app taking too much cpu

[naturegirl]

Recently, I was working away as usual, and the fan on my Powerbook G4 came on (which it only does when I do something quite computationally intense, usually). Since i was just doing regular, non-intense stuff, I checked the CPU usage using Activity Monitor. An application that I have had for a long time was using up to 50% or more of CPU! This was strange because the application should not have even been running. It is a small application which is used to sign in to a single license of a very expensive software that I share with my co-workers. (So what it does is it calls the computer that has the single license and allows one user at a time to access the software). Anyways, i killed the process, (which was a root process) and restarted. Now, every time i restart, the process restarts itself and again takes up way too much CPU. I then used spotlight to search for everything with the process name and found that it has a folder listed in the library under startupitems, and it has a .plist there. Now, i don't know what the .plist is for, but is this what is causing the over-use of my CPU? Any advice on what i should do? I really don't think it is good to have so much CPU being used for no reason. I would greatly appreciate any advice or thoughts!! Thanks very much!

 

[enckwanzer]

What I would try doing is trashing the .plist and restarting. Rather than totally trash it, though, I'd save a copy of it somewhere (your desktop, perhaps) just in case you decide you need to restore it. Anyway, try (at your own risk) trashing that .plist from its current directory, restarting, and see if that solves the problem. Good luck.

 

[naturegirl]

thanks!
I didn't actually have to try this, because the problem went away on its own.
thanks for the advice though.