MacOSX - How to correctly uninstall

[matitaccia]

Dear all,

is there a correct way to uninstall the client from a MacBook computer?

I have seen that on the homepage it is mentioned a third party tool which is not named nor set to download. Is that the solution to be used?

I have user which is trying to uninstall the client. From what I was told he already tried to unistall it, still the process fahcore_a7 is still running. How should he proceed best?

Thank you!

matitaccia

[Joe_H]

The correct way to uninstall F@h from a system running OS X is to use the uninstaller provided with the client when it was installed. It is included in the folder the F@h installer places in the Applications folder.

If the client folder was just dragged to the Trash and deleted other components are left behind. In that case I would recommend downloading the installer and reinstalling at least the Uninstaller. Then run that to remove the client.

P.S. Could you provide a link to where you saw mention of using a third party tool? I can see about having that updated. That may be an old piece of information, and in any case I have found third party tools for installing apps on OS X often get things wrong.

(posting from my MacBook Pro that runs F@h)

[matitaccia]

Hello and thank you for your answer.

Here the link: https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/installation-guides/mac/uninstall/

I will be waiting for the feedback from our team member: I do have the suspect that he removed the application just by moving it to the trash bin. Let's see what he says.

Thank you once more.

matitaccia

[Joe_H]

Thank you for the link. That is definitely old information, and dates back to at least a couple major revisions older of the client, possibly 7.3. The third party tool mentioned was created by a person who since then has worked with the main developer on the Mac OS X installer, and his Uninstaller is the one included in the standard F@h install now.

[bruce]

He can also run FAHControl, which has an option to PAUSE or FINISH current activity. This would be a temporary way to stop FAHClient_a7 from processing.

[matitaccia]

I can confirm: the user did not delete the application the "proper" way.

I suggested him to proceed by reinstalling the software and running the uninstaller, let's see if he does it, and if the issue is definitely solved.

Thank you very much for all your messages.

matitaccia

[djhomeless]

Sorry for resurrecting this thread. I'm having the same problem. I also did not use the uninstaller (was not aware as I did not look in the "extras" folder). I did go back per the above and re-install/then uninstall properly, however FahCore_a7 continues to run and is currently consuming 600% of my available CPU.

I also tried pausing the process when installing again, but while FAHClient showed the process being paused, FahCore_a7 still runs. If it helps, I've tried manually killing FAHClient, FAHCoreWrapper, and FahCoreA7. But they respawn virtually instantly.

Any advice?

[Joe_H]

Which version of OS X/macOS are you running on your Mac? That will make a small bit of difference in the directions I will give for getting the client stopped and Uninstalled.

Could you also use Activity Monitor to see how many FAH processes of each name are listed? The standard installation has the processes set to restart if there is an error, so manually killing off individual processes will not remove them permanently.

[bruce]

FahCore_a7 continues to run and is currently consuming 600% of my available CPU.

Any advice?

Lacking the information from the top of FAHLog, I can only guess what CPU is in that Mac. FAH is designed to use ALL unused resources. I can't tell from the tone of your voice but you may be suggesting that you don't want FAH to use that much of your processor. If you're not having a problem with overheating, that shouldn't be a problem because the FAHCore runs at a very low priority. If you are having problems with heat, you can reduce the power slider position or you can go to FAHControl and set a specific number of CPU threads you're comfortable with.

[djhomeless]

I actually need to uninstall it full-stop. This is running on a work machine and our policy has just been updated to no longer allow apps like FAH. Right now, I've followed the uninstall procedure twice now, but the processes still persist.

I am oddly running FAH on my home Mac, which is a bit older (2014) and I don't have the same issue. My work machine is a 2019, 2.3Ghz core i9.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Joe_H]

So with that recent of a machine, the OS would be Catalina or Mojave at least. First do the following from a command line in the Terminal app:

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.foldingathome.fahclient.plist

You will be prompted for an admin account password. If more than one FAHClient process shows up in Activity monitor, repeat until all are not running.

Next run the Uninstall package from the Folding@home folder in Applications. That also will need an admin account as I recall.

The last thing to remove would be the data and work file folder. The default location is here - /Library/Application Support/FAHClient.