Sonoma B2 & B3, vpnagentd causing near 100% CPU usage

[theotherphil]

Hey guys, is anyone else having this same issue with the dev betas (particularly B2, B3 and the B3 rerelease)? I can be browsing the web, most often watching YouTube, when I notice my CPU/ system temps are high and the fans have kicked on (14" M1 Max MBP). On looking at activity monitor, vpnagentd is at near 100% cpu usage. My temps normally sit at 37C system, 45C CPU. When vpnagentd goes rogue, they sit at ~53C system and 72C CPU.

Force quitting vpnagentd causes a respawn, and respawn of symptoms. I need to restart to fix the issue for a few hours.

Needless to say, when this happens on battery, it's life drops like a stone.

I am using private relay but no other vpn tools/ connections.

I've reported via Feedback Assistant, but it shows no other similar reports. If you are having this issue, please report via feedback assistant.

 

[Slartibart]

vpnagent should be removed, you probably have a browser extension which installed it on your system.

From the linked page: “Vpnagentd is a deemed as potentially unwanted application (PUA) that is targeting Mac OS users. The majority of victims were able to obtain this threat accidentally while installing a questionable freeware. In most cases, Vpnagentd is embedded to free apps like games, utilities, media player, file converter, and creativity suites for Mac. Installing such programs will never give a hint of the simultaneous loading of Vpnagentd and thus, its sudden presence on the Mac computer is perceived as virus attack.”

You find a description on how to manually remove it from your system as well as browser extensions or plugins on the linked page.

 

[theotherphil]

vpnagent should be removed, you probably have a browser extension which installed it on your system.

From the linked page: “Vpnagentd is a deemed as potentially unwanted application (PUA) that is targeting Mac OS users. The majority of victims were able to obtain this threat accidentally while installing a questionable freeware. In most cases, Vpnagentd is embedded to free apps like games, utilities, media player, file converter, and creativity suites for Mac. Installing such programs will never give a hint of the simultaneous loading of Vpnagentd and thus, its sudden presence on the Mac computer is perceived as virus attack.”

You find a description on how to manually remove it from your system as well as browser extensions or plugins on the linked page.

Thanks for this! The only free software I use is Aldente, which I recently downloaded, and on reflection coincides with when the issues started - but compounding that issue is when I installed the dev beta. I'll run a scan to be sure. I do have Citrix Workspace installed, but directly from Citrix.

Whilst it may be the malware version of vpnagentd, it may also be a legit version that has yet to be updated to support Sonoma. I suspect this is the case as I am not seeing the system error message "Vpnagentd will damage your computer".

 

[theotherphil]

As I thought...

 

[theotherphil]

OK, problem solved. I actually had Cisco Anyconnect installed from many moons ago to access my University. I've uninstalled and the issue is resolved. I'm really not sure why vpnagetd kept running, despite not opening the app for months. I'm sure the updated client would be fine, but I have no need for it anymore.