accountsd (mail) process and CPU usage.

[am2am]

Seeing the same during last few days on two accounts on my mac (MacBook Pro 16"). Still on 10.15.6. Becoming really tired of this whole crapalina.

I have large photos library so logging out from iCloud is not really an option for me (very loooong photos sync process after I login again).

What worked for me:
1. disabled mail in iCloud preferences
2. deleted ~/Library/mail and ~/Library/containers/com.apple.mail as suggested here
3. enabled mail in iCloud preferences

Solved for now - will see if it repeats itself

 

[Alan Mackey]

for me it started yesterday just before the update.

Same here.

i think the issue is with apple servers because i tried my old icloud account and it works fine.
however when im trying to log in into my current account everything just hangs and lots of cpu usage from accountsd deamon and the only fix in my case is to sign out again and kill the accountsd process

I agree with the diagnostic.

I've been having this problems with iCloud Keychain not synchronizing passwords properly on my iMac and MBP (iOS devices are doing just fine) and duplicating my shared calendars entries.

This is clearly an iCloud issue.

 

[German-Frank]

Same problem as described ( accountsd using 360% cpu in my case ).

I found that accountsd was triggered by the process "Commerce" that tried login to App-store unsuccessfully.
Therefore, I unchecked "automatically update" > problem solved so far, even after several reboots.

 

[Tygernoot]

Initially I fixed it with the keychain delete / iCloud log in and out. But since then my mac refused to unlock with my Apple watch. I rebooted again, and this time it was happy to unlock it but... the problem with accountsd came back

I did the trick from German-Frank above, and after a reboot it appears to have worked. (For now at least, I am not holding my breath.)

Then of course the mini wouldn't unlock with the Apple watch again! Seriously... This time rebooting the watch (again) worked though. Not sure if these issues are related, maybe it's a coincidence. It's just such a waste of effort to make our stuff work like it's supposed to

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

I am tracking the issue here and have included all the known workarounds.

Catalina 10.15.7 Update = accountsd hitting 400% CPU if using iCloud

The macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update is causing problems with the accountsd process. CPU Usage over 400% if using iCloud Drive Mail and Calendar

mrmacintosh.com

 

[German-Frank]

Solution is still working well ( see # 78 ).
I will use this way until "hand shake" to Apple App Store will be fixed !

 

[zonk44]

This problem appeared on my system two days ago (macOS 10.15.7). accountsd consumes 900% CPU on my i9 MacBook Pro 16 and the system becomes usless. It's hard to do anything in this state, as every application I open becomes unresponsive. I can force quit the process and then have a timeframe of 1-2 seconds where I can do something until the process boots up again. So far I tried these solutions:

• Delete all Mail Accounts and Files
• Delete Gmail Accounts (I had 3)
• Delete Exchange Account (I had 1)
• Delete keychain
• Log out of iCloud
• Reinstall macOS

I had some luck after deleting my keychain, but the next day the problem came back. Then I had luck with logging out of iCloud, but the problem reappeared.
So no solution so far...

 

[German-Frank]

This problem appeared on my system two days ago (macOS 10.15.7). accountsd consumes 900% CPU on my i9 MacBook Pro 16 and the system becomes usless. It's hard to do anything in this state, as every application I open becomes unresponsive. I can force quit the process and then have a timeframe of 1-2 seconds where I can do something until the process boots up again. So far I tried these solutions:

• Delete all Mail Accounts and Files
• Delete Gmail Accounts (I had 3)
• Delete Exchange Account (I had 1)
• Delete keychain
• Log out of iCloud
• Reinstall macOS

I had some luck after deleting my keychain, but the next day the problem came back. Then I had luck with logging out of iCloud, but the problem reappeared.
So no solution so far...

Hi Zonk,
I did every step you did > no success !
After I made that simple step ( #78 ) every thing is fine !

I t seems to me that macOS is always trying to ask App-Store for updated and, somehow, this conversation is running and running > is part of CommerceKit > is triggering accountsd !

May be you try it

 

[zonk44]

Hi Zonk,
I did every step you did > no success !
After I made that simple step ( #78 ) every thing is fine !

I t seems to me that macOS is always trying to ask App-Store for updated and, somehow, this conversation is running and running > is part of CommerceKit > is triggering accountsd !

May be you try it

Hi
I forgot to list your solution. In my case it didn't help. I have automatic updates disabled.
It seems to be that the trigger of this bug is different for everyone. It's definitely a bug, although apple support just denied this.
I'm now signed out of iCloud and this "resolves" it until I sign in again. The guy in the support chat suggested to make a new admin account to see if the problem is caused by some user configuration. I will do that when I have time, and setup iCloud with that new account to see if it's related with my iCloud account.

 

[johannnn]

Occured to me right after installing 10.15.7. Since some people here still on 10.15.6 also have the problem, I assume it's something on Apple's end. I'll just wait a few days and hopefully it fixes itself.

 

[GrampaJiiji]

Occured to me right after installing 10.15.7. Since some people here still on 10.15.6 also have the problem, I assume it's something on Apple's end. I'll just wait a few days and hopefully it fixes itself.

I've sent a report to apple.
The only way to get Apple aware of the problem is if enough people send enough reports to the mothership.

Feedback - macOS

Apple wants to hear from you. Send us your comments and feedback about macOS.

www.apple.com

 

[jfredsilva]

I started experiencing this issues after 10.15.7. What is strange in my case is that it's only happening when I'm connected through wifi. If I connect through the ethernet I don't have this issue.
What worked, both for my Mac and my girlfriend Mac, was to disable the google accounts on the preferences. I only used them for Mail, don't know if it relevant or not.

 

[johannnn]

I started experiencing this issues after 10.15.7. What is strange in my case is that it's only happening when I'm connected through wifi. If I connect through the ethernet I don't have this issue.
What worked, both for my Mac and my girlfriend Mac, was to disable the google accounts on the preferences. I only used them for Mail, don't know if it relevant or not.

I love that EVERYONE has different solutions for this problem. I hope the QC department at Apple fixes this immediately. To compare with you, i connect via ethernet, and I have no google accounts.

 

[GerritV]

I had the problem today (in 10.15.7), so I contacted Apple Support.
The first person claimed it to be related to the iCloud sync process. Logging out-back-in, however, didn't solve the problem.
The second person had me to reset PRAM and SMC. The latter turned out to be the solution.
HTH

 

[daanodinot]

Same problem as described ( accountsd using 360% cpu in my case ).

I found that accountsd was triggered by the process "Commerce" that tried login to App-store unsuccessfully.
Therefore, I unchecked "automatically update" > problem solved so far, even after several reboots.

Thank you, this solved it for me. I'd suggest you try this first if a simple reboot doesn't do the trick.

 

[colombcl]

I think the correlation with 10.15.7 is incidental. I started having the problem when 10.15.7 was available, although not installed on my machine, yet (Mac mini 2018). I had a perfectly functional machine, turned it off, left for a few days, when back received notification of 10.15.7, I did not install it, but from that moment, the machine became unusable, even though I did nothing on it during those days of absence.

I would bet on a change in iCloud in conjunction with the upcoming new release. Needless to say, updating did not help.

However, I found an easy fix that seems to work, at least in my case. And it has been running fine for a few days now.

All I did was:
1) Sign out from iCloud
2) Reboot
3) Sign in into iCloud, making sure to disable keychain synchronisation (all others left active)

Hope that helps

 

[GerritV]

I think the correlation with 10.15.7 is incidental. I started having the problem when 10.15.7 was available, although not installed on my machine, yet (Mac mini 2018). I had a perfectly functional machine, turned it off, left for a few days, when back received notification of 10.15.7, I did not install it, but from that moment, the machine became unusable, even though I did nothing on it during those days of absence.

I would bet on a change in iCloud in conjunction with the upcoming new release. Needless to say, updating did not help.

However, I found an easy fix that seems to work, at least in my case. And it has been running fine for a few days now.

All I did was:
1) Sign out from iCloud
2) Reboot
3) Sign in into iCloud, making sure to disable keychain synchronisation (all others left active)

Hope that helps

Interesting how you emphasise to disable keychain synchronisation.
I have it enabled, but it doesn't work (i.e. the passwords I see on my iPad are not showing in Safari on my Mac).
So why exactly would you disable it?

 

[colombcl]

Interesting how you emphasise to disable keychain synchronisation.
I have it enabled, but it doesn't work (i.e. the passwords I see on my iPad are not showing in Safari on my Mac).
So why exactly would you disable it?

Because it was the only think that could have changed when turned the computer on, and browsed a little bit. I cannot exclude I was just lucky. But for sure, after the change, my computer stopped being unusable and accountsd is now extremely quiet. Since three days.

 

[GerritV]

Because it was the only think that could have changed when turned the computer on, and browsed a little bit. I cannot exclude I was just lucky. But for sure, after the change, my computer stopped being unusable and accountsd is now extremely quiet. Since three days.

Thanks, good to know. Somehow, our problems sound related.
I spoke with Apple support again this morning, they had no idea why the synchronisation doesn't work.
Guess I'll wait for Big Sur.

 

[pxnghi]

Catalina 10.15.6
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

Have done tons of fixes here and there
Finally signing out AppleID fixed it, don't know exactly which one is the correct solution
I've not signed in back yet, just back to my work first, will try signing in and update to 10.16.7 when I have lunch :|

edit: signed in back for more than 3 hours, still ok

Got this issue on my Macmini 2018 (10.15.7) last night, was done by the simplest fix: sign out Apple ID and sign in again, no more steps required

 

[ChrisChaval]

same issue here since I updated my MB Air 2017 to 10.15.7 which rendered it almost unusable and safari unresponsive (needed to force quit safari several times)

after some time (one hour or so of uptime) the problem seems to solve itself but reappears at the next boot

restarting does not solve the issue for me, did not try any of the other solutions suggested

 

[magicalex]

I had the same problem and solved it by resetting the Apple-ID account info in my user account system setting dialog (right click on my user profile in User&Groups -> extended options):

Instead of my Apple-ID it showed a "Test" account... don't know why.

 

[utente__mac]

I've faced this issue only this morning. I updated to 10.15.7 several days ago.
Resolved by signing out my Apple ID, restarting and signing back in.
Thank you all for the tip.

 

[Tygernoot]

Overnight my mac had crashed for some reason:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff8018014e17): "IOUSBMassStorageInterfaceNub::setPowerState(0xffffff806ba46400 : 0xffffff7f98910b58, 1 -> 0) timed out after 101136 ms"@/AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-6153.141.2/iokit/Kernel/IOServicePM.cpp:5296
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffffa3e8b23b40 : 0xffffff801791a65d

And guess which problem is back... again... ?‍♂️

And trick #78 now doesn't work anymore

 

[GerritV]

Because it was the only think that could have changed when turned the computer on, and browsed a little bit. I cannot exclude I was just lucky. But for sure, after the change, my computer stopped being unusable and accountsd is now extremely quiet. Since three days.

My accountsd went crazy yet again. After disabling the iCloud Keychain sync (that didn't work anyhow), my fans stopped almost immediately and accountsd went back to normal again.