

If you were, like me, using your Mac late on Hallowe'en night, you may have noticed your fan kick in at about the time the clock did its "fall back" from Daylight Savings Time. Many users did, and lit up Apple's Support boards for the hour until it was finally 1:59:59 again in their particular time zone, when most everybody's fans quieted down. Users noticed that the SystemUIServer process took up from 90 - 100% CPU usage, with some reporting launchd and syslogd also stressing the processor.

A workaround was discovered, which was simply to turn the menu bar clock off momentarily. However, since the high usage level generally went away at 2am, with the overwhelming majority of users probably having missed the whole event, the workaround was unneeded for most.

One helpful user in the threads did a sample in Activity Monitor and noted "CFAbsoluteTimeAddGregorianUnits" coming up frequently in SystemUIServer. There was disagreement over whether the bug was an understandable oversight or sloppy programming. The problem does, however, seem to have come and gone. Anyone seen any lasting effects?

**xxfr0stbytexx** · 11-01-2009, 11:45 AM

haha nice. that doesnt happen on windows

**ultimatexpka** · 11-01-2009, 11:45 AM

im a pc, and your a mac...

**plcrules** · 11-01-2009, 12:23 PM

o and if ur mac went 2 sleep at 2 am the cpu would b stressed all night
it happened 2 me

**subalou1** · 11-01-2009, 12:37 PM

happened to me, the right side was at 90% so I shut it down.

**rhekt** · 11-01-2009, 02:32 PM

had my macpro turned off for the first time in 3 weeks...just didnt feel like using it so i surfed on my iphone. dodged a bullet i guess...[err rubber bullet]

**billchase2** · 11-01-2009, 03:25 PM

I had both of my Macs on but didn't notice anything. Though I wasn't using the one at the time and was watching a movie on the other.

**StealthBravo** · 11-01-2009, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by xxfr0stbytexx

haha nice. that doesnt happen on windows

yea instead of locking up once a year, windows locks up several times a day

**zwaldowski** · 11-01-2009, 04:33 PM

I was wondering what the hell was going on. For the record, MPlayer OS X Extended handles screwed-up SystemUIServer CPU sucking better than VLC does.

Now, even though I'm hopelessly devoted to OS X, this brings up a question: can we as a technological society STILL not manage time switching properly on computers? That'd be like having a 2K10 problem, ridiculous!

**rwin84** · 11-01-2009, 07:35 PM

very weird...

**GmAz** · 11-01-2009, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by StealthBravo

yea instead of locking up once a year, windows locks up several times a day

maybe you should stop running windows me. I haven't had a lockup in windows in years.

And guess it goes to show that even changing the clock for dst is a hard job for mac os.

**prism2unit** · 11-01-2009, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by GmAz

maybe you should stop running windows me. I haven't had a lockup in windows in years.

And guess it goes to show that even changing the clock for dst is a hard job for mac os.

If your PC hasn't locked up in years, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

(P.S. i have a pc.)

**Silv3r** · 11-01-2009, 08:23 PM

my pc hasnt locked up in years.. oh wait ever since i got a gf and stopped watching the virus giving videos on the internet.... hahahahaa

**djnikk** · 11-01-2009, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Silv3r

my pc hasnt locked up in years.. oh wait ever since i got a gf and stopped watching the virus giving videos on the internet.... hahahahaa

hehehe dido that!

**marc180292** · 11-01-2009, 11:41 PM

Originally Posted by GmAz
maybe you should stop running windows me. I haven't had a lockup in windows in years.

And guess it goes to show that even changing the clock for dst is a hard job for mac os.

LOL. If you haven't notice (of course you haven't, your ignorant) Mac OS X does DST automatically and automatically adjusts the clock to the computers position in the world.

**chris4851** · 11-02-2009, 06:17 AM

I have a PC and a MAC. Oh and NO it's not a MAC with Windows bootcamp. I use both and neither is better than the other one. However, my PC is faster than my MAC. And Windows 7 rocks!

**reveritt90** · 11-02-2009, 10:27 AM

easy killers theres enough mac vs pc threads

i noticed this didnt really think anything of it it was werid fan was in full power making a lot of noise

**foureight84** · 11-02-2009, 12:34 PM

apple will tell you that it's not a reproducible bug and that it's an isolated incident!

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Snow Leopard Halloween "Trick:" SystemUIServer >90% CPU Reported

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