Background Process trying to run but can't

[zacster]

I don't want these things, but when checking the log on Console I see the following two processes trying to start or do something. As you can see it can't start them because they don't exist. I know MacKeeper is considered malware, and I also know I tried TVMobili once a few years ago for DLNA streaming to my TV. But how do I kill the attempts to start them every 10 seconds?

6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[1096]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.tvmobili.artwork[1097]) posix_spawn("/Applications/TVMOBiLi.app/Contents/MacOS/tvmobiliqlhandler", ...): No such file or directory
6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[1096]) Exited with exit code: 1
6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.tvmobili.artwork[1097]) Exited with exit code: 1
6/22/14 10:38:37 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.tvmobili.artwork) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
6/22/14 10:38:47 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[1099]) posix_spawn("/Applications/MacKeeper.app/Contents/Resources/MacKeeper Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/MacKeeper Helper", ...): No such file or directory
6/22/14 10:38:47 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.tvmobili.artwork[1100]) posix_spawn("/Applications/TVMOBiLi.app/Contents/MacOS/tvmobiliqlhandler", ...): No such file or directory
6/22/14 10:38:47 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper[1099]) Exited with exit code: 1
6/22/14 10:38:47 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.508[170] (com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

 

[vansmith]

If they're failing to launch, nothing is happening to your machine and the performance hit would be negligible at best.

The first thing to do would be to see if the plists are still available. Go to ~/Library/LaunchAgents (that's the Library folder in your home directory which is accessible by opening the Go menu and holding option) and see if com.tvmobili.artwork and com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper exist. From the looks of it, they don't but it doesn't hurt to check. If they do, leave them there for now. When that's done, execute the following Terminal commands (/Applications/Utilities):

launchctl remove com.tvmobili.artwork

launchctl remove com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper

Those commands may fail if the files aren't there (which is why I asked you to keep them). Once those commands are executed, you can delete those plist files.

 

[zacster]

tvmobili was there and that command was successful, MacKeeper wasn't and it is still trying every 10 seconds.

So what is initiating this in the first place? There must be something somewhere.

 

[vansmith]

This is a problem when plists go missing but they're still being loaded (or attempted) by launchctl. Since the plist no longer exists, you can't remove it from launchctl because it isn't there to remove. This is why the tvmobili command worked - the plist was still there so when you tell launchd to remove it, it makes sense.

The only way I can think of to remove this is to have a plist called com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper in the ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory. Since launchd isn't smart enough to know what com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper contains, you could try creating a dummy plist called com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper, put it in that directory (just copy another and rename it), re-execute the remove command and delete the fake com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper plist.

If that doesn't work, I wouldn't worry about the failed loading messages. No harm is being done.