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'ubd' process huge cpu load

Since updating to 7.2 I have a weird issue with a process called ubd. It has a huge and constant cpu load of between 50-99%. This generates a lot of extra heat and fan noise to accompany that. Quitting the process or rebooting doesn't help.


I read somewhere that the process is iCloud related, but I tried disabling some iCloud services but that didn't seem to help either.


The console displays these lines all the time:

16/10/2011 12:14:35.122 ubd: createSelfSignedCertificate - _createCert returned -25295


and after about 6 tries it exits with code: 254 and starts again.


I guess this isn't really normal, does anone know what might be up or how to fix this?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Oct 16, 2011 3:28 AM

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53 replies

Oct 16, 2011 5:51 AM in response to hamster116

I have the same issue with the UBD process. I am running on 2011 15" MBP. I get a different message in the console but the same problem with the cpu utilization and the excessive heat both being an issue. This is what I get in my console:

10/16/11 7:47:38.991 PM com.apple.launchd.peruser.502: (com.apple.ubd[423]) Exited with code: 254


I am curious, did you have the developer version of 10.7.2 installed on your system at any point in time or is this issue as a result of the official update pushed out by Apple?


Thanks

Oct 16, 2011 6:08 AM in response to hamster116

I found that my keychain is a mess, it contained around 1600 items starting with com.apple.ubiquity.


Cleaning up the items was impossible until I locked my keychain, but upon unlocking ubd started adding new items again.


I just found a fix, though. There is a certificate (not a key) in my keychain called 'com.apple.ubiquity.peer-uuid", which was marked as untrusted. I opened it's info dialog and set it to "always trust". That seemed to work, although I do not know if there is other implications for me doing that. Now the ubd proces is still active, but runs at a nice 0.0% CPU.


I also went to the keychain preferences and clicked "reset my default keychain", this might have helped fix it as well, but I think it's the certificate thing.


Hope this helps!

Oct 16, 2011 12:25 PM in response to hamster116

Any idea how I can delete this keychain? I can't get into "Keychain Access" as I get the spinning beach ball of death. Somehow I managed to get 44k items in there. I let keychain access run for a while, but it just ends up using 3gb of memory before I get ****** and force quit. Any ideas?


I have already tried to repair it and fix the cert from another admin user account.


Thanks

Oct 17, 2011 3:42 PM in response to hamster116

hamster116 wrote:


There is a certificate (not a key) in my keychain called 'com.apple.ubiquity.peer-uuid", which was marked as untrusted. I opened it's info dialog and set it to "always trust".


Good eye. I noticed the extra keychain entries but didn't think to 'trust' the certficiate. Though this has not resolved the issue of ubd spiking CPU usage and more certificates/keys being created (no matter how many I "trust").


FWIW: you can tail your ~/Library/Logs/Ubiquity/{username}/ubiquity.log and see the certficiate errors every few seconds.

[ERROR] 5041c5de5e10 [11/10/17 16:35:56.047] 13116.main copy_mme_bag:156 copyPreferredMobileMeName failed

[ERROR] 5041c5dfac36 [11/10/17 16:35:56.047] 13116.main ubd_main:2030 null personid

[ERROR] 5041c70a0399 [11/10/17 16:35:56.067] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

[ERROR] 5041c79acafc [11/10/17 16:35:56.076] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

--[ERROR] 50422bafc893 [11/10/17 16:35:57.755] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

[ERROR] 5042825ac3de [11/10/17 16:35:59.209] 13116.main createSelfSignedCertificate:52 error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-25299 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25299.)" ( / The item already exists.)

[ERROR] 5042825ff022 [11/10/17 16:35:59.209] 13116.main create_new_identity_unsafe:989 failed to find an existing identity and failed to create a new one

[ERROR] 5042be133f3f [11/10/17 16:36:00.211] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

[ERROR] 5042e63362ea [11/10/17 16:36:00.884] 13116.main createSelfSignedCertificate:52 error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-25299 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25299.)" ( / The item already exists.)

[ERROR] 5042e634918f [11/10/17 16:36:00.884] 13116.main create_new_identity_unsafe:989 failed to find an existing identity and failed to create a new one

[ERROR] 504321ee3444 [11/10/17 16:36:01.886] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

[ERROR] 50440def58e3 [11/10/17 16:36:05.846] 13116.main createSelfSignedCertificate:52 error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-25299 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25299.)" ( / The item already exists.)

[ERROR] 50440df08e7a [11/10/17 16:36:05.846] 13116.main create_new_identity_unsafe:989 failed to find an existing identity and failed to create a new one

[ERROR] 504449a35eb8 [11/10/17 16:36:06.847] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

[ERROR] 5044a1993f0e [11/10/17 16:36:08.323] 13116.main createSelfSignedCertificate:52 error: Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-25299 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -25299.)" ( / The item already exists.)

[ERROR] 5044a19a6e77 [11/10/17 16:36:08.323] 13116.main create_new_identity_unsafe:989 failed to find an existing identity and failed to create a new one

[ERROR] 5044dd4c1e33 [11/10/17 16:36:09.325] 13116.main find_existing_identity_unsafe:963 error -25300 from SecItemCopyMatching

Oct 23, 2011 11:18 PM in response to hamster116

I "had" a similair issue. I had enabled iCloud and things went fine, but I think the problem came in when I tottled off to a WiFi access point that required authentication prior to connecting to the Internet, using redirects. Then essentially any SSL connection (including redirection to the click to accept redirect site) was becoming unavailable. I took a look at my keychain and that was locked. So I forced quit and rebooted and I noticed there were a large amount of com.apple.ubiquity* keys, a invalid self signed cert and an "Unknown" cert. After a few moments my keychain locked up again and required a forcequit and reboot.


I eventually got a bit of breathing room by going into a VMWare VM and accepting the T/C of the WiFi access and then rebooting one more time. After that I cleaned up my keychain, signed out of iCloud and haven't had a problem since.


My suspect is that iCloud tries to do it's security measures at startup, trying to generate some self signed certs, but needs something from the "internet" to generate them/validate them and then doesn't handle the redirection bad, locks the Keychain and causes all sorts of havoc.


My only solution was to disable iCloud and clean up my keychain.

Oct 24, 2011 1:55 AM in response to kitsonk

My keychains are also rather a mess since the upgrade to iCloud. I would like to clean them up, but don't know which certificates I can safely delete.

I have an unknown keychain, a number of com.apple.ubiquity keys (one has ssl in front of the name) which aren't trusted. Can these be deleted? Or should I set the computer to trust these?

If I delete a keychain the computer needs, will it download/ make it again? Or can I restore it from the time machine?


I also have some expired keychains (nothing to do with iCloud). Can I delete these?

Oct 27, 2011 5:54 PM in response to hamster116

Thanks to all of your post, I found the problem. the rights of the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Ubiquity/ was incorrect. The owner was the root, I change it to me. After the ubd process manage to create content inside of it.


About the keychain, the problem is that the process seems to try to create a certificate put them in the keychains and try again and again and again because he cannot write in the folder Ubiquity previously talked. My keychain file was 28 MB and I could not open it, I had to delete it


But now the computer is quiet and the process ubd is ok.


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'ubd' process huge cpu load

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