What’s this? “Importer Start Failed for XXX.”

I’m not sure when this started, but I just noticed this in my log file, on NERV.

3/31/09 6:06:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40370]) getpwuid("506") failed 
3/31/09 6:06:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40370]) PID 1104 "lssave" has no account to back it! Real/effective/saved UIDs: 506/506/506 
3/31/09 6:06:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40370]) Exited with exit code: 1 
3/31/09 6:06:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40370]) Exited with exit code: 1 
3/31/09 6:06:14 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 
3/31/09 6:06:16 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:17 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:18 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:18 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:21 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:22 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:22 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)
3/31/09 6:06:22 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:22 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:23 AM com.apple.launchd[168] (0x410690.Locum[40371]) Exited: Terminated 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) getpwuid("506") failed 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) PID 1104 "lssave" has no account to back it! Real/effective/saved UIDs: 506/506/506 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) Exited with exit code: 1 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 
3/31/09 6:06:26 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:27 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:27 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:27 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:31 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port) 
3/31/09 6:06:31 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)

I solved these issues this morning, but please understand I wasn’t being very scientific in my morning rush…

3/31/09 6:06:16 AM mds[38] (Error) Import: importer:0x20b8800 Importer start failed for 506 (kr:268435459 (ipc/send) invalid destination port)

This appears to be caused by Spotlight attempting to index your Time Machine drive…  Or at least adding my Time Machine drive to the privacy tab of Spotlight seemed to resolve this issue…

3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) getpwuid("506") failed 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) PID 1104 "lssave" has no account to back it! Real/effective/saved UIDs: 506/506/506 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506[40372]) Exited with exit code: 1 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds 
3/31/09 6:06:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.506) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

This issue is a little “hazy”, I just recently deleted a very old user from my previous computer (that was migrated over using the Migration utility).  So I suspect for some reason that user wasn’t deleted as cleanly as it should have been.  So I went into the User preference, and added a new administrator account.  Once I finished both of these, the errors stopped…

If anyone has any additional information regarding these log entries, feel free to leave a comment, or email me.

– Benjamin

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