Mysterious 'Thumbnailer' Process Using Up 99% CPU?

[rekhyt]

This incident had happened a few times before already, but never has it sped up my fans so significantly.

A mysterious process called 'Thumbnailer' appears sometimes and takes up a large percentage of CPU power. I'm not sure why this happens.

Today, it sped up my MacBook Pro's fans to 6K RPM and 67° C. I managed to get a screenshot of it while it was happening for roughly 30 seconds.

It's somewhat concerning-Is this the first Mac virus that I have experienced since my adoption of Macs in 2007, or a stray process, or a hacking attempt by someone?

Now Google Chrome's taking up 12% and 11% with it's multiple "helper" processes. ... Is this also normal? o.0

 

[jaydentaku]

I am guess it is ThumbNailer by MDE Walt, seems a little too obvious?

http://homepage.mac.com/mdewalt/iWeb/Site/Home.html

 

[rekhyt]

I am guess it is ThumbNailer by MDE Walt, seems a little too obvious?

http://homepage.mac.com/mdewalt/iWeb/Site/Home.html

I don't remember downloading anything like that before. It's gone now, for some strange reason. Things like CoreAudiod and SystemUIServer also pop up in the high CPU usages area.

 

[jaydentaku]

Ah well, that was my only guess, sorry. SystemUIServer has been around for a while now and is a background system process for the interface. And Coreaudio is as it says, for coreaudio related gubbins.


Coreaudio has been known to be a system hog. Perhaps try killing it in activity monitor? See what happens, at own risk obviously.

 

[Makosuke]

Things like CoreAudiod and SystemUIServer also pop up in the high CPU usages area.

A quick Google search will tell you more about these two, but they're normal relatively low-level system processes. CoreAudiod handles audio hardware, and some 3rd party apps or hardware have been known to occasionally cause it to freak out (never seen this personally), while SystemUIServer handles the doodads at the right side of the menu bar--it can freeze if you've got a menu bar add-on that's acting up.

Killing either will cause them to immediately re-spawn, but if they only occasionally spike by a bit, it's probably behaving normally and there's no reason to.

 

[rekhyt]

A quick Google search will tell you more about these two, but they're normal relatively low-level system processes. CoreAudiod handles audio hardware, and some 3rd party apps or hardware have been known to occasionally cause it to freak out (never seen this personally), while SystemUIServer handles the doodads at the right side of the menu bar--it can freeze if you've got a menu bar add-on that's acting up.

Killing either will cause them to immediately re-spawn, but if they only occasionally spike by a bit, it's probably behaving normally and there's no reason to.

Yep-I'm quite sure they're normal system processes. SystemUIServer spikes up when I click on a iStat Menu menulet. :|

Anyone heard of a stray app called "Thumbnailer" before?

 

[Makosuke]

Well, if you open up Application Monitor, find Thumbnailer, double click on it to bring up the detailed info window, and then look at the "Open Files and Ports" tab, one of the first files listed should give you wherever the process itself is stored, which should point you to what it is.

If you still can't figure it out, pasting the info here someone might be able to help.

 

[Nashguy]

Well, if you open up Application Monitor, find Thumbnailer, double click on it to bring up the detailed info window, and then look at the "Open Files and Ports" tab, one of the first files listed should give you wherever the process itself is stored, which should point you to what it is.

If you still can't figure it out, pasting the info here someone might be able to help.

Thanks for the tip - I hadn't known that. If anyone comes across this, "Thumbnailer" is part of Evernote! It spiked after Evernote prompted me to do an update.

Learned two things!