Entire System Freezes; Mac OS 26.2, M4 MacBook Air. - Solutions welcome.

The system pauses are coinciding with this on activity monitor. So system activity continues but User activity drops to zero.

In the readout, I can see that corespotlightd is going a bit mad

I read elsewhere that there is an issue with Pages and iCloud that has been going on for years. If I background Pages for a while and don't use it.....

System activity drops considerably. Corespotlightd doesn't seem to be taking up the whole system and the pauses don't happen. I think this may be with any iCloud-stored files.

Foreground it again and it takes over an entire core.

I don't run any third party VPNS or monitoring. Hence my caution with Etrecheck.

The Operating System may be hosed (which has been reinstalled). The issue certainly seems to be with Pages / iCloud causing corespotlightd to lose it's mind.

Going down this rabbit hole:

Continued corespotlightd process CPU over… - Apple Community

Until I stumbled upon some thread somewhere which just generally stated that deleting the Cache Folder in Library (Finder>Go>Go To Folder>~/Library/Caches) might help or not but it's generally not a bad idea to clean it out from time to time. Well I didn't do that for like 4 years! Which actually speaks for the rigidity of macOS.

I went to that folder and it had a size about 50GB and literally right after deleting it the freezes and the high CPU usage of corespotlightd went away. I now waited several hours to see if it was just something temporary but it seems like this was indeed the solution.

And I forgot to mention: I upgraded from 15.2 to 15.3 several days ago and it seems like something in the Cache became corrupted or faulty (be it system files or app files) and caused corespotlightd to go rampant.

So in short: give the cleanup of the ~/Library/Caches folder a try. It might help and solve this high CPU usage of corespotlightd. Hope this helps anyone.

Hmmmm

Let's nuke that and see what happens.

My Caches/com.apple.corespotlightd is only 3 MB

That thread goes on for 24 pages.

Obviously quitting Pages makes the system very responsive.

So yeah, not Third Party software or weird extensions, literally just Apple Mac OS, Apple Pages and Apple iCloud.

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Owl-53 wrote:

Without casting doubts on certain matters

A reluctance to reveal what is or is not installed tends to say, a lot

I'm experienced enough to fix 99% of my own issues. This is something that isn't caused by third party software so there is no "fix" for it. Just a hack of maintenance (by deleting cache files not visible to casual users)

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Mac Jim ID wrote:

You are just looking at a symptom without knowing the cause.

The cause is plainly a problem in corespotlightd.

I can also confirm I use Pages extensively and don't experience that problem and I do understand that does not help you. I suspect most would use Pages, whether they are seeing that issue or not, just like they are using Safari. I did read the article you linked to and to be honest it is all over the place with anything from Pages, Messages, Docker, iCloud. Some claimed having multiple Pages documents open solved the problem. Others claimed that upgrading their OS to Tahoe solved the problem for them. Some users did not even use Pages and were reporting the problem. That is hardly definitive in identifying the source of the issue.

I said in my original message that it is not limited to Pages, but empirical evidence was present to show that foregrounding Pages was enough to cause the issue. And deleting the metadata file as I did has left me now with hours of freeze-free computing. I've written about 5000 words today without having to pause and click randomly while the system catches up to itself.

The "cause" is faulty software and just because it doesn't affect you, doesn't mean it won't or can't. There's plenty of evidence for it and plenty of people suffering from it. That Apple doesn't fix it is more part of their process - and yes, I've sent feedback through their system.

Perhaps your usage of it is not as extensive as you might think.

The fact that it was a system level service which was the problem is WHY it is all over the place for many people., Corespotlightd is a horizontal service. Pages, Docker are all verticals within the system. So whichever app is twanging Corespotlightd is going to experience the freezes. My most used app is Pages (I've written like...30 books using it) and with no freezes until about a year ago. So, does that invalidate my experience that you say you don't have a problem? No, before a year ago I'd written dozens of books and not had this problem. But it did happen.

You are free to proceed however you wish, but we simply do not have enough information to provide any recommendations and the article you linked to did nothing to identify any commonality between those users for third party processes running on their computer.

I understand the system well enough to know what's a harmless activity. I know it well enough to spot a System level problem as well. Something that completely freezes userland is a serious bug. It was quickly established that CoreSpotlightD was the culprit. It was then just a case of finding out what's the issue with it.

Only a few hours later, CorespotlightD's Metadata folder is already 27GB in size on my system. In mere hours. So it's pretty safe to delete. And at this point in time, I have zero freezes.

Mac Jim ID wrote:

Sounds like you got it all figured out. I do find it odd when you say you have never experienced a third party program like Docker ever causing a System Level problem,

I find that odd because I didn't write that. Please refrain from that sort of thing.

I have also seen where older versions of OneDrive and Google Drive had caused Corespotlight to spike. When one service would "touch" the files checking for changes to sync, the other service (including Time Machine), would then sync those files kicking off spotlight to index them again in a never ending loop. Both of those apps have since been updated but was previously confirmed when the symptom of Corespotlight spiking immediately went away when they were uninstalled. It is just simple troubleshooting. What never worked was just saying it must be an Apple problem and they will wait for them to fix it.

The problem you describe went away when Google and Microsoft updated their clients...but it's unreasonable to expect Apple to do the same for their flagship software.

I would say what you describe (a never ending loop of corespotlightd never managing to finish something) is probably exactly what's happening. Which is why it takes up so much CPU...but without pointing fingers at software I haven't installed, why not deal with the software that directly triggers it. I've been running pages for a few hours now without the CPU. We will see if that's a symptom or a fix.

steve626 wrote:

If you can't or won't provide the information that might help readers here diagnose the root cause (versus just identify symptoms of the root cause, what you see with corespotlight or Pages are symptoms, not root causes), then I think your next step should be contacting Apple Support. What you have done is remove the symptom but without fixing the root cause, the problem will come back.

Well, you don't know that. The problem could be a bad preference file, a mis-saved configuration. Common enough to have multiple people talking about corespotlightd issues but not common enough to be top of Apple's bug list.

I deleted that folder and the problem went away. The folder has returned and is growing. But it's meant to be large - so we will see if it happens again.

If it does, it may be a runaway process. It could be something else touching the system and I'm ok with the idea of doing a complete reinstall. It's a minor pain in the hole but worth it if it fixes the problem. I'm unlikely to start grasping at straws when there's a diagnosis path. I don't use any of the third party software people were hectoring about so it's not that. My Mac is pretty sparse.

If it doesn't, then it's likely a bad file, something not yet experienced by the millions of people who use Pages as much as I do. and maybe it's gone away.

However when you contact Apple Support, they will suggest something that is guaranteed to work, but you won't like it. They will say to erase/format the drive and then test with no third party software installed (Pages is Apple software)).

Yeah, which will prove little more than their limited warranty.

Owl-53 wrote:

mjohnstn wrote:

Mac OS 26.2

M4 MacBook Air

I have been suffering with long pauses on macOS now for a year and it doesn't make any sense.

It manifests as a whole system freeze in the UI, but some userland and system events continue. For example, typing will stop on screen but as long as it's not too much, will catch up and write the text.

The trackpad will be completely unresponsive (showing this is a system issue)

This happens most often, I notice, when running Pages. But it also happens when not running Pages. Sadly I use Pages a lot.

Sometimes the cursor will disappear, sometimes I'm lucky enough to get the spinning rainbow ball.

When playing a movie, the screen will freeze but the movie will play on, causing me to miss 10 seconds of it.

This shouldn't be happening, obviously. I've reinstalled the system already once and it makes no difference. No process should be able to lock up the whole system like that in 2025.

The following issues and quote “  suffering with long pauses on macOS now for a year  “  & “ whole system freeze in the UI “ plus “  typing will stop on screen but as long as it's not too much, will catch up and write the text." added " The trackpad will be completely unresponsive (showing this is a system issue) “ & “ Sometimes the cursor will disappear, sometimes I'm lucky enough to get the spinning rainbow ball.  “

All of the above points appears to more of Hardware Issue as it continues even after a reinstallation 

That is a left-field assumption as the trackpad is entirely software controlled. The problem is the haptic feedback process is running in the same userland space as everything else - so when the system hangs, the haptics hang. That was simple to diagnose, eliminating assumptions (always handy to have a clean system on a USB disk). Zero issues with the trackpad.

I would really caution against sending people to look at faulty hardware when it's plainly software.

Coming up on 24 hours since the folder was deleted and the Metadata folder stabilised around 9 GB last night and didn't change overnight. Observations will continue.

I find the idea that not expecting Apple to fix their problem is baffling when we demand third parties fix their software issues.

Owl-53 wrote:

As savvy as some purport to be

There are Re-installations which Technically is installing over an existing installation

There is the Erase All Content and Setting which would remove everything except the existing installation

Booting up from a separate USB disk does this without the faff of having to erase your internal disk. That should be a first suggestion, even more useful than Safe mode.

This Test would probable the same type of testing that would be required by the Apple Genus Bar or Apple Certified Service Centres before even consider moving forwards with any Hardware Diagnostic would be considered

One of the first things they will do is hook it up to a hardware diagnostic, booted from a separate disk. That's much more non-destructive than Erasing all content.

steve626 wrote:

I do not understand why the original poster actually posted here in the first place with "solutions welcome" when they resist any suggested steps towards troubleshooting, refuse to show how their Mac is configured, and purport to know what is wrong anyway.

Sorry, I prefer a more consistent approach and, no, I don't trust random people with random software.

When the OP noted that booting from an external USB drive eliminated the freezing issues, that is consistent with user-installed software causing the issues but it does not rule out faulty hardware (cf Owl-53) since some internal SSD drive circuitry is bypassed or used differently when booting externally.

It allows the removal of most doubt. So far, he system has been working like a champ. The solutions in that other thread worked, while EtreCheck, sure, it's fine. But it doesn't do much more than anything I already know how to do.

I left this in this way (with the freezes) because the iPad Pro is my usual writing desk. I've since moved to the Mac again. So the problem frustrated me enough to do something about it. So I created a thread and then went searching for solutions.

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