Anyone experiencing this? IconServicesAgent

I don't think I've had any trouble with it giving high CPU usage, but I did have this issue today:

1. The system was sleeping for about an hour, and I woke it via keyboard.
2. I turned on my display (the system is an MBP - it's closed and connected to a TV via Thunderbolt -> HDMI).
3. Nothing turned up on the display.
4. I opened the MBP's lid - nothing turned up.
5. I removed the HDMI cable - still nothing turned up.

So I ssh'd into my MBP, killed some processes to no avail, and then issued a reboot. It finally rebooted after about 3 minutes, and when I got back into my system, I found this message several times:

NotificationCenter[308]: XPC error messaging com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Connection invalid

In addition to NotificationCenter giving that message, I also get it from Quicksilver, Little Snitch Agent, SystemUIServer, DashboardClient, and Dock.

I don't know if IconServicesAgent is the cause of my display not showing up after sleep (which I've experienced several times), but it was the last thing to show up in my logs, and it (might have) caused the reboot to take 3 minutes.

Sigh, such problems with Mavericks...

I'm not seeing high CPU usage from this process but there may be some relationship here to my problem in Mavericks. Morgan Stack posted in his thread "Am I able to remove these annoying problems from 10.9?" @ https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18575449#post18575449 about a delay that can occur sometimes with the appearance of a file's icon on the Desktop after moving it there.

Your post sent me into Console to find - 1/2/14 12:12:27.069 AM com.apple.IconServicesAgent[213]: main Failed to composit image for binding VariantBinding [0x4b3] flags: 0x8 binding: CustomBinding [0x1bb] Resource: file:///Users/… /GeneralMidi/GeneralMidi-/ConstantCraving-.mid. About that time I moved a file to the desktop. I haven't been able to reproduce it since icons are appearing immediately when I move anything there now.

Like with you and TH-Gunner, In Mavericks I've had to restart occasionally to get an image to appear on a display after waking my 2012 Mac Mini from sleep.

LCD said:

I'm not seeing high CPU usage from this process but there may be some relationship here to my problem in Mavericks. Morgan Stack posted in his thread "Am I able to remove these annoying problems from 10.9?" @ https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18575449#post18575449 about a delay that can occur sometimes with the appearance of a file's icon on the Desktop after moving it there.

Your post sent me into Console to find - 1/2/14 12:12:27.069 AM com.apple.IconServicesAgent[213]: main Failed to composit image for binding VariantBinding [0x4b3] flags: 0x8 binding: CustomBinding [0x1bb] Resource: file:///Users/… /GeneralMidi/GeneralMidi-/ConstantCraving-.mid. About that time I moved a file to the desktop. I haven't been able to reproduce it since icons are appearing immediately when I move anything there now.

Like with you and TH-Gunner, In Mavericks I've had to restart occasionally to get an image to appear on a display after waking my 2012 Mac Mini from sleep.

Click to expand...

I think you just found a Mavericks bug, LCD! Or more than one... You ought to report them using the bug reporter (if a developer) or the feedback section (if not).

wrldwzrd89 said:

I think you just found a Mavericks bug, LCD! Or more than one... You ought to report them using the bug reporter (if a developer) or the feedback section (if not).

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I'm not a developer wrldwzrd89.

I'd have to do a clean install of Mavericks to really know what my problems with the OS are as opposed to the ones I brought in from Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard or Tiger. But too much is working well for that so I'll just keep reading these forums to find out what the community is experiencing. I still really like Mavericks despite the many issues I'm having.

That entry for iconservicesagent in my Console has nothing to do with the thread starter's disappearing desktop icons issue. I see now that I'm getting them all the time without moving anything to the desktop. And since I haven't opened any MIDI files in months, why they are there is beyond me.

sliceoftoast said:

Hi world

Is anyone experiencing this problem on Mavericks? The com.apple.IconServicesAgent just for some unknown reason decides to die on me and then consume all the CPU power of the iMac and things disappear off the desktop and icons disappear on the finder window.

I do not know why this is the case, seems to happen at random intervals.

This fault never occurred on SL/ L / ML.

Just wanted to see if others are experiencing a similar problem, because at the moment the only way i am able to fix this is to reboot the entire iMac which is a PITA because if i am in the middle of editing something, well yeah you get the idea...

Click to expand...

Started happening to me just two weeks ago with Mavericks, and yes the only fix is a restart. I am on an iMac too but an i5 mid 2013

sliceoftoast said:

Have you updated to 10.9.2? Mine seems to have settled down since doing that.

Click to expand...

Here too. 10.9.2 also stopped the slow appearance on the desktop of file icons I was having after creating or moving their files there with other ways besides drag and drop.

sliceoftoast said:

Have you updated to 10.9.2? Mine seems to have settled down since doing that. However some times it still plays up and a reboot is needed.

But it is no way as bad as it was before.

Click to expand...

I was already on 10.9.2 when this started, unfortunately. It is very intermittent - The iMac can be up for days, with just putting the Computer to sleep at night, with the same programmes open all the time, and then suddenly the problem occurs.