Typing in Messages is 'laggy' since installing Mac OS Sequoia 15.1 update

This issue exists here on a 2019 Macbook Pro 16" and a 2020 Macbook Pro 13", both with MacOS 15.1 (24B83).

Here is what I have observed:

• iMessage text entry becomes increasingly slow as longer messages are entered.
• Short messages do not seem to be affected. By about the 800 character mark, the text entry box is laggy, sometimes so much as to be unusable.
• The slow text entry problem does not affect any other software which accepts text entry - it is specific to iMessage, as far as I can tell. (I do not use Whatsapp.)
• This is not related to any third party security software (I have none).
• The problem occurs regardless of whether any other software is running (I have reproduced this on a clean reboot).
• I have removed all peripherals except my USB keyboard, so there is no relationship to (for example) my external GPU.
• There are two third-party drivers installed: OpenVPN, and a Canon printer driver.
• This problem was not reproducible on my 2020 Macbook Pro 13" with MacOS 15.0.1. It was immediately reproducible after I upgraded it to 15.1, so that seems pretty definitive.
• So far, I cannot reproduce this problem on an Apple M1 Pro 16" with MacOS 15.1, though I see that others have reproduced it on this platform. On this particular M1, Apple Intelligence is offered only as a waitlist item, not yet an available feature, in case that is significant.

I have not found any reliable way to prevent this from occurring when I experience it, so I have resorted to composing longer messages using vi in a terminal and then pasting them into iMessage.

This has been driving me nuts. It appears to get exponentially worse the more characters that are typed into a message. If your message is 4 lines, you might as well wait about 10 seconds to see your message fully typed out on screen.

For what it is worth - I am on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro 16"

Same here on a 2019 Mac Pro. Typing is so laggy in Messages that it's borderline unusable. WTF?

Same here, Messages and WhatsApp, everything else seems to be fine. - And this is only on my M1 MBP. My M1 MacMini works normal under Sequoia 15.1.

I'm seeing the same problem and I don't have any special security or anti-virus software installed. Looking forward to a fix.

Since installing the macOS 15.1 update (16" M1PRO), I've also been experiencing significant keyboard lag in the iMessage app only.

Moments after a reboot, everything works ok, only a minute after loading the system the problem returned.

The temporary solution to the problem was to disable real-time file system protection in Eset Cyber Security.

Does anyone know a permanent solution to the problem of significant typing lag in the iMessage app (ms teams work without problems)?

I don't want to give up ESET protection at the expense of writing in iMessage.

I've done some forensics. As you type in WhatsApp, there are two files that are repeatedly opened and closed (i.e. they appear and disappear from `lsof` results. Those files are

~/Library/Group Containers/group.net.whatsapp.WhatsApp.shared/Logs/WhatsApp_2/whatsapp-2024-11-25-11-04-18-1351-WhatsApp-1481.log
/private/var/db/eligibilityd/eligibility.plist

(obviously with numbers in the log filename changing occasionally)

In the logfile we see:

11:04:19.644 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.644 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.647 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.647 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.650 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.650 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.652 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.652 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.655 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.655 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.658 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled
11:04:19.658 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/composer-new-chat-ai-status/disabled
11:04:19.686 [  11513] [main-thread   ] [F] LL_A ai/manager/feature/bonsai-entry-point-not-enabled

You can see there's 3ms between these, and there are hundreds of entries per second.

This is consistent with the observation that enabling Apple AI helps - it seems to be in an expensive loop of repeatedly trying to use AI and getting a "no". Getting a "yes" gets it out of that loop.

But I don't know whether it's the trying to use AI that's ultimately causing the slowness, or the logging itself. If it re-opens the logfile every time it writes to it -- which seems to be the case -- AV may well re-scan it anew every time. That's consistent with the observation that disabling ESET's scan-on-open fixes the issue.

... and disabling "Scan on - file open" does fix the issue, but disabling AV globally is not something you should do!

Those experiencing this issue who don't have AV -- maybe they're on slower computers where the file operations are noticeable even without AV -- or maybe their slowness isn't as extreme as AV users are noticing -- or maybe they have some AV they're not aware of.

However, I tried adding `/Users/[username]/Library/Group Containers/group.net.whatsapp.WhatsApp.shared/Logs/*` to ESET's "performance exclusions" list, and this didn't help. I don't know whether that's because this is not the cause, or whether ESET just isn't honouring the exclusion.

I have exactly the same issue as you mentioned. I do have ESET Cyber Security installed! The Apple Intelligence isn't a problem actually.

After I turn off the real-time file system protection in ESET Cyber Security, the issue is gone!

This has been driving me nuts. Figured out a solution though. If you enable Apple Intelligence (I joined the waitlist and was let in a few minutes later), it magically solves the issue. No idea why but saw someone else mentioned it and it worked for me as well.

Same problem. Apple M1 Pro 16".

Happens to me too but apparently only on Whatsapp standalone app, and only after I updated it to version 24.21.84.

Signal, MSTeams, etc all seems ok.

I don't have ESET, but I do have Sophos (that I cannot disable).

Same with me. Also WhatsApp as app is the same.

Other apps like MS Teams seem to work fine.

Exactly same problem with me. I am running macOS 15.1 on Apple M1 Pro 16". Apparently Apple doesn't care.

Same issue here with WhatsApp & iMessage, MacBook Pro M1 Max, 32GB, 2To, Sequoia 15.1 (24B83).

Same issue - the longer the message, it gets so unbearably slow. Not to mention, you can even higlight parts of a word - you can only highlight the whole thing. Not sure how Messages on macOS has become awfully slow.