Do I need Fuse?

FUSE is a way of being able to access some file systems that are not natively supported by macOS. FUSE does this using only a user's regular permissions instead of needing to install software into the lower levels of macOS. It is hard to say how this got there, but at some time in the past someone using your computer installed some third party software which included a FUSE component.

You can run EtreCheck to see whether those FUSE components are associated with any specific developer or other third party app in order to glean what may have installed it. I believe I've seen FUSE components in some EtreCheck reports I've reviewed. Feel free to post the complete report here.

MacFuse - It is used to access non-macOS file systems, and to allow things like remote access to storage via ssh, sftp, etc... all as if it is a mounted volume.

https://osxfuse.github.io

If you do not access non-macOS file systems, then you do not need it.

FUSE is part of some system modification software that you had installed in the past. It looks the actual FUSE software has been removed. The only part that is left is the user interface system preference panel. You can just right-click or command-click on the FUSE preference panel in System Preferences to remove it. It isn't being used so this will have no impact, either positive or negative.

It looks like your low performance is due to poor SSD speed. This could be caused by other system modifications. I've never heard of "Livedrive". And you have Microsoft OneDrive too. It is always risky having multiple sync services installed and running. They could interfere with each other can cause the problems you are encountering.

If you aren't actively using Livedrive and OneDrive, I recommend uninstalling them both. Then restart and see if you notice any improvement.

EtreCheck is useful to the volunteers that help in this channel. The volunteers cannot see into your system and go poking around. EtreCheck lists out information that is frequently useful in diagnosing problems, and there are enough volunteers in these forums that can pick apart most of an EtreCheck report and give useful feedback.

The alternative is playing 20 Questions over several days with volunteers asking for X, you giving what you think was asked for, but you may reply with Y, and the cycle continues until either the problem is resolved, or your give up, or the volunteers give up.

At least EtreCheck gives consistent summary of your system and 3rd party software installed, in a format that does not change on the whim of the person posting the information.

If you were to carefully look at the EtreCheck output, you might notice some 3rd party apps you installed years ago, and either forgot about, or know you no longer use them. On in your case notice "Fuse". Knowing this can help you decide if something should be deleted, or give you a starting point in asking questions. You do not need to understand every last items in the report. Heck, some of the volunteers do not understand every item. But enough it understandable to enough volunteers that forward progress in identifying a problem can be made.

At worse, EtreCheck does not indicate anything wrong, and then the volunteers can look in a different direction. Negative EtreCheck results is still useful information.

barneyhairball wrote:

Livedrive and Onedrive now both gone. I can obviously see the CPU processess you sent, but it means little to me other than they are an issue. Can I do anything to solve the issue?

You may have just solved it. Make sure to restart. Then use the computer as normal. If you continue to have problems, then you can post a new question.

If you continue to have problems and want to use EtreCheck again, I recommend not restarting before running EtreCheck. Restarting will delete much of the information that EtreCheck looks at. When you experience a problem, run EtreCheck then or shortly afterwards. Then post that report here in the forms with a good description of the problems you are experiencing.

In no particular order…

Per what has been posted elsewhere, LiveDrive appears to use FUSE.

EtreCheck is a means to avoid us asking about a billion questions of each user, for one of these “hey, why is my Mac {slow, apps crashing, not upgrading, whatever}?” questions.

There’s a whole lot happening on this Mac, judging by the user load. With not enough memory. Given the memory can’t be increased, the remaining option is to reduce some of the load. Removing or disabling sync tools would be one approach to that goal, too.

Spotlight is very busy. Whether that’s with Spotlight, or Spotlight interacting with the sync tools, or some other issue or corruption?

As mentioned above, I’d (also) try removing the sync tools, and see if performance improves.

No. What do you think you might?

If you want information about the Power User package, it would be better to e-mail directly.

You can use EtreCheck for free to post your report here in the forums, as you have done. Helpers here will be able to tell you what you should do.

In this case, you can find Livedrive files in two places:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.livedrive.HelperTool.plist

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.livedrive.HelperTool

You can select each path and copy it to the clipboard. In the Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder. Then, in the pop-up window that appears, paste the paste in. This should open a new Finder window with the given file selected. Drag it to the trash.

Repeat for the second file.

Restart.

In the case of Livedrive, this appears to be a low-level component that is missing one or more other components that are normally packaged with such tools. It is actively running, and running in an uncontrolled, unknown state. It is definitely a good idea to get rid of it. I can't guarantee that it will result in any improvement.

Microsoft has its own support services that you can use for assistance. It is relatively unlikely that OneDrive is causing this problem as it is installed on many millions of computers.

The most concerning part of your EtreCheck report is the performance section:

Performance:

System Load: 7.87 (1 min ago) 16.94 (5 min ago) 11.43 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O usage: 9.40 MB/s

File system: 104.52 seconds

Write speed: 583 MB/s

Read speed: 1389 MB/s

The read and write speeds are good, but the file system speed is very poor. This is an area where competing file sync services could have a detrimental impact.

Since you just updated the operating system yesterday, it could still be doing some system maintenance. Performance may improve after a while. Your top CPU processes all show various Apple indexing tasks:

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)

mdsync 60.88 % (Apple)

system_profiler (2) 53.80 % (Apple)

appleaccountd 39.00 % (Apple)

triald 31.58 % (Apple)

photoanalysisd 16.60 % (Apple)

Even though these don't take an excessive amount of CPU, they are low-level, filesystem operations. Any significant activity here could negatively impact the entire system.

barneyhairball wrote:

Oh dear, what is a sync tool; and how do I get rid of them?

A file sync tool keeps a copy of local files on a remote server. Examples include iCloud Files, Google Drive, LiveDrive, OneDrive, and others.

Spotlight: I know you don't mean this, but I never use it? So why is it very busy? And can I do anything about it?

Yes, you use Spotlight. Spotlight is the macOS search tool, and is also a dependency of other functions including (for instance) software update.

I have My Passport for Mac constantly attached to my laptop; could this be an issue?

That would be fairly typical of Time Machine backups. If it’s just a hard disk drive, you’re fine. It’ll get busy when Time Machine gets busy. Time Machine is a backup service, not a file sync service. (Time Machine also depends on Spotlight.)

There are, however, serious security issues with the associated WD My Cloud hosting, if you are using that feature:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/04/users-fume-after-my-cloud-network-breach-locks-them-out-of-their-data/

WD My Cloud reportedly came back online about a week ago, though many questions remain.

barneyhairball wrote:

Hello again. I didn’t know My Passport does or could backup to iCloud.

“My Cloud” versus “iCloud”. “My Cloud” is services from WD. “iCloud” is services from Apple.

My passport does not appear in iCloud.com. I don’t specifically exclude my passport in Time Machine backups. I suppose I’m asking - should I? And is this what u mean anyway?!

If using that external hard disk drive for backups, and are not running any added WD software for backups or for file syncing, you’re likely not using WD Cloud.