How to block nsurlsessiond processes?

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How to block nsurlsessiond processes?

I'm living in a world without wifi, so the only time I connect my MacBook to the internet is via hotspot from my phone. I generally do my best to disconnect it when I'm not using it, but I also don't typically expect it to burn though gigs of data in a go when it's seemingly doing nothing. Alas, nsurlsessiond is exceeding my expectations.

I've been scouring the internet for days about this issue and none of the old tricks are working (this was a big problem in the mid 2010's). I'm signed out of iCloud on the computer completely, photos and iCloud Drive are off on the phone. Automatic updates are off.

Killed trustd & removed nsurlsessiond cache - no dice.

Checked all my launchagents/daemons - nada.

Deleted all kinds of other caches - still no luck.

I installed the Little Snitch (demo version for now) and after the initial panic of all the incoming connection requests, I can finally breathe.

What I'm seeing is that in the nsurlsessiond process, nearly all the connection requests are from podcast servers. Akast, stitcher, megaphone, blubrry, art19... all podcasts! (Image below).

So obviously I went into my podcast app and changed all the settings to not update or download automatically, unfollowed all podcasts (I only listen to them on my phone, and I'm signed out of iCloud now anyway), deleted all remaining media, and checked that none were in the download queue. I've done the same for Spotify podcasts - plus I deleted the Spotify app from my Mac. But still, these are constantly pinging and if I disconnect Little Snitch for a second, data usage skyrockets and I risk having a heart attack.

I'd love to have an actual idea of how to get this thing to calm down. Fair to assume that somewhere in the system, there is a malfunctioning process, whereby all these podcasts are trying to download content, when I have not asked for it.

I should say that I updated to the latest version of Big Sur yesterday - 11.6.5. I don't have the data capacity for an upgrade to Monterey. And with the signs all pointing to podcasts and not, say, iCloud or System Update, I would like to think that the OS is not the problem.

I low-key suspect there might also be an issue with "handoff" or something of that nature, trying to sync the data I have on my phone to my Mac - any thoughts on that? Ideally I would love to avoid deleting all my downloaded podcasts on my phone to test... again, living in a low-data environment, I really pay for every mb and wouldn't like to do it twice!

Otherwise, the bottom line is that I would like to know how to shut down these podcast processes. Any help would be much appreciated.

Posted on Mar 18, 2022 9:29 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

meganva Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 30, 2022 6:15 AM in response to etresoft

Hi, following up on this.

ScreenTime did not help with this problem. It is the process nsurlsessiond that is initiating the data transfer on behalf of the Podcast app, not the app itself. I'm also quite sure that apps still continue to fetch data even during ST. It is simply not showing the user until ST is disabled.

In the end, I did a clean install and then had to go in and cancel all automatic downloads and manually unfollow all the podcasts from my podcast app. The problem has not re-occurred in over a month.

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Answer 2

meganva Author

Level 1

9 points

Apr 30, 2022 7:04 AM in response to PRP_53

Yes, I used Activity Monitor to identify nsurlsessiond as the process responsible for the high data consumption. I used Little Snitch to identify what was responsible for triggering the data transfer (podcasts). But I couldn't get podcasts to stop the downloads until I did a clean reinstall of the OS.

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

50,800 points

Mar 18, 2022 10:13 AM in response to meganva

nsurlsessiond is a system process for downloading data. Random servers on the internet aren't going to connect to your computer and start transferring. You have something installed and running that is doing this. You'll have to find it and shut it off. Little Snitch isn't going to help.

I suggest using ScreenTime instead.

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Answer 4

meganva Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 18, 2022 11:07 AM in response to etresoft

I guess I wasn't clear. I wasn't suggesting that I thought these podcast servers were targeting my computer out of the blue - I understand that something in my Mac is initiating the data transfer. I agree, I would like to figure out what that is, but I'm really not clear on how ScreenTime would help that. Whatever is running is certainly in the background. At least Little Snitch has helped me determine what type of data is being sent.

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

50,800 points

Mar 18, 2022 2:25 PM in response to meganva

ScreenTime would control specific app usage. You could setup a limit where you could only run something like Finder and TextEdit and nothing else. Then, if you see a lot of podcast traffic, you know it is some system service. Otherwise, it could be some other app that is syncing subscriptions. Since all apps are likely to use the same system networking services, Little Snitch isn't going to help you in that case.

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