How do I kill a process from the command line?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hey everyone,



I'm slowly going insane thanks to my Unix incompetence. I downloaded SpazProX to give it a whirl because on their web site they allude to being able to take screenshots of DVDs (which I found out it can't do), anwyay, the thing is still running and I can't log out or reboot and I need to kill the process...



So, I went to the command line and typed in TOP, found out Snapz was PID # 492. So far so good. Then I typed in "kill 492", nothing happens and Snapz keeps on running. So I type in "kill [492]" and I get "kill: No match." Gaa! So I'm out of ideas and I'm afraid of melting my computer via the command line (I'm one of those fools who never backs anything up) and I need help!



Please! Tell me the blatantly obvious thing I'm missing. I'd greatly appreciate it!



A very-new-to-Unix (except for the GUI version we had at work),

Ybot



[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Ybot ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    When 'kill 492' doesn't work, go for 'kill -9 492'



    That should do it.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    You can also try:



    &gt; Killall -9 spazprox



    &gt; Kill -SIGTERM [pid]



    Also, you may not be able to kill a running proces if you are not the owner. If the owner is somthing other than what you're logged in as, log in as root, and then:



    &gt; su [process owner]

    &gt; kill [pid]

    &gt; exit



    Hope this helps...



    [ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: Composer ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 6
    By the way, to properly exit Snapz Pro X, simply hit your screenshot hot key (default is cmd-shift-3) and when the window pops up, hit cmd-Q to quit.



    FYI, the DVD screen capture works only with nVidia graphic cards.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    Use "ps" or "top" to get the "PID" of the process you want to kill. Then kill it.



    &gt;man ps

    &gt;man top

    &gt;man kill



    READ THE MAN PAGES READ THE MAN PAGES
  • Reply 5 of 6
    try:



    ps -ax | grep -i **PROCESS NAME HERE**



    kill pid from above command



    --Mike
  • Reply 6 of 6
    ybotybot Posts: 329member
    Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, I couldn't kill the process so I just gave up and rebooted.



    As for nVidia cards being the only ones capable of capturing DVD screenshots: That sucks! Well, once I can afford a new iMac my problem should be solved then.



    -Y
Sign In or Register to comment.