

Fix random few-second freezes in Mountain Lion - swombat
http://www.princeton.edu/~jcjb/docs/osx_error_fix/

======
guylhem
This problem is due to the protection, the sandboxing.

Various approaches have been suggested on the online forums, including editing
the config files to be more lenient about these protections (the so called
"alternative approach" proposed by the poster)

I tried them all, never had any result. I almost gave up, then read about that
safe mode reboot suggestion. I have long uptimes and I don't want to bother
reopening stuff, so I didn't do it immediately.

But finally I did, and it worked. Based on the timestamp of my blog
(<http://en.blog.guylhem.net/>) I tried that on mar 31, about 1 month ago, and
here are the results from the syslog so far (1 month of data after the fix):

    
    
        # bzgrep sandboxd /var/log/system.log*|grep deny|sed -e 's/.*bz2://g'|sort|wc
          97    1441   18032
    

About 97 issues of sandboxing zealousness remain, if we distinct them by
removing the PIDs with :

    
    
        # bzgrep sandboxd /var/log/system.log*|grep deny|sed -e 's/.*macbookair//g' -e 's/[0-9]*//g' |sort|uniq
        kernel[]: Sandbox: sandboxd() deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): Preview() deny file-read-data /Users/guylhem/C/abcdef.jpeg
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): Preview() deny file-write-data /Users/guylhem/C/abcdef.jpeg
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): QuickLookSatelli() deny file-read-data /Users/guylhem/Desktop/Wolfram Science Summer School   Application_files/.css
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): QuickLookSatelli() deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): TextEdit() deny mach-lookup com.apple.SystemConfiguration.SCNetworkReachability
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): TextEdit() deny mach-lookup com.apple.tsm.portname
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): TextEdit() deny system-socket
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): VTDecoderXPCServ() deny file-read-data /Users/guylhem/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny file-read-data  /Library/Filesystems/NetFSPlugins ()
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny file-read-data /Library/Filesystems/NetFSPlugins (pre-ls-info fstype:mtmfs fsflag: flags: diag: uti:com.apple.application-bundle plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Application.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t )
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny file-read-xattr /Users/guylhem/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Safe Browsing Bloom (pre-plugin fstype:hfs fsflag:D flags:E diag: uti:public.data plugin:internalPlainTextImporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t )
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:D flags: diag: uti:com.microsoft.excel.xls plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t )
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:D flags: diag: uti:org.openxmlformats.presentationml.presentation plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t )
        .guylhem.org sandboxd[] ([]): mdworker() deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:D flags:E diag: uti:com.microsoft.excel.xls plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t )
        .guylhem.org.home sandboxd[] ([]): Preview() deny mach-lookup com.apple.SystemConfiguration.SCNetworkReachability
        .guylhem.org.home sandboxd[] ([]): Preview() deny system-socket
        .local sandboxd[] ([]): QuickLookSatelli() deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control
        .local sandboxd[] ([]): VTDecoderXPCServ() deny file-read-data /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist
        .local sandboxd[] ([]): fontworker() deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd
    
    

This last one is interesting :

    
    
        # bzgrep com.apple.ls.boxd /var/log/system.log*
        /var/log/system.log.2.bz2:Apr 26 18:23:37 macbookair.local sandboxd[64] ([62]): fontworker(62) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd
    

lsboxd sqweaked only once in a month - and for something different.

I'd call this "problem solved", which is supported by my personal observation
over this last month : I haven't experienced the problem again yet, while
previously it was at least every 2 days (along with the TimeMachine always
reindexing)

My suggestion: check your logs with the greps, try this simple fix and report
your results in a month.

EDIT: This in on my macbookair with a 480GB OWC SSD (but apparently it also
occurs on macbookair with vanilla apple ssds). I used istat menus, and still
do. I didn't disable the dynamic pager, spotlight or anything else.

(EDIT2: removed) - thanks for the 4 spaces suggestion! as explained, the
simple safe reboot solution made the problem go away, while other approaches
didn't. It works for me, and I have 1 month of data supporting that.

~~~
jes5199
What change did you actually make that made the errors stop?

~~~
jdminhbg
He's talking about the original parent link:
<http://www.princeton.edu/~jcjb/docs/osx_error_fix/>

------
lobster_johnson
I have a brand new 2013 model MBP (Retina display, 16GB RAM, Apple SSD)
running Mountain Lion. I actually upgraded because my 2011 model was getting
these freezes, and I assumed it was a hardware problem.

But my new MBP has been sluggish from day one. That is, from the moment I
migrated my user files from my old box. It's possible that I got some stuff
that affects performance. Three things helped:

* First, disabling the dynamic pager [1]. This one has a dramatic effect on performance. In theory, it will prevent OS X from swapping out apps unnecessarily (which it will do even when the apps are active and there is plenty of RAM). I did have some, but not much, swapping going on, but it still improved performance.

* Secondly, I uninstalled iStat Menus. I can't be sure that this contributed to the performance problems, but I won't risk reinstalling to find out. It _seems_ to have helped a bit.

* Thirdly, I disabled Spotlight indexing of my home directory. This way Alfred will still autocomplete apps. Some apps lose their search functionality, but I never use Spotlight, and I find that I can live without it.

I tried the sandbox config fix, but it made no difference to me.

The remaining sluggishness seems to come from the graphics layer. For example,
doing the Exposé "reveal all windows" command takes 3-4 seconds on my box and
has a frame rate of approximately 1 fps. It's not great. I notice the reduced
graphics performance when scrolling pages in Chrome, whereas Safari is
smoother. I suspect this is Retina being a bit too ambitious compared to
actual current graphics card performance.

As an aside, I believe OS X's I/O system has traditionally been its weak
point, being a Mach-based hybrid-microkernel architecture. You can cause GUI
scheduling problems by overloading the I/O system, and it's possible that this
is exacerbated by having a SSD.

~~~
ggreer
_It's possible that I got some stuff that affects performance._

It's almost certain that migrating something from your old mac caused this.
Clean installs of OS X do not have the problems you describe, even on the 13"
rMBP's weak GPU.

 _First, disabling the dynamic pager [1]._

I don't know what you tried to link to, but I'm guessing it's similar to this
blog post from a while back:
[http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/20464780085/something-is-
de...](http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/20464780085/something-is-deeply-
broken-in-os-x-memory-management) . The author changed his mind after 10.8
came out: [http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/28556080639/mountain-
lion-s...](http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/28556080639/mountain-lion-seems-
to-have-partially-addressed-the)

Disabling dynamic_pager disables swap, and that's not a good idea on OS X. Any
perceived difference in performance is likely placebo. Have you tried a blind
test? Have a friend disable/enable swap and see if you can guess correctly.
You might be surprised at the results.

Instead of risking the instability and performance degradation that is likely
to occur when changing low-level OS settings, you should figure out what you
migrated that's causing the issue. Do some science. If you create another
account and log in, do the issues persist? What if you boot off the restore
partition? Are there any specific errors in the system console? If you backup,
erase, and install a clean OS X, do the issues persist? What if you copy your
dotfiles over to this clean install? What if you copy your old ~/Library to
it? Etcetera. Once you reproduce the problem, you can use time machine to
restore to an unaffected version.

You might as well upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, hack a bunch of
registry entries to change kernel behavior, and then complain that Windows is
buggy and slow. Blaming the operating system is easy, but it won't fix your
problem. The cause is something you copied from your previous set-up. Find it
and you'll be a much happier camper.

~~~
lobster_johnson
> _but I'm guessing it's similar to this blog post from a while back_

That's the link. He didn't change his mind, he merely upgraded and got better
performance. That did not happen in my case.

> _Have you tried a blind test?_

No need. Before the change, my mouse pointer was freezing up every few
seconds, and I got "IOHIDSystem cursor update overdue. Resending." in the
system log very frequently. This disappeared completely after disabling the
pager.

The difference in performance is stunning. For example, previously, opening a
new tab in Chrome would not animate the tab line correctly, resulting in a
weird "jolt" as the tab came into place. Now it's smooth.

> _Do some science._

The problem is that these things take a lot of time. Time that I don't have.
At some point I might create a new user and see if that helps.

~~~
coldtea
> _No need. Before the change, my mouse pointer was freezing up every few
> seconds, and I got "IOHIDSystem cursor update overdue. Resending." in the
> system log very frequently. This disappeared completely after disabling the
> pager. The difference in performance is stunning. For example, previously,
> opening a new tab in Chrome would not animate the tab line correctly,
> resulting in a weird "jolt" as the tab came into place. Now it's smooth._

Both sound like problems TOTALLY unrelated to the dynamic paging, that
accidentally were solved by disabling it. Especially seeing that people with
the paging enabled don't see any slowdowns such as these AT ALL.

My guess is some BS software left over from the previous installation, a SIBML
plugin, a haxie, or something else faulty, that caused the unnecessary paging.
If you have found and removed that, then you wouldn't have had other issues
with the paging functionality.

~~~
lobster_johnson
I have all of the problems described in the article [1] except for spinning
beach balls.

The IOHIDSystem problem is claimed to disappear if you do the sandbox fix, but
it did not help in my case.

I don't have SIMBL plugins, I don't have extensions such as FUSE, or otherwise
any weird software that could be the culprit.

I don't deny that it's possible that there is something else. But I have spent
a lot of time on this already, and not found anything.

[1] [http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/20464780085/something-is-
de...](http://workstuff.tumblr.com/post/20464780085/something-is-deeply-
broken-in-os-x-memory-management)

~~~
coldtea
I'm sure the paging toggle helped you in your case, but I'm also sure that
it's not the OS X paging implementation that causes this "in general".

I.e that if someone doesn't disable paging, he will have the effects you
describe.

Even if it's paging related it's probably something that effect specific
users, not some overall fault in the implementation of paging.

------
UnoriginalGuy
This whole thread is making me very pleased I didn't buy a Macbook Pro.

It isn't the fact that stuff goes wrong that bugs me, it is the fact that
seemingly both the problems and solutions are via "magic." Even people who
claim to be very UNIX knowledgable have no idea what is going wrong...

When Apple's stuff works it "just works." When Apple's stuff stops working
then you're SOL.

~~~
saidajigumi
In my experience, this kind of thing is no different than any other system
I've used over the years. Windows, Linux, OS X -- _all_ of them end up with
odd problems that require a bit of digging around the web to sort out.
Singling out OS X as "then you're SOL" seems like FUD to me.

~~~
obviouslygreen
When you have a problem in Linux, it may require some searching, but the
solution usually _makes sense_ at some level. Unless you're doing something
very strange or bleeding edge, it's more likely that what you find won't be
totally incomprehensible or inexplicable.

As for Windows... just restart it, you'll be fine. ;)

~~~
jfb
It only makes sense because you understand Linux. Windows is a black book to
me, but I've worked with Windows hackers who had the same intuitive
understanding of how their system worked as the neckebeardiest BSD hacker has
of theirs.

I don't find this latest OS X buglet to be difficult to understand, but then,
I've been using OS X for ages.

~~~
ninjac0der
I makes sense because there is no black box for an open source OS.

#edit: also, how exactly does one get as familiar with a closed source OS as
an open source one?

~~~
kibibu
Are you suggesting Linux problems are easier to fix because you can read the
source code to the kernel?

I'm sure on some level that's true, as you have the _option_ to learn how,
say, your WiFi drivers operate to decipher why your signal drops to three bars
every 20 minutes.

However, in Windows, I generally know where to find configuration info: In one
of three registry hives, which follow a pretty easy to parse tree structure.

In Linux, I'm totally lost finding where to configure different pieces of
software. Each distro puts their various configs in different spots. Some in
/etc/local/whatever, /etc/whatever/, /usr/share/local/whatever.d/,
/opt/whatever/, /etc/opt/whatever.conf/, /usr/local/share/whatever.d/ and so
on. Some times there are duplicates, which one is the correct one? How do I
know? And on top of this, every config file uses different formats.

~~~
Xcelerate
Haha, your last paragraph is so incredibly true. I can't stand the way Linux
organizes information.

------
JonnieCache
Is that a lisp config file? Blimey. Is this common in OSX land?

I'm somewhat skeptical that this will fix the random beachballing, because I'm
pretty sure I've been seeing that since before ML. The fact that I put up with
it is testimony to how badly windows and (desktop) linux suck.

EDIT: tried the config edit and rebooted, not seeing the "deny mach-lookup"
error any more but I am still seeing regular "Unable to talk to lsboxd"
messages. I guess I'll try the safemode thing later.

EDIT2: another thing I've done in my quest to banish the beachball is to
uninstall iStat Menus. I'm sure there are many others here who use it. It was
causing lots of crazy behaviour in the SystemUIServer process. Now I've binned
it, things seem better. It's a shame, I liked those graphs. Anyone know
another tool that can show me per-process bandwidth usage?

~~~
workbench
If you're running things like iStat Menus then you shouldn't be shocked when
the system runs sluggish at times.

~~~
JonnieCache
Is it really that unrealistic in 2013 to expect my machine to be able to
update a few graphs once every couple of seconds without falling to its knees
and weeping? I know it's having to make lots of calls into the kernel to get
the data, and I can live with it taking up a little bit of CPU now and then,
but I have a right to expect it not to hang the OS.

I guess the ugly UI of the thing should have been a warning.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I like their UI.

~~~
JonnieCache
Ugly is probably too harsh, you're right. However I find that amount of fiddly
extra chrome sets off alarm bells in my head. The config app gives me
flashbacks of trying to delete norton utilities.

------
swombat
I've used the alternative method of editing system.sb - because I'm not scared
of editing system files, heh.

To test whether you have the problem, open the Console (under Others in
launchpad) and search for the string "mdworker".

------
randall
The issue I've had is from not being able to use keyboard or mouse entry for
some random (3-5 seconds?) amount of time.

Anyone else seen that? rMBP, fwiw.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Yes. Same here. It freezes and while I can type a little, it ends up
"liiiiiiik tttttiis".

Those freezes got a lot rarer after I disabled the dynamic pager [1]. I have
only experienced it once since then.

I have had vm_stat and iostat running constantly to see if I can catch any
metrics when it happens, but nothing stands out. It's not related to excessive
I/O or swapping.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5626835>

------
NelsonMinar
I'm pretty handy with Unix but this problem and fix seem like pure magic. What
problem with Spotlight indexing / Time Machine could cause the entire GUI to
lock up in the first place? I'm used to random Apple apps like Finder and
iTunes beachballing because they are badly written, but the whole OS?

The "alternative fix" hidden text at least explains why booting Safe Mode
might magically fix things; it's "rebuilding things and clearing caches". What
a mess.

~~~
JonnieCache
The idea that a kernel-level process sandboxing system getting confused could
freeze the GUI seems pretty legit to me.

~~~
NelsonMinar
I suppose so, but that's a pretty severe bug. The whole sandboxing system is
pretty controversial in the first place, the idea that bugs in it are causing
users' GUIs to lock up is pretty horrible.

~~~
coldtea
Well, it's not like millions of users are in tears all around the country. I
for one, have had no such problem. Bugs happen, anyway, it will be fixed in a
subsequent update.

------
ahknight
Can't safe boot with a Filevault 2 boot disk. Thanks, Apple!

You get to decrypt the disk, safe boot, verify fix, then re-encrypt the disk.
Apparently the boot loader can't pass a boot variable down after the transfer
or something? Anyone have insight here?

~~~
coldtea
> _Can't safe boot with a Filevault 2 boot disk. Thanks, Apple!_

I'm sure they did it out of incompetence and/or spite, and not due to some
security concern or technical issue.

~~~
ahknight
When designing a new system-wide architecture like a new storage subsystem,
edge cases matter. A lot. I'd call it, at best, an oversight in the design
phase of CS-WDE and, at worst, incompetence.

~~~
coldtea
Edge-cases happen. By definition. And some edge-cases are necessary trade
offs.

Without knowing MUCH MUCH more into the issue, I wouldn't call it neither
oversight, nor incompetence.

------
grayprog
If you can't boot into Safe mode (I couldn't on a rMBP with 10.8.3), you can
perform the following sequence to make it boot to Safe mode (source
<https://discussions.apple.com/message/21366643#21366643>):

    
    
      cd /sbin
      sudo mv fsck_hfs fsck_hfs_orig
      sudo cp -p /usr/bin/true fsck_hfs
      nvram boot-args="-x -v"
      
      reboot, log in
      
      sudo nvram boot-args=""
       
      reboot
       
      cd /sbin
      sudo mv fsck_hfs_orig fsck_hfs

~~~
mitchty
Why are you moving fsck_hfs around? I do notice if i'm booting into safe mode
that fsck_hfs is taking FOREVER. (running 12 hours so far on my retina mbp 15,
which is ludicrous)

But just switching to single user (aka boot-args="-s -v") and manually running
fsck_hfs -c 4096m -f -d /dev/disk1 (or equivalent) I managed to clean up / of
a few problems in under 4 minutes. fsck_hfs looks like it could use some
fixing to dynamically cache things better, that or they could give it default
arguments based on the systems memory size to speed things along.

Either way I'm done with trying to fix this, just going to reinstall 10.8.3
from scratch and rsync over my home directory and reinstall vmware. I've tried
about every fix for the sandbox nonsense, and since this system had 10.7
originally maybe it upgraded badly, whatever.

------
nixy
I know this might not be the best forum for this question, but since this
thread currently has a lot of eyes on it I wanted to reach out and see if any
one has experienced the same issue as me.

I am on a mid-2011 Mac Mini and I upgraded to Mountain Lion when it was
released. Ever since I have been plagued with a freezing issue which is way
worse than described by the OP.

What happens, 10-20 times per workday is the following:

    
    
      I am in my workflow coding, sending e-mail, using Photoshop etc
      At any seemingly random time, the app(s) I am using will become unresponsive
      Soon after the Beachball appears and I cannot interact with most apps
      After a period of time, usually between 10 seconds and 15 minutes (yes, minutes), everything un-freezes and goes back to normal
    

When the freezing happens, Chrome will not load webpages (stuck on "Waiting
for cache" message). The Terminal will take forever to perform simple
commands, such as "ls". TextMate will freeze when trying to save a file, or
sometimes even when trying to input data. Finder will lock up totally.

At times during longer periods of freezing, there is a small burst of CPU
cycles going through, so if I type "ls" in the Terminal, the command might
execute after 40 seconds and then freeze again.

I have searched the web high and low for a solution, but haven't even found
anyone with the same issue.

I have tried booting into safe mode, re-installing ML, uninstalling software,
tampering with settings, isolating the behaviour to a certain app etc. I have
found that the freezing occurs even after a clean reboot without starting any
apps. There is nothing in the system logs. There is no extra network, cpu,
memory or disk activity at the time. I have not found a single thing to pin
this on.

Using Photoshop, Parallels and Skype seem to make the freezing more frequent,
but they are not solely responsible for it.

Has anyone even seen this issue? At this point I have mostly given up on a
solution, I am just looking for that "Who are you DenverCoder9? What did you
see?" moment[1]

Anyone?

[1] <http://xkcd.com/979/>

~~~
kalleboo
Is your disk healthy? That sounds like the behaviour of a dying harddisk
(system locks up waiting for disk I/O as the harddisk retries, retries,
retries until it finally gives up). Is there nothing in Console.app when this
happens?

~~~
nixy
No, nothing in Console.app. I have run various disk diagnostics tools and they
come up with nothing. My best guess is that it is the gfx drivers, but I have
not found a way to manually re-install those on OS X.

~~~
kalleboo
You could just reinstall OS X. It'll just replace the /System directory so you
lose no data or settings

~~~
nixy
Tried that too :)

------
dpedu
Holy hell, my 2012 Macbook Air does this! Its pretty irritating but I had been
taking it as a fact of life.

~~~
rexf
Same for my 2011 Air, I was thinking about formatting and re-installing OS X.
Not sure I can reliably reproduce the few-second freeze in OS X, but it does
happen (and is very noticeable when it occurs).

------
fredleblanc
I didn't fully realize that I had this issue (I mean, I saw freezes, just
assumed it was Photoshop or something causing it). Did the reboot fix and
things seems to have worked. Whereas before mdworker errors were entering the
console every 2-3 minutes, it's been 30 since I did the reboot and haven't
seen an mdworker error since.

~~~
lukeholder
same here, thought it was photoshop. My computer doesn't do the freeze
anymore. This is awesome.

------
ars
So the entire fix is basically to reboot to safe mode, then back out of it?

How does that fix anything?

~~~
Watabou
Read the apple page on safe mode. It performs several checks which most likely
fix the problem.

------
rangibaby
This fix is for a sandboxing bug in the first releases of 10.8.2 and
10.7.5[1]. Updating your OS to the latest version can also remedy the problem.

[1] <http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1599>

~~~
shimfish
I'm on 10.8.3 and it was happening to me until I did the safe mode reboot half
an hour ago.

------
nicholassmith
I've had a few issues with ML locking up, some seem to be from this, others
are from graphics updates being suspended. It's almost enough to push me back
to SL honestly, but I need the later versions of XCode. Very annoying.

------
kstenerud
I get the freeze every time I plug in or remove a USB device. Hopefully this
fix will work for me...

------
euroclydon
Does "clear the console" mean open the terminal and type clear, or something
else?

~~~
lobster_johnson
It refers to the Console app, which has a "Clear Display" button.

------
danso
Hmmm...I wonder if this is my roommate's problem. Last year I gave her my 2008
Macbook Pro (a fully decked-out one at the time) because her 8 year old iMac
broke...and she has been complaining constantly about how slow it is. She
incessantly curses out the beach ball and will slam the mouse down repeatedly
because she swears it makes the ball go away faster.

Because of that last bit, I've never taken her seriously. That laptop was
working fine when I was using it for Photoshopping raw images while having 15
browser windows open...her use-case is literally to have something to check
GMail with and sometimes listen to her iTunes collection. I've gone into the
laptop several times to make sure there isn't bloatware on it, and have
disabled every extraneous feature...and yet she still has the few-second
freezes issue (and I've been unable to reproduce it)....Hopefully this is the
solution to both of our problems.

~~~
aidos
I don't think it sounds like the same thing - though, if you find the solution
to your roommate's issue I'd love to hear it.

I have a new (< 6 months) Mac Mini running ML and it's infuriatingly slow
opening applications. It's not unusual to wait 10-15 seconds after clicking to
open Chrome or Spotify (or anything else). My 5 year old MacBook does the same
thing in a fraction of the time (running SL).

~~~
coldtea
Are you people writing this technical / developers?

I mean, have you tried obvious things to find what's at fault? Like "Activity
Monitor", "fs_usage" and such?

Have you checked if you have apps that install kernel hacks? Or some badly
written memory hog app installed in the menubar to run all the time?

A < 6 months Mac Mini should have no such issues.

~~~
aidos
Yes - looked at all the obvious things you mentioned (though I hadn't seen
fs_usage before, very useful, will see if that shows anything up).

There's virtually nothing installed on the box - we stream pretty much
everything and it's only used as a media center style machine.

I've made an appointment with the genius bar to see if they can shed some
light on the issue.

~~~
coldtea
Well, since you already tried the most techy things, then yes, the Apple
service is your best bet.

------
clobber
I've tried this and so far, so good!

I'm rather annoyed as it seems like a simple "housekeeping" task that OS X
should have already handled. When upgrading the OS, Apple always re-hides my
user Library folder and wipes out my TRIM support kext for my "3rd party" SSD,
but they cannot perform clean up like this? Very disappointing.

