ICloud freezes when syncing and gives errors. fileproviderd takes 100% of cpu. EtreCheck provided

I just switched 3 days ago from a 2019 MacBook Air with an Intel chip to an M3 Air with 24gb ram and 1Tb storage. I used migration assistant from the old mac with a thunderbolt 3 cable. I used icloud drive on the old mac with syncing on for Desktop and Documents, pretty much only use Desktop. I only have about 2.5 gb in icloud drive. I also just upgraded from 50gbs icloud to 200gb. As soon as I switched over, I noticed that it is incredibly slow to move files, open files, rename, or move to trash on my Desktop. I mean like 1-5 minutes or it would crash, but if I used the terminal it was instant. These aren't big files either, like 150kb images I had just download couldn't even open. I spent like 5-6 hours yesterday with Apple support, I updated to the latest 14.4.1, from 14.3, booted into safe mode to check the disk which was all good, and I reinstalled my OS. Nothing worked.



ICloud in finder says it is trying to upload 1.2 gbs, it was at 787 mb when I noticed yesterday. It was going at about 5.5 mb per hour which would take about 72-80 hours. My internet isn't the problem. I have tried on 200 mbs upload and 11 mbs upload internet. Doesn't make a difference. fileproviderd was taking up 100% of my cpu. I ran fileproviderctl check -v and had some major problems, like thousands of files. After all of this and checking that in non icloud folders, on my hard drive, I had no problems. I unsynced and removed the files, I signed out of Icloud and restarted my mac. I went back in, turned it back in and it downloaded the files. Then there were 8 problem files with fileproviderctl check -v. They were from a project on github and were just the binaries that are in the .gitignore so that shouldn't be a major issue, I think. I moved the github projects to a hard drive file. fileproviderctl check -v said all good.


But then I accidentally moved a small 905 kb from on Desktop folder to the Desktop, and the problems continued, it instantly synced the 905kb, but there was an additional 45 kb of I assume metadata. It took 20 minutes then crashed and in finder, it said "ICloud is not syncing, there are pending changes to sync".


I have resorted to turning off Icloud sync with Desktop and Documents because it makes my computer unusable. Should I take it to the apple store or what should I do?


MacBook Air (M3, 2024)

Posted on Apr 18, 2024 8:08 PM

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Apr 19, 2024 9:13 AM in response to brodskyICloud

You're clearly on the right track having isolated the problem to fileproviderd.


Obviously it's used for iCloud syncing but other file synchronization services can use it and can potentially interfere with iCloud. It looks like you're using Microsoft OneDrive which I happen to know uses fileproviderd. Fixing it will require a process of elimination, which you began by temporarily disabling Desktop & Documents. Try extending that troubleshooting method to Microsoft OneDrive, or any similar product such as Google Drive.


As for MS OneDrive, the following may be helpful: Reset OneDrive on a Mac. If you use Google Drive, perhaps there is a similar procedure for it.


Edit: There are reports confirming Google Drive might also be a culprit: Fileproviderd - Apple Community. Other examples of "cloud based" file storage systems that integrate with the Finder include Dropbox.


See "File Provider - An extension other apps use to access files and folders managed by your app and synced with a remote storage" Apple Developer Documentation

ICloud freezes when syncing and gives errors. fileproviderd takes 100% of cpu. EtreCheck provided

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