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Accountsd Mac cpu is high

accountsd process is eating 500% cpu and making macbook pro 15,1 useless after Catalina 10.15.7 update.

Even if you force this process to quit it comes back at ~500% CPU and make lots os apps to hang.


I have tried to disable iCloud Mail integration and other suggestions related to "accountsd" that fixed this issue in previous Catalina versions but nothing worked.


Any suggestions?




[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Sep 25, 2020 7:48 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 26, 2020 1:56 AM

I solved it installing this update:


http://support.apple.com/kb/DL2052?viewlocale=en_US


It was impossible to use my MBP 16 ... difficult to download that using safari either (I had to use chrome)


Regards

307 replies

Oct 1, 2020 12:45 AM in response to fpmalard2017

For me the issue with the accountsd on high CPU clearly started after the update to 10.15.7. After resetting the non-volatile memory (Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.) solved the problem for a few days, but today the issue re-appeared. Definitely a bug since the latest MacOS update.


I am working on a iMac 27" 8 core. As you can see in the screenshot, all CPU's are running hot. Support from Apple is required. Thanks.


Oct 5, 2020 4:40 AM in response to fpmalard2017

Hi all,

I have the same recurring issue on an iMac (Retina 5k, 27-inch, 2017) with macOS Catalina V10.15.7.


I have attempted all solutions on this page:

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/accountsd/

But no avail.


Symptoms, see screenshot. The Mac consumes a lot of energy and is very sluggish, and more often than not Safari decides to fully freeze (happened twice during to submit this ticket).


Hope a resolve comes for this.

Sep 25, 2020 8:24 AM in response to fpmalard2017

Just updated my MacBook Pro 2018 to 10.15.7 and - voila! Killing the process doesn't helping me - it's appearing again and again. I logged out myself off the Apple ID, and now this is the only way I found to stop this madness - at least I can use my laptop for a work again. I have heard that this situation might happen if you have any MS Exchange email set up and losing your internet connection, but I have no configured mail accounts at all and my internet connection is stable.

Sep 26, 2020 2:03 AM in response to Mad2463

Link doesn't open...Now I've tried to logout from iCloud, restart and then login. Seems to be fixed. I think is a problem with the "update account process" that sometimes appear after a software update. In fact I see iCloud Keychain sync to be uncheck after the update and couldn't be marked as check. Now everything works fine and all feature are checked.

Sep 26, 2020 4:32 AM in response to fpmalard2017

Just got this issue on my new macbook pro 16" (bought it yesterday). accountsd clogs up the whole CPU and makes computer basically unusable. My first point of contact at apple - The dispatcher army - said this is usual as I have a new macbook. I followed this statement by saying I am an engineer and nothing is usual about this problem. After being transferred to the I presume tier 2 support. They tried to validate the issue by running the computer in the safe mode. But as accountsd is a system task, problem continued. They are now making me reinstall macOS Catalina.


Will follow up.

Sep 26, 2020 6:37 AM in response to MarkHeijnekamp

It seems that renaming the sqlite file helps

rename /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite to /Users/XXX/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite.bak

a new file is created the mac starts to work again

rename /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite.bak to /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite

(try in command line with mv command)

Everything seems back to normal

Accountsd Mac cpu is high

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