Computer Audio Design OSX Audio Optimization Script

[WINDIANRECORDS]

Ok, anything other than anecdotal suggestions?

 

Line 95:

 

defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem 1

This adds a Quit menu item for the Finder, so you don't have to hard-kill the process.

 

Hey, that's awesome, I'm going to have to run that on start-up; my old Hackintosh still on Snow Leopard has issues with finder constantly and I'm too lazy to update/break that old beast. This'll help.

[Computer Audio Design]

Instead of automatically shutting off WiFi and Bluetooth you should give people the choice, i.e. do you want to turn this off.. I ran this on a Headless WiFi machine and was screwed because WiFi was turned off. Not a good thing.

 

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

 

The reason we shut wifi off is because in our opinion having wifi on hurts sound quality. Our recommendation is to use an Ethernet connected wifi enabled router for your wifi connection. Now, I completely understand for some people they want their wifi on, and in your setup you do get a bit "screwed". I think if we ask Damian nicely enough he can probably put this in as an option in the script. : )

 

Please be aware it is early times for the script. I really appreciate all of you who are willing to give it a try and your feedback is very much appreciated. The reason we are doing this is to improve sound quality and I would also like to hear if you feel we are successful or not.

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Scott

[Superdad]

Why does the script turn ON disk journaling--when it is already on by default--and turn OFF disk journaling with the Reset script. That's NOT right.

[baddog]

Why does the script turn ON disk journaling--when it is already on by default--and turn OFF disk journaling with the Reset script. That's NOT right.

 

Yeah I saw that and forgot to mention it. I turn journalling off on my system. I thought perhaps they required that to allow the reset script to work, but perhaps it was just a mistake.

[wgscott]

Hi Dave,

 

The reason we shut wifi off is because in our opinion having wifi on hurts sound quality. Our recommendation is to use an Ethernet connected wifi enabled router for your wifi connection. Now, I completely understand for some people they want their wifi on, and in your setup you do get a bit "screwed". I think if we ask Damian nicely enough he can probably put this in as an option in the script. : )

 

Please be aware it is early times for the script. I really appreciate all of you who are willing to give it a try and your feedback is very much appreciated. The reason we are doing this is to improve sound quality and I would also like to hear if you feel we are successful or not.

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Scott

 

I finally decided to stop working on this kind of script, primarily because of the maintenance headache etc. So two suggestions, if I may:

 

(1) Insist the user reads the script before running it, and have them comment out parts they don't want or don't understand

 

(2) Wrap it in Pashua for a nice GUI interface.

 

If you want to try #2, this shell script function might help (it is in zsh, so it might require some changes for bash, or require the script to be zsh, which is more fun anyway).

[Computer Audio Design]

Why does the script turn ON disk journaling--when it is already on by default--and turn OFF disk journaling with the Reset script. That's NOT right.

 

I take full blame on that one! I just looked at it and you are are correct - I messed up! It will be switched. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

Scott

[Superdad]

Scott:

 

You may also want to consider having the script tune Hibernate mode off, since it creates a Sleepimage file equal to the size of system RAM. That takes up a lot of room for those of us who now boot from an SD card!

 

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

 

Thanks,

ALEX

[Computer Audio Design]

Scott:

 

You may also want to consider having the script tune Hibernate mode off, since it creates a Sleepimage file equal to the size of system RAM. That takes up a lot of room for those of us who now boot from an SD card!

 

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

 

Thanks,

ALEX

 

Thanks for that Alex. I did not even know about that.

 

Scott

[Superdad]

Thanks for that Alex. I did not even know about that.

 

Scott

 

Then this may be an important page for you to read: How to Remove the Disk-hogging Sleepimage File from Your Mac | Mac|Life

[tranz]

There is one issue noticed when looking at iTunes metadata. The library does not show correctly in iTunes. However, when going through the Apple Remote application on the iPad, the music files show and play fine. It might be related to the following Daemons that are turned off by the script, but I have to run, so for another day...

 

 

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist 2>/dev/null

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.scan.plist 2>/dev/null

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.spindump.plist 2>/dev/null

 

 

Cheers.

 

Well, today I loaded some new CDs using MAX, and magically iTunes library shows up properly again. Guess the metadata LaunchDaemons do not need to be removed after all. Just a quirk with a workaround.

 

Loving the improvement in sound, or rather reduction in listening fatigue.

 

Cheers.

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Scott:

 

You may also want to consider having the script tune Hibernate mode off, since it creates a Sleepimage file equal to the size of system RAM. That takes up a lot of room for those of us who now boot from an SD card!

 

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

 

Thanks,

ALEX

actually had to redo my sd card after a major crash after i let my mac go to sleep on battery as myself fell asleep... First thing i typed in terminal once it was reconstructed was that line i forgot to reproduce from my standard boot...

[wdw]

Hello CAD Support, Many thanks for offering this script. I have little or no experience with terminal and apple script (and clumsy fingers to boot so would likely cause all kind of damage if trying) so am watching this thread with a keen eye...are we getting close to a Gold Master for Maverick?

 

All the best and, again, my thanks.

Warren

[Computer Audio Design]

Hello CAD Support, Many thanks for offering this script. I have little or no experience with terminal and apple script (and clumsy fingers to boot so would likely cause all kind of damage if trying) so am watching this thread with a keen eye...are we getting close to a Gold Master for Maverick?

 

All the best and, again, my thanks.

Warren

 

We're working on it! : )

 

Scott

[Jud]

Tried the script this morning. In the not-yet-ready-for-prime-time category I'd put the following:

 

- Can't run a script I want to even after launch (I have a script that was set to launch at login that creates two RAMdisks and adds Audirvana Plus to one, leaving the other for music files - doesn't run at login, which I understand, but I can't run it after login either). Get the response that I don't have permission. Anyone have a notion which part of the optimization script does this?

 

- Would suggest the script ask which items should be removed from run-at-login rather than simply removing them all. (It doesn't keep a log for purposes of putting these items back either, so those trying the script in its current form be advised you will want to make a note of your run-at-login items beforehand.)

 

- Noticed when I repaired permissions as a precaution afterward that Disk Utility said the modification to ARDAgent (Apple Remote Desktop I assume) would *not* be repaired. Again, those testing the script in its current form, be advised.

 

- When trying to run the reset script by double-clicking, I got a refusal because the app is from an unknown developer. Got past this by opening the script in Terminal and running it there, but still it's at least an unnecessary PITA even for those who know a workaround.

 

Also, a big +1 to Bill Scott's suggestion to put this into a GUI (even better, with checkboxes allowing fine-grained choice of which processes to get rid of and which to keep, as with the run-at-login items mentioned above).

[Jud]

A quick question:

 

I wanted to resize my Macintosh HD partition and could not. Figured out it was because journaling had been turned off. I like journaling to be on, and don't recall turning it off intentionally. Could journaling be something the optimization script turns off that the reset script does not turn back on?

[Superdad]

Actually Jud, As Scott acknowledged after I pointed it out, the script turns journaling ON, and the Reset script turns it OFF. That is the opposite of what he intended.

 

I bet you will find that when you can't run a script due to permissions, that you also won't even be able to open it--or anything else in Textedit. That is the problem the current version of the CAD script causes for me consistently, and why I can not run it presently. It also prevents access to my network shared volumes (a problem for me as you know I an now doing the Ethernet direct trick to my other machine).

 

I have had my own accumulated file of commands for turning all the usual things off--plus some others I discovered like turning off Hibernate mode to keep huge sleep images from accumulating on my SD boot (it is amazing how OS X grows itself just overnight while doing nothing!). What I am interested in the CAD script for is the all (well not all obviously!) its Launch daemon unloads. But a)They need to test them more throughly; b)There are still many others (even with a clean Mavericks install) that could probably be included.

Tranz offered up a list of a bunch more earlier; and when I ran the script (but not able to really use may machine), looked in Activity Monitor and also did "sudo launchctl list", I could still see a big pile running--some of which looked superfluous.

 

We all greatly appreciate what the guys at CAD are attempting (for free!), and Tranz reported good sonic results (it really does reduce the number of active threads and processes). But I don't know how intimate Scott is with the function of all the daemons of OS X. He may really know what each one does, or he may be doing a bit more informed version of what the rest of us non-developers have been doing--which is to kill processes until the OS breaks and then back off.

 

If he really does know what is what, then yes, I bet he could write the script (does not have to be a GUI) to ask yes/no questions with verbose comments as it steps through the stages. For example, it could ask: "Do you access remote drives on your LAN?," and if the user types "Y", then it won't unload whatever group of launch daemons are associated with that function.

[Jud]

Thanks for reminding me about the journaling bug.

 

You're correct about inability to edit also. Fiddling with permissions is a common way of stopping processes, but it can certainly screw things up if not carefully focused.

[Computer Audio Design]

 

If he really does know what is what, then yes, I bet he could write the script (does not have to be a GUI) to ask yes/no questions with verbose comments as it steps through the stages. For example, it could ask: "Do you access remote drives on your LAN?," and if the user types "Y", then it won't unload whatever group of launch daemons are associated with that function.

 

Yes, we can certainly do that. I have done that with my Windows 8/8.1 scripts and it's easy to do on the OS X script.

 

Jud: It sounds like you may want to take a look at your permissions?

 

GUI: For now I want to leave this script in a format that everyone can look at and easily see and change what the script does using Textedit.

 

Yes I know there are additional daemons that can be cut off, but this takes time. I have a very full time job and I now have Damian helping me on this, but.... My hope is maybe other people can offer suggestions and feedback like Tranz and others have done.

 

Scott

[Jud]

Yes, we can certainly do that. I have done that with my Windows 8/8.1 scripts and it's easy to do on the OS X script.

 

Jud: It sounds like you may want to take a look at your permissions?

 

GUI: For now I want to leave this script in a format that everyone can look at and easily see and change what the script does using Textedit.

 

Yes I know there are additional daemons that can be cut off, but this takes time. I have a very full time job and I now have Damian helping me on this, but.... My hope is maybe other people can offer suggestions and feedback like Tranz and others have done.

 

Scott

 

Hi Scott. My script to create RAMdisks works just fine when I run it after launch, if I have not run the optimization script.

 

Edit: Happy to provide the script if wanted.

[Computer Audio Design]

Hi Scott. My script to create RAMdisks works just fine when I run it after launch, if I have not run the optimization script.

 

Edit: Happy to provide the script if wanted.

 

Hi Jud, Can you PM me and explain what your RAMdisk script is doing?

 

Thanx,

 

Scott

[Superdad]

Hi Scott:

Thanks for the replies. But please note that I don't think Jud's RAM disk script is interfering with yours. There are two main things that happen to me when I run your script:

 

1) I am unable to open any documents (even your script in TextEdit) on my boot drive (which is an SD card, but the same thing happens if I boot from the internal HD)--just like Jud.

 

2) I can see my other computer under devices, but clicking on it to access a remote volume says it can't connect.

 

I spent some time trying to figure out which daemon unload commands were causing the above problems, but then gave up.

 

Hope you can figure it out for us.

 

All the best,

AJC

[baddog]

Yes same issues here (besides the one noted on disk journalling and Bluetooth). No critique implied, just feedback.

 

No access to network.

No access to screen sharing.

Unable to open any documents.

[Superdad]

No access to screen sharing.

 

bplexico: Are you using the 1.2 version of the script? That restored Screen Sharing for me.

[baddog]

Oops, I guess I am a version behind, does 1.2 also restore access to network?

 

Barr

 

p.s. I might be willing to part with my Acoustic Revive if you want to try it for a week, PM me....it would be available after Xmas.

[tranz]

Yes same issues here (besides the one noted on disk journalling and Bluetooth). No critique implied, just feedback.

 

No access to network.

No access to screen sharing.

Unable to open any documents.

 

Hi bplexico,

 

Check post #47 for mored details as...

 

There are two more daemons that seem to be related to Remote Desktop. Try turning those back on and see if that helps.

 

System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.RFBEventHelper.plist 2>/dev/null

System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.RemoteDesktop.PrivilegeProxy.plist 2>/dev/null