Computer Audio Design OSX Audio Optimization Script

[Computer Audio Design]

Could you please make iCloud (i.e. Back to My Mac) an Option. I maintain a bunch of computers for people in the local club and this is the only way I can do t.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

 

We are a small company and it is just not going to be possible for Damian (of CAD) and myself to implement all requests.

 

The main objective with this script it to improve sound quality. To do that you will have to live with certain apps not working or figure out alternative methods to do what you want.

 

For future versions I would like to see even more processes shut down. This will of course mean some (many?) people will not be able to use their computer the way they normally do. But if my and others experience in the Windows world holds true for OS X I think we can really improve the SQ of our Macs, but at the expense of convenience of course.

 

We will try to make future versions include options (Yes/No) for shutting down certain processes/daemons.

 

Scott

[Superdad]

Hi Scott:

Thanks for the new version. It did fix my issues. (For my own edification I compared the two lists of launch daemon unloads to learn that about 6 commands were removed from the new version, with no additions this time around).

 

When Damian and you do get around to taking another pass, may I suggest that you focus a bit on the ton of items still active from the Launch Agents folder, many of which appear to be companions to demons you already unload. And even my non-devopler eye can tell there are a bunch of superfluous (to a dedicated music server) active items coming from that System>Library>Launch Agents folder.

 

BTW, I'm down to 80 processes and about 305 threads at idle. Sound better than ever!

 

Have a great weekend,

Alex

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Hi Scott:

 

 

BTW, I'm down to 80 processes and about 305 threads at idle. Sound better than ever!

 

Have a great weekend,

Alex

Obviously you killed processes that are not covered by this script. Any suggestion ?

[CAD Support]

Hi Scott:

Thanks for the new version. It did fix my issues. (For my own edification I compared the two lists of launch daemon unloads to learn that about 6 commands were removed from the new version, with no additions this time around).

 

When Damian and you do get around to taking another pass, may I suggest that you focus a bit on the ton of items still active from the Launch Agents folder, many of which appear to be companions to demons you already unload. And even my non-devopler eye can tell there are a bunch of superfluous (to a dedicated music server) active items coming from that System>Library>Launch Agents folder.

 

BTW, I'm down to 80 processes and about 305 threads at idle. Sound better than ever!

 

Have a great weekend,

Alex

 

Hi Alex,

 

You're absolutely right, Launch Agents are next on the hit list!

 

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

Damian

[Daudio]

Could you please make iCloud (i.e. Back to My Mac) an Option. I maintain a bunch of computers for people in the local club and this is the only way I can do t.

 

I believe that you can just run the reset script and be back ready to do all the usual things (like iCloud) with your Mac. I think you may also have to reboot, but that's not a big deal.

[Superdad]

I believe that you can just run the reset script and be back ready to do all the usual things (like iCloud) with your Mac. I think you may also have to reboot, but that's not a big deal.

 

 

After running the reset (or cloning from the back-up you should have run just prior to running the script), you can examine the script and comment out (# at beginning of line) all the launch daemon unload commands that you guess are relevant to iCloud or other services you want to keep. Apple is cryptic with the names and functions of all those daemons, so this is not a terribly easy route. I have spent far too many hours this week trying to suss out a lot of them. Stuff will break, but Carbon Copy Cloner is your friend and is quick with just a 10GB boot drive (space used, more is available of course).

[Daudio]

you can examine the script and comment out (# at beginning of line) all the launch daemon unload commands that you guess are relevant to...

 

I thought that the Audio Opt script turns things off, and the reset script turns them back on (whatever the syntax), so I don't see him having to do any script editing. He can have his Mac go into 'Audio Optimization' mode by running the script, or return to a 'General Purpose' mode by running the Reset. As long as the scripts remain 'stock' they should be reciprocal. I don't recall if a reboot is necessary for either of them ???

 

I will have a chance to play with this kind of stuff soon, so I should pay attention now

[wgscott]

The whole point of the launchd system that Apple introduced in 10.4 is that you don't have un-needed processes running. They launch on demand, and if appropriate, then go away. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger | Ars Technica

 

Disabling most of these things is unlikely to change the demands put on the processors, memory, disk, network, or other resources. The main exceptions are things like mdfind (spotlight) and related processes, and the notification center. Doing time machine backups one a day is probably a good compromise as well. Turning off journaling is asking for trouble.

 

There is no sound reason (pun intended) to disable most of these launchd items. I recently turned a few things on, including apache, and did not experience any alteration in sound quality at all.

 

Again, you should read and understand any shell script (theirs, or mine) before you use it.

[wgscott]

By the way, if you don't want the changes to stick after a reboot, all you need to do in the case of the various launchd unload commands is to get rid of the -w flag.

[Jud]

The whole point of the launchd system that Apple introduced in 10.4 is that you don't have un-needed processes running. They launch on demand, and if appropriate, then go away. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger | Ars Technica

 

Disabling most of these things is unlikely to change the demands put on the processors, memory, disk, network, or other resources. The main exceptions are things like mdfind (spotlight) and related processes, and the notification center. Doing time machine backups one a day is probably a good compromise as well. Turning off journaling is asking for trouble.

 

There is no sound reason (pun intended) to disable most of these launchd items. I recently turned a few things on, including apache, and did not experience any alteration in sound quality at all.

 

Again, you should read and understand any shell script (theirs, or mine) before you use it.

 

For most of these, I don't personally care that they're turned off. Journaling is an exception. Agree with Bill - too easy to corrupt your whole OS partition. Yeah, you can restore from backup, but to me that's a significant enough PITA to keep me from turning it off unless it has a huge effect on SQ, which I haven't found it to.

[freddie40]

We are a small company and it is just not going to be possible for Damian (of CAD) and myself to implement all requests.

 

The main objective with this script it to improve sound quality. To do that you will have to live with certain apps not working or figure out alternative methods to do what you want.

 

For future versions I would like to see even more processes shut down. This will of course mean some (many?) people will not be able to use their computer the way they normally do. But if my and others experience in the Windows world holds true for OS X I think we can really improve the SQ of our Macs, but at the expense of convenience of course.

 

We will try to make future versions include options (Yes/No) for shutting down certain processes/daemons.

 

Scott

 

If someone could give me a hint of what to look for to get Back to My Mac working again I may be able to figure it out

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[Computer Audio Design]

If someone could give me a hint of what to look for to get Back to My Mac working again I may be able to figure it out

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

 

There is a second script that you can run that will return your Mac back to its original settings. Have you run this script and are still having issues?

 

Scott

[freddie40]

Hi Dave,

 

There is a second script that you can run that will return your Mac back to its original settings. Have you run this script and are still having issues?

 

Scott

 

The only thing that I am having issues with is Back to My Mac. If I could correct this issue everything would be peachy

 

Dave

[Daudio]

I am having issues with Back to My Mac

 

What is that ? I don't think we are all on the same page...

[wgscott]

It assigns your home computer (for example) an IP address that is recognized by Apple's iCloud server, so you can be sitting at a computer at work, and connect to your computer at home, without having to worry about dynamic IP addresses, (most) firewall settings, and so on. It is extremely convenient.

[wgscott]

You can get a list of all the protocols this script turns off with the following command:

 

grep com.apple OptimizeOSX\ v1.2.1.command | grep launch | awk '{print $4 " " $5}' | cut -d . -f 3 | sort -u

[wgscott]

Here is a script that will google each one of the processes for you. Run it from the same directory that contains the optimization script.

 

googleitforme.zsh.zip

[freddie40]

Here is a script that will google each one of the processes for you. Run it from the same directory that contains the optimization script.

 

[ATTACH]9476[/ATTACH]

 

 

Here's what I get (Same directory as script. I think the script is named correctly. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Daves-iMac:~ dave$ /Users/dave/Desktop/Computer\ Audio\ Design\ OSX\ Optimization\ Scripts\ V1/googleitforme.zsh

grep: OptimizeOSX v1.2.1.command: No such file or directory

[Jud]

Here's what I get (Same directory as script. I think the script is named correctly. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Daves-iMac:~ dave$ /Users/dave/Desktop/Computer\ Audio\ Design\ OSX\ Optimization\ Scripts\ V1/googleitforme.zsh

grep: OptimizeOSX v1.2.1.command: No such file or directory

 

It's not in the same directory as the script. Go to Finder, copy and paste the optimization script into your home directory, then open Terminal, copy and past Bill's script from his comment #116 above and run it.

[tipunch]

Hello Scott,

Sorry, but for me the SQ of CAD script v1.2.0 is better than v1.2.1 !!!

Thanks

[Shikasta]

Hi Alex,

 

You're absolutely right, Launch Agents are next on the hit list!

 

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

Damian

 

Here's a few Launch Agents I've managed to remove without apparent "side-effects'! (thanks to Tranz in Post #40)

 

# bluetoothUIServer

echo " bluetoothUIServer”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.bluetoothUIServer.plist

 

# Gamed

echo " Gamed”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.gamed.plist

 

# Imagent

echo " imagent”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.imagent.plist

 

# JavaInstallOnDemand

echo " JavaInstallOnDemand”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.java.InstallOnDemand.plist

 

# JavaUpdateSharing

echo " JavaUpdateSharing”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.java.updateSharing.plist

 

# Notificationcenterui

echo " notificationcenterui”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

 

# quicklook

echo " quicklook.32bit”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.quicklook.32bit.plist

 

# quicklookConfig

echo " quicklook.config”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.quicklook.config.plist

 

# speechRecognitionServer

echo " SpeechRecognitionServer”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.speech.recognitionserver.plist

 

# SpeechFeedbackServer

echo " Speech Feedback Server”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.speech.feedbackservicesserver.plist

 

# SpeechSynthesisServer

echo " SpeechSynthesisServer”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.speech.synthesisserver.plist

 

# Talagent

echo " Talagent”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.talagent.plist

 

# VoiceOver

echo " VoiceOver”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.VoiceOver.plist

 

# BookStoreAgent

echo " Bookstore Agent”

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.bookstoreagent.plist

 

I also added his launchdaemon suggestions, but ended up commenting out the AddressBook ones as I'm not sure about them.

 

With Bill Scott's admonitions ringing in my ears (or is that tinnitus?), BACK UP before adding and trying these (and any others) on YOUR system!!

 

Graeme

 

PS: I also added the 'load' version of any added 'unload' commands to the 'RESETOSX' script, so that the OS X scripts mirror one another.

[Superdad]

Hello Scott,

Sorry, but for me the SQ of CAD script v1.2.0 is better than v1.2.1 !!!

Thanks

 

Well that would be odd since the only differences between the two versions, besides not turning off Bluetooth, are the following:

 

/com.apple.FileCoordination.plist

/com.apple.IOBluetoothUSBDFU.plist

/com.apple.afpfs_afpLoad.plist

/com.apple.afpfs_checkafp.plist

/com.apple.blued.plist

/com.apple.bnepd.plist

/com.apple.hidd.plist

/com.apple.locum.plist

 

Those above items are no longer unloaded with v1.2.1. It helps keep the OS functioning in ways that are detailed at the beginning of the text of 1.2.1.

 

You might check to see if Bluetooth is still off for you. I had a bit of a problem with that. I had had it off, but somehow in the transition (I have restored and restripped my Mavericks back-up so many times now) it got turned back on--and then would not let me turn it off!

 

But all is great now, and I am down to 80 processes and 300 threads at idle.

 

Alex C.

[Computer Audio Design]

Hello Scott,

Sorry, but for me the SQ of CAD script v1.2.0 is better than v1.2.1 !!!

Thanks

 

Hi,

Thanks for letting me know. I think this has something to do with what I mentioned in post #101.

 

At the moment we need to find that balance between usability and sound quality. For me personally I am willing to deal with almost any inconvenience in my computer setup to obtain the best sound quality. For many others this is not the case. It is a personal choice that varies due to many factors including enthusiasm level and/or resolution of your audio system.

 

If you want the best sound quality I feel you need to use your Mac just for audio use. Trying to get the best sound quality out of a computer and keep the usability/convenience does not work in my experience.

 

I am hoping/thinking that the current v1.2.1 has enough features to please most people. ?

 

What I would like to see happen is to try to keep the usability about the same and see what else can be done to improve sound quality. The Launch Agents are the next on this list. If anyone has any other suggestions or ideas please post them!

 

After that I would like to add more Yes/No options so that people like myself who are willing to reduce usability to possibly improve sound quality have that option.

 

Scott

[Computer Audio Design]

Here's a few Launch Agents I've managed to remove without apparent "side-effects'! (thanks to Tranz in Post #40)

 

 

Thanks Shikasta & Tranz -

 

Scott

[freddie40]

Hi Dave,

 

There is a second script that you can run that will return your Mac back to its original settings. Have you run this script and are still having issues?

 

Scott

 

 

com.apple.awacsd.plist is the culprit.

 

Dave