Resolved macos hogging CPU resources after upgrade to Catalina

[nshinka]

Hey everyone,

So I purchased a 2015 rMBP with an older version of macOS on it (Yosemite I think). It was a fresh install, and after using it with no problems for a few hours I upgraded to Catalina so I could install some newer apps.

Immediately after upgrading I noticed the battery was running down fast and the Mac was running hot. When checking the Activity Monitor it shows there are 3x processes (they look to be related to macOS) hogging CPU usage, making it constantly sit around 25-30% system usage. The processes are: nsurlsessiond, trustd & syslogd

When I restart the Mac the CPU usage goes back to normal for a while, then starts having the same issue again.

These are the things I've checked so far:

*Confirmed iCloud not syncing or in use
*Checked keychain and cannot find any red/corrupted keys
*Created a new user account, had the same issue there
*Turned off Spotlight Suggestions
*Closed down all applications, issue still happens

This is basically a fresh install of macOS, all I've installed is the Brave web browser, Spotify & Pixelmator. No syncing apps, no Dropbox, Google stuff or anything like that.

Anyone have any ideas as to what else it could be, or what else I could try to narrow down the issue? The only thing I can think of is reinstalling macOS, and if that doesn't solve it downgrade to Mojave. But I don't want to spend all the time to do that unless I have to.

(Attached is a screenshot of Activity Monitor before rebooting while the issue is happening, and after rebooting when the issue is not happening)

Thanks!

 

[bogdanw]

Take a look at "nsurlsessiond process going crazy on Catalina" https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nsurlsessiond-process-going-crazy-on-catalina.2228994/

 

[nshinka]

Take a look at "nsurlsessiond process going crazy on Catalina" https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nsurlsessiond-process-going-crazy-on-catalina.2228994/

Is there any particular part of that thread you were referring to? Because I did see that one, however nothing in there seemed to help me.

Thanks.

 

[bogdanw]

Try restarting trustd from Terminal with

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.trustd

 

[nshinka]

Try restarting trustd from Terminal with

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.trustd

Hmm that worked, thanks!

I've reset my keychain to see if that fixes it permanently. We'll see...

 

[nshinka]

Hmm that worked, thanks!

I've reset my keychain to see if that fixes it permanently. We'll see...

Unfortunately after resetting the keychain the issue came back.

Anyone have any ideas as to anything else I can try to solve the issue permanently? Otherwise I'll have to blow away the OS :/

 

[spacemnspiff]

I am in a similar boat. I recently bought a 2015 rMBP for my daughter which had an older version of MacOS on it. I did a fresh install of Catalina, I am seeing the battery drain that is described above. I haven't tried the suggest fix, I will after I gift it to her.

Should I delete keychain?

Let me know OP what you end up doing, is downgrade to an older OS possible?

 

[nshinka]

I am in a similar boat. I recently bought a 2015 rMBP for my daughter which had an older version of MacOS on it. I did a fresh install of Catalina, I am seeing the battery drain that is described above. I haven't tried the suggest fix, I will after I gift it to her.

Should I delete keychain?

Let me know OP what you end up doing, is downgrade to an older OS possible?

For the moment I've created a bash script I can run to manually kill off the trustd process when this issue happens.

Yes, it's possible to downgrade, however you have to create a bootable USB with the older macOS version then boot into that and install the OS from there. Which is a pain in the ass.

The other option first I suppose is to reinstall Catalina and see if that fixes it. I'll do that soon if I can't find a solution.

Deleting the keychain can't hurt if it's a fresh install of the OS, although it didn't fix the issue for me.

 

[bogdanw]

I can't find a solution.

Are you sure Spotify isn't causing this problem?

 

[spacemnspiff]

For the moment I've created a bash script I can run to manually kill off the trustd process when this issue happens.

Yes, it's possible to downgrade, however you have to create a bootable USB with the older macOS version then boot into that and install the OS from there. Which is a pain in the ass.

The other option first I suppose is to reinstall Catalina and see if that fixes it. I'll do that soon if I can't find a solution.

Deleting the keychain can't hurt if it's a fresh install of the OS, although it didn't fix the issue for me.

Thanks for the reply. Since this laptop is for my daughter, I cannot expect her to take care of the issues. I want this to be a reliable machine for her.
Can I not just downgrade to whatever OS the machine came with and then upgrade to Mojave instead of creating a bootable USB?

Let me know if re-installing Catalina fixes things for you. Thx.

 

[nshinka]

Are you sure Spotify isn't causing this problem?

I've just deleted the Spotify app, let's see if the issue reoccurs.
[automerge]1588928330[/automerge]

Thanks for the reply. Since this laptop is for my daughter, I cannot expect her to take care of the issues. I want this to be a reliable machine for her.
Can I not just downgrade to whatever OS the machine came with and then upgrade to Mojave instead of creating a bootable USB?

Let me know if re-installing Catalina fixes things for you. Thx.

You can boot into Recovery Mode, blow away the disk then install macOS from the recovery partition, which might be the version it came with I guess. Worth a try.

Also, are you having the exact same issue with the "trustd" process hogging CPU resources?

 

[nshinka]

I reinstalled Catalina (had to boot into recovery mode and blow away the disk first) and it seems to have fixed the issue.

 

[spacemnspiff]

I reinstalled Catalina (had to boot into recovery mode and blow away the disk first) and it seems to have fixed the issue.

Thanks for the update. Can you provide the steps that are needed to go to recovery mode and blow away the disk first? Are the the steps described here?

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.

support.apple.com

I assume you had to go to Disk Utility to Erase the disk (blow away disk?).

 

[nshinka]

Thanks for the update. Can you provide the steps that are needed to go to recovery mode and blow away the disk first? Are the the steps described here?

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

You can use macOS Recovery, your computer's built-in recovery system, to reinstall the Mac operating system. Reinstalling macOS doesn't remove your personal data.

support.apple.com

I assume you had to go to Disk Utility to Erase the disk (blow away disk?).

Yeah, you can follow those instructions, make sure you do the "erase" option otherwise macOS will just get reinstalled over the top and the issue will still be there (I tried that the first time).

But wait! Before you do that, I'm curious... deleting the "system.keychain" file in the "library\keychains" folder and letting it re-create may fix the issue. I found out about it *after* I formatted my Mac so didn't get the chance to try. You've got a fresh install of macOS so no risk there, and if it works to solve the issue then it would be helpful for other users to know who might have this issue. So please give it a try before formatting your Mac to see if it works.

Let me know how it goes!

 

[spacemnspiff]

Yeah, you can follow those instructions, make sure you do the "erase" option otherwise macOS will just get reinstalled over the top and the issue will still be there (I tried that the first time).

But wait! Before you do that, I'm curious... deleting the "system.keychain" file in the "library\keychains" folder and letting it re-create may fix the issue. I found out about it *after* I formatted my Mac so didn't get the chance to try. You've got a fresh install of macOS so no risk there, and if it works to solve the issue then it would be helpful for other users to know who might have this issue. So please give it a try before formatting your Mac to see if it works.

Let me know how it goes!

Thanks so much, I will try to deleting the 'system.keychain' file, I won't have a lot of time to experiment with it, I will look at activity monitor to see if that helps. If it doesn't, I will just try reinstall with erase option.

 

[spacemnspiff]

Yeah, you can follow those instructions, make sure you do the "erase" option otherwise macOS will just get reinstalled over the top and the issue will still be there (I tried that the first time).

But wait! Before you do that, I'm curious... deleting the "system.keychain" file in the "library\keychains" folder and letting it re-create may fix the issue. I found out about it *after* I formatted my Mac so didn't get the chance to try. You've got a fresh install of macOS so no risk there, and if it works to solve the issue then it would be helpful for other users to know who might have this issue. So please give it a try before formatting your Mac to see if it works.

Let me know how it goes!

Oh man, thanks so much. I deleted the 'system.keychain' and restarted the machine. And now the activity monitor is showing normal activity after a few minutes of running. See screenshot. The battery is not running down like crazy before.

I don't have to erase the machine and re-install Catalina. Such a relief and saves me time.

 

[nshinka]

Oh man, thanks so much. I deleted the 'system.keychain' and restarted the machine. And now the activity monitor is showing normal activity after a few minutes of running. See screenshot. The battery is not running down like crazy before.

I don't have to erase the machine and re-install Catalina. Such a relief and saves me time.

Good to hear! Now we know.