MacbookPro mid 2015 mds_stores or configd CPU high load

[ben2ub]

Just came across this thread and can confirm similar issues but also a few different observations:

• MBP 2015
• replaced ifixit battery August 2022. Everything was ok at first until:
• November 2022 when I switched from Catalina to Monterey. I did a clean install completely from scratch, did not migrate anything, created a new user and reinstalled all apps I need.
• Now the issue started. I did not even connect it to my battery before reading this thread and I‘m pretty sure it also happens when AC plugged (mainly use it plugged). But I‘m now going to observe if I can find any battery correlation.
• For me it seems to be clearly connected to chromium apps. I‘m relying a lot on various chromium based apps, so even though I tried switching to Safari it happens regularly when using those apps. I‘m using Vivaldi, Opera, Chrome browsers for various tasks, Notion, Evernote and a chromium based app called WebCatalog that basically acts as a wrapper for a lot of other web apps I‘m using daily. So I often have 5-10 various chromium apps running at the same time (not counting open tabs within those apps).
  If ONE of those apps freezes (beachball) I have to force-quit (rmb on dock symbol) ALL of the chromium apps to get the system responsive again.
  Easiest way to reproduce it is watching youtube on one of the chromium browsers. Beachball after a few minutes. I‘m using youtube only in Safari now and therefore it‘s ok most of the time, sometimes days without beachball, but sooner or later it happens again out of the blue.
  If it‘s beachballing I‘m not even able to access activity monitor (but I can force-quit using rmb on the dock symbols). Sometimes activity monitor stays unresponsive even after the beachball is gone and the system generally works again. But when I managed to get a look at the processes I always had configd running at 100% cpu (before it went back to normal soon after the system was responsive again).

I have to add that it‘s clearly not easy to isolate an issue on this old mbp.

I also changed the apple SSD to a third party 2 TB SSD a few years back. It works in general but I had a kernel panic now and then since upgrading the ssd.

Apart from the chromium beachball issue the system generally became more stable and snappier after switching to / clean installing Monterey. Kernel panics did not disappear but happen less often then on Catalina, maybe once every 1-2 months vs once every 1-2 weeks.

I don‘t remember exactly how I solved it, but I first had problems installing Moterey because some apple system check detected the non-apple SSD and the install failed. I came across a solution to still install it but it was a bit hacky and I‘m wondering ever since if it may be related to the chromium beachball issues and if I might have been better off just clean installing Catalina again.

 

[VladOliinyk]

At the moment the issue did not replicate at all.

I’m going back and forth between old and new user since I’m migrating data from one folder to another and I did notice that the 3 processes are running when I’m logged in with the old user.
As soon as I log off and go with the new one they all disappear from activity monitor.

So for now, no issues.


UPDATE - day 3:

Been using is on battery and also connected to an external monitor. Still no issues for now.

Not worked for me, 2nd user show the same issue.

 

[VladOliinyk]

Just came across this thread and can confirm similar issues but also a few different observations:

• MBP 2015
• replaced ifixit battery August 2022. Everything was ok at first until:
• November 2022 when I switched from Catalina to Monterey. I did a clean install completely from scratch, did not migrate anything, created a new user and reinstalled all apps I need.
• Now the issue started. I did not even connect it to my battery before reading this thread and I‘m pretty sure it also happens when AC plugged (mainly use it plugged). But I‘m now going to observe if I can find any battery correlation.
• For me it seems to be clearly connected to chromium apps. I‘m relying a lot on various chromium based apps, so even though I tried switching to Safari it happens regularly when using those apps. I‘m using Vivaldi, Opera, Chrome browsers for various tasks, Notion, Evernote and a chromium based app called WebCatalog that basically acts as a wrapper for a lot of other web apps I‘m using daily. So I often have 5-10 various chromium apps running at the same time (not counting open tabs within those apps).
  If ONE of those apps freezes (beachball) I have to force-quit (rmb on dock symbol) ALL of the chromium apps to get the system responsive again.
  Easiest way to reproduce it is watching youtube on one of the chromium browsers. Beachball after a few minutes. I‘m using youtube only in Safari now and therefore it‘s ok most of the time, sometimes days without beachball, but sooner or later it happens again out of the blue.
  If it‘s beachballing I‘m not even able to access activity monitor (but I can force-quit using rmb on the dock symbols). Sometimes activity monitor stays unresponsive even after the beachball is gone and the system generally works again. But when I managed to get a look at the processes I always had configd running at 100% cpu (before it went back to normal soon after the system was responsive again).

I have to add that it‘s clearly not easy to isolate an issue on this old mbp.

I also changed the apple SSD to a third party 2 TB SSD a few years back. It works in general but I had a kernel panic now and then since upgrading the ssd.

Apart from the chromium beachball issue the system generally became more stable and snappier after switching to / clean installing Monterey. Kernel panics did not disappear but happen less often then on Catalina, maybe once every 1-2 months vs once every 1-2 weeks.

I don‘t remember exactly how I solved it, but I first had problems installing Moterey because some apple system check detected the non-apple SSD and the install failed. I came across a solution to still install it but it was a bit hacky and I‘m wondering ever since if it may be related to the chromium beachball issues and if I might have been better off just clean installing Catalina again.

I too noticed that if I force quit Chrome when the issue appears - it goes away.

 

[jboliv]

Some theory: Monterey is the last supported version in 2015 MBP and this was the last apple macbook that had both a decent keyboard and decent selection of ports (life before dongles) until the M1/M2 versions came.

Also this is the last macbook that likely will ever have upgradeable storage, which for me is a really big deal. I had to replace the motherboard on mine because of that crappy digital audio chip decided to die and prevent mine from booting. If I had a newer version, I would lose all my data because of a tiny component in a motherboard. So I decided to not buy another mac until I could replace storage again, which probably means I won't buy another and move back to Windows laptops.

This thread is from Feb 2023 with many people having replaced their batteries in late 2022. It does sound an awful lot like some version of Macos 12.x.x brought an "unexpected bug" that would finally force us to buy the latest and greatest macbook, specially since we won't get Macos 13. It could be a very expensive class action if proven

Has anyone tried to upgrade to 13 via opencore and see if issues persist?

 

[VladOliinyk]

Some theory: Monterey is the last supported version in 2015 MBP and this was the last apple macbook that had both a decent keyboard and decent selection of ports (life before dongles) until the M1/M2 versions came.

Also this is the last macbook that likely will ever have upgradeable storage, which for me is a really big deal. I had to replace the motherboard on mine because of that crappy digital audio chip decided to die and prevent mine from booting. If I had a newer version, I would lose all my data because of a tiny component in a motherboard. So I decided to not buy another mac until I could replace storage again, which probably means I won't buy another and move back to Windows laptops.

This thread is from Feb 2023 with many people having replaced their batteries in late 2022. It does sound an awful lot like some version of Macos 12.x.x brought an "unexpected bug" that would finally force us to buy the latest and greatest macbook, specially since we won't get Macos 13. It could be a very expensive class action if proven

Has anyone tried to upgrade to 13 via opencore and see if issues persist?

This might be the case since we have all heard of the same Apple's "tricks" with iPhones. But this problem known for the last 5 years, you can find threads according to "configd" issue at the official Apple's forum dated by 2018: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8577755

 

[nick430]

Just came across this thread and can confirm similar issues but also a few different observations:

• MBP 2015
• replaced ifixit battery August 2022. Everything was ok at first until:
• November 2022 when I switched from Catalina to Monterey. I did a clean install completely from scratch, did not migrate anything, created a new user and reinstalled all apps I need.
• Now the issue started. I did not even connect it to my battery before reading this thread and I‘m pretty sure it also happens when AC plugged (mainly use it plugged). But I‘m now going to observe if I can find any battery correlation.
• For me it seems to be clearly connected to chromium apps. I‘m relying a lot on various chromium based apps, so even though I tried switching to Safari it happens regularly when using those apps. I‘m using Vivaldi, Opera, Chrome browsers for various tasks, Notion, Evernote and a chromium based app called WebCatalog that basically acts as a wrapper for a lot of other web apps I‘m using daily. So I often have 5-10 various chromium apps running at the same time (not counting open tabs within those apps).
  If ONE of those apps freezes (beachball) I have to force-quit (rmb on dock symbol) ALL of the chromium apps to get the system responsive again.
  Easiest way to reproduce it is watching youtube on one of the chromium browsers. Beachball after a few minutes. I‘m using youtube only in Safari now and therefore it‘s ok most of the time, sometimes days without beachball, but sooner or later it happens again out of the blue.
  If it‘s beachballing I‘m not even able to access activity monitor (but I can force-quit using rmb on the dock symbols). Sometimes activity monitor stays unresponsive even after the beachball is gone and the system generally works again. But when I managed to get a look at the processes I always had configd running at 100% cpu (before it went back to normal soon after the system was responsive again).

I have to add that it‘s clearly not easy to isolate an issue on this old mbp.

I also changed the apple SSD to a third party 2 TB SSD a few years back. It works in general but I had a kernel panic now and then since upgrading the ssd.

Apart from the chromium beachball issue the system generally became more stable and snappier after switching to / clean installing Monterey. Kernel panics did not disappear but happen less often then on Catalina, maybe once every 1-2 months vs once every 1-2 weeks.

I don‘t remember exactly how I solved it, but I first had problems installing Moterey because some apple system check detected the non-apple SSD and the install failed. I came across a solution to still install it but it was a bit hacky and I‘m wondering ever since if it may be related to the chromium beachball issues and if I might have been better off just clean installing Catalina again.

In my case I'm 100% sure it only triggers when on battery.

Also, the easiest way for me to test the whole thing is to open a couple tabs + a YT video and that's where it usually tends to beachball, then freeze and eventually crash.

Now it's been a couple more days and it hasn't replicated yet. I had a couple freezes but nothing out of the ordinary (it's still a pretty old CPU).

Also in my case I'm using multiple Chromium based apps (+ GDrive always syncing in the backgroud).

In my case I wouldn't stricty correlate the issue to Chromium based apps but it's worth noting that a fair amount of instances where I had issues I was in fact while running a couple Chrome tabs + YT video. That was my go-to to replicate the whole thing.

 

[ben2ub]

In my case I'm 100% sure it only triggers when on battery.

Also, the easiest way for me to test the whole thing is to open a couple tabs + a YT video and that's where it usually tends to beachball, then freeze and eventually crash.

Now it's been a couple more days and it hasn't replicated yet. I had a couple freezes but nothing out of the ordinary (it's still a pretty old CPU).

Also in my case I'm using multiple Chromium based apps (+ GDrive always syncing in the backgroud).

In my case I wouldn't stricty correlate the issue to Chromium based apps but it's worth noting that a fair amount of instances where I had issues I was in fact while running a couple Chrome tabs + YT video. That was my go-to to replicate the whole thing.

I gave it a try and interestingly I can now also confirm that I could easily reproduce the issue when unplugged (with a couple of youtube tabs) but no beachball when AC connected.
Even though I find it still a bit hard to believe that I may have missed the battery correlation for months as I really use this machine almost always plugged in. To the point that – in my case – it even feels like kind of a solution to just not use it unplugged anymore.
I’ll stop trying to avoid chromium wherever possible now and keep you guys posted if the beachball really doesn’t come back when AC plugged.

+ btw. I think it never or at least very rarely led to a full crash in my case. The machine is not responsive anymore but comes back as soon as I force quit all chromium apps.

 

[nick430]

I gave it a try and interestingly I can now also confirm that I could easily reproduce the issue when unplugged (with a couple of youtube tabs) but no beachball when AC connected.
Even though I find it still a bit hard to believe that I may have missed the battery correlation for months as I really use this machine almost always plugged in. To the point that – in my case – it even feels like kind of a solution to just not use it unplugged anymore.
I’ll stop trying to avoid chromium wherever possible now and keep you guys posted if the beachball really doesn’t come back when AC plugged.

+ btw. I think it never or at least very rarely led to a full crash in my case. The machine is not responsive anymore but comes back as soon as I force quit all chromium apps.

If kept disconnected from the AC mine would 100% crash eventually.

First beachballing, then all active windows going non responsive, then trackpad not even clicking anymore and eventually after a minute of complete stalling the crash/force reboot kicks in.

Have you tried creating another user just for test purposes?

In my case I suspect, even though not 100% sure given the infinite variables, that it might be some sort or corrupt or leftover file in my user/library/ folder.

Maybe try creating another user and test with 6/7 tabs opened in Chrome + a YT video on high quality. Let it run for a bit and see what happens.

All while running on battery only, preferably around 60% or so.


Also:

Another theory I was thinking about is some sort of CPU throttling correlated to a non OEM batteries which, in some instances, might not supply sufficient/stable power to the logic board causing some sort of performance throttling.
Not sure if that could make any sense.

(Btw this is all theory from someone who’s not very skilled in circuit boards and stuff.)

 

[ben2ub]

If kept disconnected from the AC mine would 100% crash eventually.

First beachballing, then all active windows going non responsive, then trackpad not even clicking anymore and eventually after a minute of complete stalling the crash/force reboot kicks in.

Have you tried creating another user just for test purposes?

In my case I suspect, even though not 100% sure given the infinite variables, that it might be some sort or corrupt or leftover file in my user/library/ folder.

Maybe try creating another user and test with 6/7 tabs opened in Chrome + a YT video on high quality. Let it run for a bit and see what happens.

All while running on battery only, preferably around 60% or so.


Also:

Another theory I was thinking about is some sort of CPU throttling correlated to a non OEM batteries which, in some instances, might not supply sufficient/stable power to the logic board causing some sort of performance throttling.
Not sure if that could make any sense.

(Btw this is all theory from someone who’s not very skilled in circuit boards and stuff.)

It’s not my main computer so I’m not using it constantly, but I’ll do the new-user-experiment asap.
That said it was a fresh install and a fresh user without any migration and initially very few installed apps when the issue began. If I recall correctly vivaldi was even one of the very first apps I installed and the first beachball happend very soon after setting up Monterey. I think I was still quite enthusiastic about the general snappiness after the fresh install when it first started beachballing. Of course my user might have been corrupt from the beginning.

The throttling theory does sound plausible to me, but I’m also no expert. In any case it also must also have sth. to do with the OS or a newer version of an app that was first installed with Monterey as I definitely used the new battery a few months on Catalina without this problem. It was slower and felt more instable before the fresh install, but I think the system was in my case also generally quite bloated over the years and I’m sure that I didn’t get this specific chromium beachball before.

 

[Rogachev Maksim]

Hello everyone! Try to do this. It worked for me on two Macbook pro 2013 late. - IPV6 should be turned off!

Launch Terminal, found within the /Applications/Utilities/ directory, and use the following commands appropriate to your situation. Note that many modern Macs only have wi-fi cards, rendering the ethernet option unnecessary. If the Mac has both wi-fi and ethernet networking, you’ll probably want to disable IPv6 for both interfaces.

Turning off IPv6 support for ethernet:​

networksetup -setv6off Ethernet

Disabling IPv6 for wireless:​

networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

You can also combine both of those commands into a single string to disable both wireless and ethernet, just use the following syntax:

networksetup -setv6off Ethernet && networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

 

[VladOliinyk]

Hello everyone! Try to do this. It worked for me on two Macbook pro 2013 late. - IPV6 should be turned off!

Launch Terminal, found within the /Applications/Utilities/ directory, and use the following commands appropriate to your situation. Note that many modern Macs only have wi-fi cards, rendering the ethernet option unnecessary. If the Mac has both wi-fi and ethernet networking, you’ll probably want to disable IPv6 for both interfaces.

Turning off IPv6 support for ethernet:​

networksetup -setv6off Ethernet

Disabling IPv6 for wireless:​

networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

You can also combine both of those commands into a single string to disable both wireless and ethernet, just use the following syntax:

networksetup -setv6off Ethernet && networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

I will try this asap

 

[VladOliinyk]

I will try this asap

Tried, didn't worked for me

 

[ethanielk]

Elements which seem to be some sort of recurrent pattern for most people:

- non OEM battery replaced
- not being plugged into AC
- having Wi-Fi turned on and/or being connected to a Wi-Fi network
- issue does not 100% replicate when connected to AC
- involved processes are configd, mds_stores and sometimes powerd
- MacBook Pro 2015 model

This is exactly my case as well. Killing chrome with Command-Q helps stop this issue.

However, I've also noticed that my MBP Pro 2015 takes forever to load. Fresh install is 10-20 seconds max. But after I installed all of my software, it now takes 1-2 minutes to boot (with or without AC).

Is this something that you also might be experiencing?

 

[rvdveen]

I recently replaced the logic board in my 15" Late 2013 for an unrelated issue, but the configd issue remains. It was a slightly newer logic board, so now it reports as a Mid 2014 model. So it seems to apply to 2013, 2014 and 2015 models. I'm wondering if anyone also has it with a non-iFixit battery?

 

[megaksa]

I have
- MBP Pro 2015 15
- Ventura with OpenLegacy patcher
- Battery replaced: https://www.ebay.com/itm/165932000004. It is claimed to fit A1618, however it doesn't. I removed the plastic insert from the middle of the battery. See attached screen for A1494 vs A1618 comparison. After that the battery didn't interfere with touchpad cable anymore.
- having Wi-Fi turned on and/or being connected to a Wi-Fi network
- Issue does not seem to reproduce when connected to AC
- involved processes are configd, mds_stores and sometimes power

I replaced the battery for other family members who have/had the same/similar laptop model (MBP 15 2013-2015) and didn't notice that issue a few years ago. My first guess was that it had something to do with Ventura and OpenCore patcher, but having so many reports here this is not the case obviously. Generally, it looked to me like an intentional "error" to force users to stop using old laptops and buy new ones. Another option is that my battery has an "incompatible" chip (I should have bought the correct A1618 battery), so the software does something wrong.

I still have the old battery with me, so I'm thinking to
- Switch to the old battery to check if the issue disappears
- If the above helps, then resolder the battery controller from the old battery to the new one.

 

[kratoz29]

I am having similar issues with a MacBook Pro 2014 15" also the battery was recently replaced last month and at this moment it only has 15 cycles.

My previous battery was pretty messed up, it even was swollen, so I could not notice if this was a normal behavior before, because I always had it plugged in.

It is stupidly obvious that all these issues occur when the Mac IS NOT plugged in, and the main culprits are configd and powerd, I also haven't noticed this behavior when using Windows 10 through BootCamp (in the slowness meaning), but I could not replicate it there because I barely have apps there, my main usage is on macOS.

The issues begin when the battery is at 60% ish, but it is more noticeable when the battery is below 40% and it has happened me when loading "heavy" websites, it does not matter if it is in Chrome or Safari, also when using Evernote, Discord, even Telegram or Spark mail.

And I don't know how it evolves for you guys, but if I do nothing and hope for macOS to cope with it (as suggested in some configd threads) spoiler alert it won't, I just get a nice macOS crash in the best of the cases (back to login page), in the worse case scenario it reboots automatically.

 

[rayhanksl]

Hi guys,
I don't know if this is going to help, I was having that exact issue with my macbook pro 2015, tried almost everything that was mentioned in this discussion and nothing worked.
However, I realised that I was using my macbook with a higher resolution than the default one (for some web design purposes), and when reverting to the default screen resolution, the issue went away and never came back.

 

[kratoz29]

Hi guys,
I don't know if this is going to help, I was having that exact issue with my macbook pro 2015, tried almost everything that was mentioned in this discussion and nothing worked.
However, I realised that I was using my macbook with a higher resolution than the default one (for some web design purposes), and when reverting to the default screen resolution, the issue went away and never came back.

Well, mine was at default resolution before fresh installing macOS, and it is on default after, same issue :/

Plugged in no problems at all.

 

[megaksa]

Temporarily removed the new battery and installed an old original one from Macbook Pro 15" 2014, that I was about to recycle. Note, that I have Macbook Pro 15" 2015 with a bit different battery format (see pic above). So far I went through a full discharge cycle, and the problem has disappeared. I'll try to do a few more cycles, but so far I'm pretty convinced that taking the right battery should solve the problem.

 

[megaksa]

Replaced the previous generic A1494 with a generic new A1618 battery.

A1618 Battery For Apple MacBook Pro 15''Retina A1398 Late 2013 Mid 2014 2015 US | eBay

Battery type: Li-ion Battery. Number of Battery Cells: 6. Step 3: Disconnect the cable connected to the battery and then take out the battery. After that, you can check the specifications of your battery.

www.ebay.com

Observe the same configd issue at random battery percentage, starting approximately a 80%.
The next step I guess is moving the old controller onto the new battery. I don't have a battery programmer like ev2400, so likely will need to keep the voltage on the controller terminals while soldering to prevent accidental PF (permanent failure) flag set.

 

[megaksa]

Hi guys,
I don't know if this is going to help, I was having that exact issue with my macbook pro 2015, tried almost everything that was mentioned in this discussion and nothing worked.
However, I realised that I was using my macbook with a higher resolution than the default one (for some web design purposes), and when reverting to the default screen resolution, the issue went away and never came back.

Not sure if I got it. Why would you use different (non-native?) resolution? It should be just whatever your laptop screen resolution is - 2880-by-1800. You can scale it though to make it worse, e.g. to mirror to the laptop LCD while presenting.

 

[megaksa]

I went ahead and tried to replace the controller on the new battery with the controller from the old battery. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the battery appeared to the laptop as faulty. I might have overheated some board elements, or the board was somehow sensitive to the cells change. Anyways, I solder the original controller back.

Then I found that someone had the similar issue and he had a system installed with OCLP (Open Core Legacy Patcher). The person set the "Settings->Advanced->Miscellaneous->Disable Firmware Throttling" option. The option description is "Disables firmware-based throttling caused by missing firmware. Ex. Missing Display, Battery, etc". I did the same and so far after 3 full charge/discharge cycles, I haven't faced the issue yet.

So my current interpretation is that as the battery is aftermarket, somehow the info provided by the battery controller is in conflict with whatever the expectation is from the system (unintentionally or intentionally). This somehow triggers "firmware throttling" which is forcefully disabled by the mentioned OCLP option.

Another person reported no issues after battery replacement, but the battery was from the same batch as the original one. We both posted our battery info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/15ar6sj/_/jvnknln

The differences:
My old battery:
Pack Lot Code: 0 PCB Lot Code: 0 Firmware Version: 702 Hardware Revision: 1 Cell Revision: 1206

Person's replacement battery (without the issue):
Pack Lot Code: 0 PCB Lot Code: 0 Firmware Version: 702 Hardware Revision: 1 Cell Revision: 3241

My new battery (same info was in my other battery with the issue):
Pack Lot Code: 3230 PCB Lot Code: 3230 Firmware Version: 2d31 Hardware Revision: 322d Cell Revision: 3036

 

[megaksa]

Minor addition: the original battery had a thermocouple attached to the 3 contacts in the middle, the current battery didn't have it. But it has thermal fuses on every cell. Fuses are not attached to the controller. So, if the controller reports some sort of temperature to the laptop, it reports the temperature on the board, not near the battery.

 

[VladOliinyk]

I went ahead and tried to replace the controller on the new battery with the controller from the old battery. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the battery appeared to the laptop as faulty. I might have overheated some board elements, or the board was somehow sensitive to the cells change. Anyways, I solder the original controller back.

Then I found that someone had the similar issue and he had a system installed with OCLP (Open Core Legacy Patcher). The person set the "Settings->Advanced->Miscellaneous->Disable Firmware Throttling" option. The option description is "Disables firmware-based throttling caused by missing firmware. Ex. Missing Display, Battery, etc". I did the same and so far after 3 full charge/discharge cycles, I haven't faced the issue yet.

So my current interpretation is that as the battery is aftermarket, somehow the info provided by the battery controller is in conflict with whatever the expectation is from the system (unintentionally or intentionally). This somehow triggers "firmware throttling" which is forcefully disabled by the mentioned OCLP option.

Another person reported no issues after battery replacement, but the battery was from the same batch as the original one. We both posted our battery info here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/15ar6sj/_/jvnknln

The differences:
My old battery:
Pack Lot Code: 0 PCB Lot Code: 0 Firmware Version: 702 Hardware Revision: 1 Cell Revision: 1206

Person's replacement battery (without the issue):
Pack Lot Code: 0 PCB Lot Code: 0 Firmware Version: 702 Hardware Revision: 1 Cell Revision: 3241

My new battery (same info was in my other battery with the issue):
Pack Lot Code: 3230 PCB Lot Code: 3230 Firmware Version: 2d31 Hardware Revision: 322d Cell Revision: 3036

Can you describe the entire process of installing a system with OCLP?

 

[Webster's Mac]

Are you us

Just came across this thread and can confirm similar issues but also a few different observations:

• MBP 2015
• replaced ifixit battery August 2022. Everything was ok at first until:
• November 2022 when I switched from Catalina to Monterey. I did a clean install completely from scratch, did not migrate anything, created a new user and reinstalled all apps I need.
• Now the issue started. I did not even connect it to my battery before reading this thread and I‘m pretty sure it also happens when AC plugged (mainly use it plugged). But I‘m now going to observe if I can find any battery correlation.
• For me it seems to be clearly connected to chromium apps. I‘m relying a lot on various chromium based apps, so even though I tried switching to Safari it happens regularly when using those apps. I‘m using Vivaldi, Opera, Chrome browsers for various tasks, Notion, Evernote and a chromium based app called WebCatalog that basically acts as a wrapper for a lot of other web apps I‘m using daily. So I often have 5-10 various chromium apps running at the same time (not counting open tabs within those apps).
  If ONE of those apps freezes (beachball) I have to force-quit (rmb on dock symbol) ALL of the chromium apps to get the system responsive again.
  Easiest way to reproduce it is watching youtube on one of the chromium browsers. Beachball after a few minutes. I‘m using youtube only in Safari now and therefore it‘s ok most of the time, sometimes days without beachball, but sooner or later it happens again out of the blue.
  If it‘s beachballing I‘m not even able to access activity monitor (but I can force-quit using rmb on the dock symbols). Sometimes activity monitor stays unresponsive even after the beachball is gone and the system generally works again. But when I managed to get a look at the processes I always had configd running at 100% cpu (before it went back to normal soon after the system was responsive again).

I have to add that it‘s clearly not easy to isolate an issue on this old mbp.

I also changed the apple SSD to a third party 2 TB SSD a few years back. It works in general but I had a kernel panic now and then since upgrading the ssd.

Apart from the chromium beachball issue the system generally became more stable and snappier after switching to / clean installing Monterey. Kernel panics did not disappear but happen less often then on Catalina, maybe once every 1-2 months vs once every 1-2 weeks.

I don‘t remember exactly how I solved it, but I first had problems installing Moterey because some apple system check detected the non-apple SSD and the install failed. I came across a solution to still install it but it was a bit hacky and I‘m wondering ever since if it may be related to the chromium beachball issues and if I might have been better off just clean installing Catalina again.

I never Liked how mine ran with an aftermarket SSD. I would be curious if you still had your original SSD and tried doing a clean install. If anything, I’ve noticed that sometimes the system firmware won’t upgrade when there’s an aftermarket SSD. I had to swap on my oem SSD into a friend’s MacBook and ran the upgrade to Monterey to force it to upgrade. Then I swapped back in their aftermarket SSD and it could install software updates like normal after that.
I also had issues with mine getting hot in sleep mode with the aftermarket SSD. It overall is better with the original drive