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QLVideo process keeping files open #188
Description
Since the v3.* release, I've noticed that I often can't eject my media drive, and when I run sudo lsof | grep [drivename] it seems like the QLVideo process is the culprit. (There are often some mds processes running, but they're automatically killed when ejecting the disk from the Finder.) It seems like it's keeping files open long after they're done being QuickLook-ed, and after thumbnails have been generated. (This happens sometime hours after the files have been viewed in the Finder or had QuickLook active on them.)
If I manually kill the process, I can eject the drive fine, but this seems like a regression, since I didn't see this in the older v2.* releases.
Happy to provide some logs or investigate further if it would be helpful.
Activity
Marginal commentedon Apr 17, 2026
I can reproduce, but only occasionally. When
lsofshows QLVideo Formats holding a handle on a file, it also shows AudiovisualThumbnailExtension holding a handle on the same file. And if I kill the QLVideo Formats process AudiovisualThumbnailExtension still holds on to the handle. Do you see this behaviour too?It looks the underlying problem is that AudiovisualThumbnailExtension, which indirectly invokes QLVideo Formats, is holding on to the file. I don't think I can do anything about that.
sjml commentedon Apr 17, 2026
Ah, ok I see. Yes, can confirm the behavior interacting with AudiovisualThumbnailExtension as you describe. Unfortunate!
So I'm thinking to have a scripted
killall AudiovisualThumbnailExtension && killall QLVideoto enable ejecting on demand... any peril in doing that? Or a more clever workaround?Marginal commentedon Apr 17, 2026
I use
killall -9 -m "QLVideo (Formats|Codecs)"when testing. This is harmless. You will likely need the-9. Killing AudiovisualThumbnailExtension may cause any files it has queued for thumbnailing not to receive thumbnails.Might be simpler to force eject.
sjml commentedon Apr 17, 2026
Yeah, I avoid the force-eject because there might be some other process hanging onto it that I'm not aware of. (Hence having my
lsofchecks at the ready and diagnosing what was happening here. 😅) Thanks for the detail!azeman commentedon May 26, 2026
Not sure why this is closed, because it is still an issue.
Something always prevents me from ejecting my drive properly after checking out .MKVs with preview, and every. single. time. it's that QLVideo process again using lsof. Running a "pkill QLVideo" always fixes the issue immediately. This is not something a casual user should do.
Please reopen!
blackketter commentedon Jun 3, 2026
Noticed this myself with a network share. @Marginal, is this an issue with QLVideo or with the system frameworks?
Break retain cycles preventing FormatReader deinit
Marginal commentedon Jun 22, 2026
This should be fixed in Release 3.08. Please let me know if the problem persists.
sjml commentedon Jul 8, 2026
Anecdata: seems to be fixed!
Pull in eject-prep from upstream
azeman commentedon Jul 14, 2026
Update: Just happened to me once again, 5 minutes ago. MacOS 26.5.2, QuickLook 3.0.8. Processes QLVideo and Audiovisu were preventing my external SSD from ejecting. Ejection was successful immediately after killing both with pkill.
Marginal commentedon Jul 15, 2026
Should really be fixed in 3.09. Please use the latest release.
If it does happen again, before killing processes or Force Ejecting please:
sample -mayDie "QLVideo Formats" -f ~/Desktop/QLVideo_Formats.txt(The file doesn't contain any personal information - it's a text file so you can check that for yourself).