Mac: Sync is using over 100% CPU core continually.

[benwiggy]

Sync on my Mac is running very hard, and driving down my battery life. It's using between 99% and 125% CPU (100% = 1 core) permanently. 

I'm using the Sierra public beta, but I seem to remember it was doing this before, but only about 20%, which was better, though still not optimal.

Edited August 16, 2016 by benwiggy

[Remirus]

benwiggy, thank you for reporting about it. The issue should be fixed in 2.4 version.

[benwiggy]

Thanks. Yes, this works well. It now runs at about 3%, though runs up to 18% every 20 seconds for 2 seconds. But much better.

[Remirus]

benwiggy, do you see "Indexing" word on any folder during that time? And does the Sync transfer some files or it does nothing and only consumes resources?

[benwiggy]

It seems to happen regardless of any syncing in progress. Do you mean "indexing" added to the filename? No, not seen that.

[jmjordan]

I was experiencing the same issue and can confirm that 2.4 fixes this issue.

[Remirus]

benwiggy, you can check it in the Sync:

Usually Sync indexes folders when you start it or after some time to make sure that all files are up-to-date. If you don't use network shared folders in the Sync you can open Sync preferences => Advanced => Power user preferences and increase folder_rescan_interval from 600 (which is 10 minutes) to 18000 (which is 5 hours) or even more. If that doesn't help please send us logs.

 

[mr.canada]

"If you don't use network shared folders in the Sync you can open Sync preferences => Advanced => Power user preferences and increase folder_rescan_interval from 600 (which is 10 minutes) to 18000 (which is 5 hours) or even more."

 

Can you please clarify what the pros/cons are of increasing the folder_rescan_interval is.  I have a large Mac fileserver with about 3TB of data.  It is shared for a dozen or so staff members using standard Apple File Sharing.  I would like to use Sync to maintain local copies of this data in several locations, where it will also be shared for local staff members.  In other words, i would like to run Sync on several Mac file servers - not on end-user workstations.

I have increased folder_rescan_interval to 1 day.  when it was set to 10 minutes, it ran constantly, never actually completing (or, perhaps, completing then starting again right away).

Now that it's set to 1 day, it no longer runs constantly.  but why one day?  why not one month, one year, or never?  what are the consequences?  Does this mean that Sync will not be aware of new data until the timer for folder_rescan expires and it learns of new data that needs to be synced?

 

[Remirus]

mr.canada, if your OS and file system send notifications that files were changed then increasing "folder_rescan_interval" will expand your harddrive lifetime. You can set it to 1 week, 1 month or even higher. If Sync receives notifications it doesn't matter how often Sync rescans folders, it's just a spare way for Sync to know that all files are up to date. Because if you add some smb-share into Sync and files are updated there there is a chance that Sync won't know about it (because it might use SMB 2.0 or older protocol). Even if you set it to 68 years Sync will check all your folders again when you restart it.

[mr.canada]

Thanks.  But I do use SMB - it's a file server which shares files via SMB to users on the lan.  I believe it's SMB 3.0 these days, not 2.0.  It can also be AFP.  I guess I should try setting it to 0 to prevent folder_rescan from happening in the first place, and see what happens.

Can you think of any other times where a file may make it into a folder without Sync knowing about it, other than with SMB 2.0?

 

 

[Remirus]

mr.canada, I know that if file is located deeply on Windows (i.e. have very long path) Windows may not send notifications. On Mac it might be because some file system which doesn't send notifications. Or if you encounter this bug.