Q: parentalcontrolsd using nearly 100% of one CPU 24/7 after Mountain Lion update

I have exactly the same problem.

Some Forums recommend to disable parental controls in order to get this fixed.

But this is definetly not an option for me.

The situation is not acceptable as the battery on my mac book is draining very fast having a process taking up to 100% CPU.

Would be great if someone could point out a solution.

Thanks

I think i just found a solution:

1. Disable parental controls on all users.

2. delete the folder /Library/Application Support/Apple/ParentalControls

3. restart Mac

4. enable parental controls again

This solution works perfectly for me. The parentalcontrolsd process is not eating much CPU anymore.

Hope this helps

Had the same problem as described above; parentalcontrolsd process took over all available CPU with no active accounts running parental controls.  Had Parental Control turned on for Guest account even though it was disabled.  Followed berkant's solution and it worked perfectly!!   Mac Mini now running at top speed.

I had the same issue but found it was related to Picasa and sync of web albums.

Killed Picasa and all was fine, restarted Picasa and back it came.

I use to have parental controls enabled, but then I removed the accounts that I no longer needed which caused the problem of parentalcontrolsd eating 50% CPU, which usually resulted in either a login crash or several minutes to log in. Console showed parentalcontrolsd panicking since it couldn't find the old enabled settings (since they were turned off and removed). I basically have over 1500 parentalcontrolsd error messages in console. I followed berkant's solution of clearing the folder and now everything works great! No more login crashes and things run much faster! Kudos for the solution!

thanks, Berkant.

worked for me.

OS X 10.8.2

Worked for me too (10.7.5).  Amazing this sort of thing has been around for so many years (reports go back to 2008 or 2007 or earlier)

Thanks berkant!

This solved to probem as described. (This had been driving me crazy!)

THANK YOU Berkant!

this solved my issue perfectly!

if only i had checked before i spent the last two days wasting my time in and out of my local Apple store which was zero help.

Does anyone know what caused this issue to begin with?

My MBP never had this issue only untill a few weeks ago when every time i turned it on, few mintues later the fans kicked in and the computer over heated anough to cook eggs on it- Was very worried!

So relieved. Thanks again Berkant!

Berkant, thank you!

Worked for me in El Capitan!

Hi Berkant. Where do I find the folder? I can't find anything in search or find my library. Thanks!

Look at your hard drive level Library.

Thanks Eric Root. How do I even get to that? haha very challenged apparently, thanks!

You are welcome.  Finder/Preferences/Sidebar and check everything under Devices. Then in the Sidebar, select your hard drive which is normally called Macintosh HD.