Msdosfs.kext?

Question

So I just recently noticed this particular kext file being loaded repeatedly on my system. It seems to be loaded at least once per boot now, whereas I'd never heard of it before, and it appears exactly once in all my 7 previous system.log files. What is this kext for and why is it being loaded so often all of a sudden? I've also noticed recently my computer has become much slower (2x slower, roughly) to boot and to put to sleep (from about 7 spins of the loading wheel on boot to about 20, and from about 4 seconds to put to sleep to about 8, so the time is relatively insignificant, but it's still double or more). I think one might have something to do with the other. Can someone help me?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I have a FAT32 partition on one of my internal drives, and there are NO messages to console about loading the msdosfs.kext, although it is loaded, as I can access the FAT32 partition and read the files on it. It also shows up in the list of loaded kexts, which you can get with this command in Terminal:
sudo kextstat
You hit Return, then enter your password (not echoed to the screen) and hit return again. So it is loaded and working. The only kext I see mentioned in the Console logs is the one for Virtual Box and several other VB kexts, which are often mentioned as being successfully unloaded. Since I use Virtual Box maybe once a month, while I get messages about its kexts every day, this seems a bit strange to me....but everything seems to be running just fine. Why that particular set of kexts gets special notice in the logs, and no others do, and why your msdosfs.kext is getting noticed in your Console logs, I don't know. But my guess is that it is NOT the source of your problems.
Francine
Francine
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