Mac: Extend or disable 500 Messages Limit of Console

Question

On Mac OS X's Console.app I get the following message while trying to find a problem in a software-component:

28.07.10 12:09:25   [0x0-0x1ed1ed].org.eclipse.eclipse[6803]    *** process 6803 exceeded 500 log message per second limit  -  remaining messages this second discarded ***

(It's a software based on the eclipse osgi framework).

Is there a way to get rid of this 500 Messages Limit? I want to see ALL messages being generated (I have no way to limit the message-amount because it's a 3rd party program).

thanks and greetings, michael

Answer 1

Got it!

1. Edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist by adding:

   <string>-mps_limit</string>
<string>0</string>

   To the program arguments section (below the following line): <string>/usr/sbin/syslogd</string>

2. Restart the syslog daemon with:
   launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist; sleep 1; launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist

A value of 0 disables the limit. The default is 500 messages per second.

PS: If you can't edit the file directly, copy it to a temporary directory, edit that, and then sudo copy it to the original location.

Answer 2

As an update to Michael Mangeng's answer, on macOS El Capitan and later the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist file is binary so the steps become:

1. Edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist using defaults:

   defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist ProgramArguments -array-add -mps_limit 0

   If defaults gives an Unexpected argument -mps_limit error, you can rewrite the full ProgramArguments array with the following:

   defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist ProgramArguments -array /usr/sbin/syslogd -mps_limit 0

2. Use defaults read /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist to confirm the ProgramArguments key appears correct

3. Restart the syslog daemon:

   launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist; launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist