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Accountsd: How to Fix High CPU Usage on Mac

Dito here.

Also noticed 'commerce' is always doing a lot of internet traffic at the same moment. Killing 'commerce' actually stops accountsd to use 400 cpu and makes it go back to 100. But that is still way to much :) Just waiting for couple of minutes gets all back to normal after that action. Until reboot that is.

(Macbook Pro 13" - 2018, running 10.15.6, with pending install into 10.15.7... so it can't be a 10.15.7 issue!!!!)

@forum: What is commerce? As I even see it in the screenshot in the top of this topic I wonder if that's not an updated program seperate from the 10.15.7 update that is causing the issue).
 

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aloshka said:
All based on random assumptions with random numbers that you absolutely have zero knowledge over. 40? Why not 50? Why not 2? WTF man, this i literally what is wrong with news these days. Random statistics and opinions stated as if they were facts.
Click to expand...

Please note that more than 32 people make it significant. So this issue is already significant (and me having it makes it a huge issue :)).
 
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Happened to me for the first time after the latest update.

My Mini is pretty much always on, so I was surprised to find it off when I came back to my office. Powered it on and the fans went crazy shortly after. The machine became unusable, so I had to google some possible solutions on my phone. Killing the process in AM, killing Mail up etc did not help.

Turning off Spotlight indexing for MacintoshHD calmed the beast down. Haven't turned it back on yet and have not seen the problem repeat so far.
 
shakeshake said:
I had the same problem, followed all the mentioned steps to fix it (except messing with "~/Library/Accounts") and restarted my Macbook Pro 2018 after every step but nothing helped. Then I tried a solution posted by @German-Frank that was linked in this thread before by @daanodinot and it worked for me. You have to disable automatic updates in the app store.
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Sadly, after about 2 hours the issue was back. I started the Macbook Pro in safe mode, restarted it in normal mode again and the issue is gone for now. Let's see for how long...
 
I “solved” the problem by logging in with another account.

My girlfriend experienced this issue just recently. We tried to reset but the cpu usage was still high. Then I tried to log into my account to see if the problem will still be there. But on my account the problem was not present. After logging back into her account the machine works just perfectly.
We are both using iCloud on the 2018 MacBook Pro
 
Tried everything but always comeback after 1 day or 2...
Do guys think Apple will fix this with a new update??
There are some people having this problem since 2019.
 
I literally resolved this 3 days ago on my 2 week old MBP 16”. I found the solution somewhere on the web from a year ago, I had to delete a redundant email account in the accounts tab in the mail app, it did not have a connection with the server of the email.
 
Hi all, I fixed this.
After hours/days of following the recommendations (renaming Accounts4.sqlite, resetting Mac's SMC and NVRAM, rebuilding Spotlight index, logoff/on icloud), it was finally the gmail/google mail account in mail.app or in account settings which I deleted.
Maybe it was also a combination of NVRAM reset and gmail/google mail account delete + spotlight index rebuild that fixed the issue. I would not recommend renaming Accounts4.sqlite as this messed up the user database, apple-id and mail-accounts.
Good luck!
 
Biodrum said:
Solution of the problem

sudo -v ; killall -9 accountsd http://com.apple.iCloudHelper ; defaults delete MobileMeAccounts ; mkdir ~/Library/Accounts/Backup ; mv ~/Library/Accounts/*.sqlite* ~/Library/Accounts/Backup/ ; killall -9 accountsd http://com.apple.iCloudHelper ; sudo reboot

once is resterted, you have to log in your apple ID and problem solved.
Good luck!
Click to expand...

I have done this several times over the past week. Yesterday I spent an hour trying different fixed and finally got rid of the issue, but this morning it’s back. So far I have been unsuccessful in finding a permanent solution. The best I have done so far is two days without the issue.
 
I've had this issue already _before_ Catalina 10.15.7 . When it appears, i just cancel accountsd, which then gets restarted immediately, but from then on using only little cpu...
 
This is a real headache, tried most of the suggestions in the thread with no success, the problem comes back after a while.

It seems that no one has found the root cause but different workarounds that functions for a while.

I may have been lucky, my problem has gone away for the moment.
  • Disabled syncing of Document and Desktop in iCloud Drive
  • Disabled sync of the key ring.
  • Logged out of iCloud
  • Rebooted
  • Logged in to iCloud again.
The release notes mentions "Fixes an issue that could prevent files syncing through iCloud Drive" so it may be relevant to avoid iCloud, at least to some degree.
-----------
The problem is back 2 days later - accountsd, secd and commerce running amok, cpu temperature 80 degrees Celsius.

Logged out of iCloud, rebooted and logged in to iCloud again fixed it momentarily this time.

Waiting for a definitive solution from Apple.
-----------
4 days without any problems since the "fix" on monday.
 
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It happens today again in my desktop just the same it happened days ago in my laptop. In this one, I moved to Big Sur Beta and it's working quite well. In my desktop computer ( MacPro ) I tried everything described here from renaming the file .sqlite to do some Terminal work and the problem is that I can't log again into iCloud, it doesn't matter the workaround I apply. So I decided to go in a different direction and copy the .sqlite files from Big Sur in my laptop to Catalina in my desktop. And it worked!! So if you have 2 computers and have a different OS than Catalina 10.15.7, you could try to do this and may it also works for you.
 
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Apple died with Steve Jobs. Apple support suggested that I buy a new macbook. Couldn’t believe what I heard. I had recently purchased a brand new Macboon Pro 16 2020 model for $3000 and they want me to get a new one to solve this problem?

**** this company
 
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Internet Enzyme said:
This type of crap is so pervasive in macOS. . . Some stupid process like “photolibraryd” or something will just toss a plurality of your CPU into a bottomless pit
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It is beyond nasty, an user can get introduced to the Mac ecosystem with a new iMac and get welcomed to spinning beach balls when clicking on finder because there’s a nasty ‘pkd’ process hogging 200% cpu for minutes at a time... there’s was another one that was bothering me but forgot the name of the process currently.

Will now have to watch out for accountsd too now.
 
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Resetting SMC on my Late 2013 iMac seems to have solved it for me. But it was the only thing I tried. So I can't be sure if it was simply the restart that fixed it.
 
The only way that works for me on 10.15.7 on a MBP2020 4ports is not to login to the apple store and iCloud.
 
Just throwing my 2 cents in here as well. See Screenshot.
I got that problem 3 weeks before but it was gone with a simple reboot until today.
The reboot solution don't work anymore so I'll try one guessed solution after another.

I don't have any external mail accounts like google or something else.
The only external import that I got are calendar subscriptions.

Update: A usual reboot hasn't work. But powering my MacMini (2020) off - waiting a few seconds - and powering on just helps immediately. Accountsd now working as usual.
 

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Did buy a new MacBook Pro 16" last Monday. Upgraded to 10.15.7. After installation of all my software I got the issue. Solved it by disabling Keychain syncing with iCloud.
 
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