Screen lock & fingerprint unlock are very slow in macOS 14.6

Afternoon all,

We've been experiencing the same issue on Intune managed devices running macOS 14.6.1.

I was able to verify that going back to 14.5 resolved the issue. After the device upgraded to 14.6.1 again the issue re-appeared.

I reported it to Microsoft and they asked me to try removing the MDM profiles and see if that resolved it.

Again, I can confirm that unassigning all of the configuration profiles, scripts and apps resolved the issue. The primary Intune management profiles remained since the device is still linked but this is good.

However, I was determined to find the specific cause. The previous comment about the issue not being present when a different user logged in led me to check the configuration profiles that are deployed via the user channel vs. device.

After re-applying all of the configuration profiles and scripts one at a time I was able to track the cause to a single profile in Intune that uses a Custom Configuration profile to set the local device password policy. It uses the com.apple.mobiledevice.passwordpolicy payload type.

Removing this policy by itself resolved the issue after a restart and re-applying it made the issue return.

I can't guarantee it will resolve the issue for all of you since your setup may be vastly different, but it's worth checking. Failing this, removing your user deployed profiles may help you narrow the cause.

The user related profiles can be identified by going to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Profiles.

At the top there should be a section named User (Managed).

I've passed this info and the configuration profile XML file onto Microsoft for review.

Thanks and good luck!

This fixed it for me:

sudo dscl . deletepl /Users/<accountName> accountPolicyData history

(Replace <accountName> with your own account name.)

Apparently the longer the history of account policy data, the longer (un)locking takes. In my case the list was huge because of repeated policy updates.

Running the command above resolved my issue instantly.

I have exactly the same issue. Since few days (after upgrade to 14.6) if I lock the screen it shows the wallpaper and it takes 6 seconds to show the user icon (so you can unlock again). When you try to unlock (touchid or password) it takes another few seconds before the screen actually unlocks. TouchID works fine as you can press it for a fraction of second and few seconds later the screen gets unlocked.

I have my MBP 14 Pro managed by MDM profile. The moment I remove the profile ... everything starts to work fine again, so it is somehow related to upgrade to 14.6 and having your MBP managed by MDM profile.

At first I thought my company is at fault (new security policy or sth), but reading so many other people having the same issue I tend to think it is Apple's fault ... clearly a bug in macOS 14.6.

What is interesting, after I apply the MDM profile again everything is almost ok (it shows the user icon fast, but unlock is still slow at occasions) ... until the next restart.

So for now my solution is to not restart or after restart: offboard and onboard MDM profile again (and to not restart).

This issue seems to be variant from another similar, not the same in all respects

After upgrade to Sonoma 14.6 Touch ID sto… - Apple Community

And Yes, I did participate in that question

There could be something in the main User Account playing up.

To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

Download the Application Etrecheck  ( External Link ) directly from the Developer.

The Application is Not a " Silver Bullet "  and is  only a tool to examine the Hardware / Software used on this computer 

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer Hardware / Software used on this computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

It seems this issue is not unique and appears to be related to macOS 14.6 rather than the MDM profile itself. Many users have reported similar problems after the update. A possible workaround could involve removing and reapplying the MDM profile, which has worked for some, although the issue might reoccur after a restart.

If the problem persists, another potential fix that some users have reported is updating to macOS 14.6.1, which seems to have resolved the issue for them without altering MDM settings. Additionally, monitoring processes like `opendirectoryd` during the delay might provide more insight, as it seems to spike in CPU usage during these moments.

after installing 14.6.1 problem fixed

I have a MacBook M1 with JAMF / Crowdstrike running 14.6.1 that is VERY slow in unlocking (but almost instantaneous in screen-locking), and a MacBook M2 running 14.6.1 at home (without Managed services) which is instantaneous in both lock and unlock operations.

I would suggest that everybody get their IT/Management tool team to submit tickets to the managed software companies to get them to test properly with 14.6.1. This is obviously some new functionality by Apple that is impacting the 3rd party tools, and the changes will have to be made there (instead of MacOS)

voostindie wrote:

This fixed it for me:

sudo dscl . deletepl /Users/$USER accountPolicyData history

Thank you.

This exact topic came up yesterday on our company's Slack messaging service. Our Macs have company installed MDM software and lots of profiles and policy data that the company keeps updating.

The fact that it just popped up for more than a few users, including me, when things were working well before, leads me to believe it is something the company did to our Macs.

But the dscl command has cleared it up for me, and at least 3 other users (so far).

Again, Thank You. 🤩

Hi all,

we experience the same issue. Login takes quite some time until processed.

Not on all machines, but some.

The only common thing is the OS though, so macOS 14.6 or 14.6.1.

I manage macOS devices in Intune, Jamf (on-prem and cloud) and VMware. On all three MDM some machines show the same behavior after the update to 14.6.x... So to me it seems that it is not a MDM issue. Since these three different vendors probably do not make the exact same updates on the exact same time. And, to my knowledge, all MDM use Apples API/APNS to work their MDM magic anyways. So not much they can do without Apple altogether.

To take updates into our own hands is another fun thing with macOS. Apple does not allow postponing updates for longer than 90 days. So no big help there. (There are ways to block updates altogether, of course. But that would probably be worse than just living with these few users and devices that experience this issue currently).

So pretty sure we have to wait for a fix from Apple here

Colleague of mine (having the same issue) ran remotely activity monitoring and noticed that during this 6 seconds delay (for example after locking the screen) the opendirectoryd process consumes over 100% CPU, so it seems to be related to this.

I can provide hard imperial evidence it's not specifically to do with MDM profiles... we removed enrollment from one of our systems, and the problem persisted. Even after Active Directory configurations and Kerberos SSO configurations were pulled.

We cannot simply defer to the "well just nuke it" solution and expect that to solve our problems. People have jobs. People are devoted to the projects they're working on, and when a macOS update comes along, the answer cannot simply be "just give them a new computer / just erase their computer and start over". That is not knowing your user, and that is not a viable option. You've not taken the time to troubleshoot or show ownership of the problem.

So to add something of value to this thread...

1. I know that removing Directory services configurations does not make the problem go away for a user's account
2. I know that removing MDM profiles (fully unenrolling a mac) does not make the problem go away for a user's account.
3. I know that we can sign into another local account on the system, and that account seems to be fine with locking / unlocking.
4. I know that clearing ~/Library/Caches didn't help my particular user.
5. I know that the problem persists for my user on macOS 14.6 and 14.6.1.

So I'm going to theorize that there's some kind of preference or cache sitting somewhere holding onto stale data and it's causing the authentication process to stall.

I've some additional details to add to this. Thanks to BigGee42 I was able to confirm what he found... the issue seems to be specific to the Password complexity requirement. In our case, because our company uses a peculiar ruleset, I can narrow it down specific to regex processing... And since our password policy isn't actually being applied by a config profile, this is how I can further confirm that MDM management has nothing to do with this.

Re-iterating point 3 from my past post (PRP_53's suggestion of making a dummy account) you'll find it doesn't seem to impact all accounts on the system... so I'm beginning to wonder if this is something that's being set or being corrupted with user account variables that's impacting regex processing.

Unfortunately none of the users who've brought it to my attention have also been willing to give me the time for me to get my hands on a system to find the resolution for this. When I do, I promise I'll come back here and post what I find.

sudo dscl . deletepl /Users/<accountName> accountPolicyData history

Yes this helped our situation as well, but unfortunately it does not seem like it is a fix that we can deploy on our Production environment, as this command also deletes the password history for the device, therefor users could set the same password as some of their previous passwords, which should not be allowed by the password history requirements.

Present the finds to your MDM Service, your IT Department and to Apple as a Bug Report

This ship has sailed a long time ago.