"Kies WiFi Agent" making Macbook Air go crazy

Kies wifi

I have/had the same problem, just didn't know it. My new mbp started getting only about 2 hrs battery life on full charge, and getting really hot; contacted Apple, and scheduled Genius Bar appt.

At Genius Bar, this app (Kies wifi) doesn't show up on activity monitor, but battery was draining really fast (about 5% in 5 minutes), with no active windows open.

Apple rep gave me new battery, and off I went. Turn on my mbp this AM to cycle once the new battery, when I check activity monitor and KiesWiFi is eating 99% of battery and I'm actually watching my battery percentage tick down from 96% to 88% in seconds.

I tried removing app (and all files) with 'AppCleaner', had to do it about three times before I actually just stopped it via Activity Monitor. Restarted my mbp, no more KiesWiFi. Don't know why it was doing what it was doing, but I got rid of it. I don't even remember downloading this app. I have the TMobile Samsung Galaxy S2, so I might have connected phone via BlueTooth to send pictures and software was downloaded.

P.S. All mentioned positive apps, from Apple app store.

The same thing happened to me. In the last week my MBA's fan kept spinning and the battery life dropped to 1:50 hours without any reason.

I installed Kies to backup my Samsung Galaxy S2 the previous week. I opened up Activity Monitor and it showed the same thing: Kies using 98% of the CPU for no reason at all. I didn't even had the program opened at the taskbar. Apparently Kies installs a small program that remains working in the event that you want to connect your cellphone to your computer.

I simply closed the program using Activity Monitor and then erased the Kies folder. Almost instantly the fan slowed down and my MBA got cooler.

It seems almost as if Samsung was trying to kill my MBA.

Memory leak.

Sounds like Kies has a memory leak. Sometimes the dev is totally unaware of a leak like this. Anyways I prefer App Zap when I need to delete apps on the spot.

nemmo said:

The same thing happened to me. In the last week my MBA's fan kept spinning and the battery life dropped to 1:50 hours without any reason.

I installed Kies to backup my Samsung Galaxy S2 the previous week. I opened up Activity Monitor and it showed the same thing: Kies using 98% of the CPU for no reason at all. I didn't even had the program opened at the taskbar. Apparently Kies installs a small program that remains working in the event that you want to connect your cellphone to your computer.

I simply closed the program using Activity Monitor and then erased the Kies folder. Almost instantly the fan slowed down and my MBA got cooler.

It seems almost as if Samsung was trying to kill my MBA.

Click to expand...

Easy!

It's quite simple to turn this off...

I'm using OsX 10.7.4 and I did this:

I went to "System Preferences", than in the line "System" I went to "Users and Groups". In the top, there is "Password" and something like "Login Items".
I went to this "Login Items" and just clicked one time in "KiesViaWifiAgent" and than in the " - " button under it.

Now, I can reboot the MacBook Pro and it will not startup by itself.

Sorry about my english, but I'm form Brasil and my OsX is all in portuguese. So, I'm translating it by myself.

Hope to be helpfull...

leandromundim said:

It's quite simple to turn this off...

I'm using OsX 10.7.4 and I did this:

I went to "System Preferences", than in the line "System" I went to "Users and Groups". In the top, there is "Password" and something like "Login Items".
I went to this "Login Items" and just clicked one time in "KiesViaWifiAgent" and than in the " - " button under it.

Now, I can reboot the MacBook Pro and it will not startup by itself.

Sorry about my english, but I'm form Brasil and my OsX is all in portuguese. So, I'm translating it by myself.

Hope to be helpfull...

Click to expand...

Obrigado pela informação. Na verdade, esta foi a primeira coisa que fiz, mas ainda estava tendo problemas com Kies. Assim, eu tive que tomar medidas adicionais para se certificar de que tinha ido embora.

leandromundim said:

It's quite simple to turn this off...

I'm using OsX 10.7.4 and I did this:

I went to "System Preferences", than in the line "System" I went to "Users and Groups". In the top, there is "Password" and something like "Login Items".
I went to this "Login Items" and just clicked one time in "KiesViaWifiAgent" and than in the " - " button under it.

Now, I can reboot the MacBook Pro and it will not startup by itself.

Sorry about my english, but I'm form Brasil and my OsX is all in portuguese. So, I'm translating it by myself.

Hope to be helpfull...

Click to expand...

many thanks for this. Very helpful.

I really wish that the software engineers who wrote Kies actually followed Apples guidelines. I really resent them taking COMPLETE control of my desktop when I need to update the firmware on my Ace 2. I am unable to do anything with the Mac while this is going on. Just because they are either lazy or incompetent.