So a follow up on my EasyDAQ adaptation that was pounding the server. Main issue I believe is it was scanning all devices for a mirror device about twice a second...easy fix of doing the scan to a local variable whenever the devices change.
But still all sorts of problems. Communications dropouts. Server not responding. Mixed in with system crashes in the middle of the night.
Was driving me nuts.
Then my 6 year old fusion drive on my iMac gave up the ghost.
Replaced it with a 4TB internal SSD and it seems snappier than ever. Just like Safari.
Man, I'd forgotten 1) that hardware fails and 2) when it fails intermittently, it can drive you to drink. That failing drive was causing a slew of problems--spinning beach balls, restarts, etc.
But thanks for the help--will actually help as I'm revising the plugin to get rid of more of the server pounding.