Drewli77

Q: Mail Can't Open & com.apple.internetaccount process hogging 100% CPU

Desperately seeking answers after Mavericks install..

 

My mail crashed and now won't open at all. I've tried most (if not all) the suggestions posted by others.  Haven't tried deleting and reinstalling mail yet, as this will be my last resort since I have a work account in it that is not on IMAP.

 

And another troubling issue is my macbook's fan is going crazy and feels like its overheating.

Looking at "Activity Monitor" I see a process "com.apple.internetaccounts" that is taking 100% CPU and 1.6GB of memory!!

No idea what this process is and can't seem to quit it.

 

PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks in advance

 

 

Using EtreCheck, pls see below report:

 

Hardware Information:

          MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)

          MacBook Air - model: MacBookAir5,2

          1 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2 cores

          4 GB RAM

 

Video Information:

          Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1024 MB

 

System Software:

          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:11:45

 

Disk Information:

          APPLE SSD SM256E disk0 : (251 GB)

                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 250.14 GB (59.72 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

 

USB Information:

 

 

 

 

 

 

FireWire Information:

 

Thunderbolt Information:

          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

 

Kernel Extensions:

 

Problem System Launch Daemons:

 

Problem System Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.paragon.NTFS.trial.plist

          [loaded] com.paragon.NTFS.upd.plist

 

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

          [loaded] net.sourceforge.MonolingualHelper.plist

 

Launch Agents:

          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

          [loaded] com.hp.messagecenter.launcher.plist

 

User Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.df0ab5bbe6f698196fcc21e3c1e66dcb758bd911f4d637272d9d8109.plist

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

 

User Login Items:

          None

 

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player

          Language Aid

          MagicPrefs

          Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X

 

Internet Plug-ins:

          AdobePDFViewer.plugin

          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin

          CMBSecurity.plugin

          Default Browser.plugin

          Flash Player.plugin

          FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

          nplastpass.plugin

          QuickTime Plugin.plugin

          SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin

          Silverlight.plugin

 

User Internet Plug-ins:

          aliedit.plugin

          Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin

          QQMail.plugin

          QQMail.plugin

          txftn.plugin

          RealPlayer Plugin.plugin

          txftn.plugin

 

Bad Fonts:

          None

 

Top Processes by CPU:

             100%          com.apple.internetaccounts

               4%          WindowServer

               4%          com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

               2%          EtreCheck

               1%          Safari

               1%          Activity Monitor

               0%          fontd

               0%          hidd

               0%          sysmond

               0%          aosnotifyd

 

Top Processes by Memory:

          1.62 GB            com.apple.internetaccounts

          180 MB             com.apple.IconServicesAgent

          143 MB             com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

          111 MB             Safari

          49 MB              Dock

          45 MB              WindowServer

          37 MB              mds_stores

          37 MB              Activity Monitor

          33 MB              Finder

          25 MB              com.apple.WebKit.Networking

 

Virtual Memory Statistics

          35 MB              Free RAM

          1.51 GB            Active RAM

          1.48 GB            Inactive RAM

          587 MB             Wired RAM

          252 MB             Page-ins

          840 KB             Page-outs

MacBook Air

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 2:47 AM

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Q: Mail Can't Open & com.apple.internetaccount process hogging 100% CPU

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  • by chris01,

    chris01 chris01 Oct 29, 2013 9:16 AM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 9:16 AM in response to Drewli77

    Removing and re-adding the accounts via the system preferences -> Internet Accounts setting didn't help. However, as it was said here, I was able to solve the problem by first removing the account, then removing manually the folders inside ~//Library/Mail/V2 and also removing the accounts from the ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Accounts.plist file. I also removed the AvailableFeeds* files. So I am not sure, what exactly solved it, but it seems to be a caching issue.

  • by mrsfuss,

    mrsfuss mrsfuss Oct 29, 2013 3:25 PM in response to chris01
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 3:25 PM in response to chris01
    • But won't this destroy all the messages?
    • Oddest thing is that now all my messages end up in the archive or junk folders. What the heck is that all about?
  • by chris01,

    chris01 chris01 Oct 29, 2013 11:41 PM in response to mrsfuss
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 29, 2013 11:41 PM in response to mrsfuss

    As long as you use Outlook or any IMAP connection (where the messages stay on the server) doing the steps described above won't destroy any messages. They will be re-downloaded once you re-add the account.

  • by lederhond,

    lederhond lederhond Nov 1, 2013 12:13 PM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 1, 2013 12:13 PM in response to Drewli77

    Accounts.plist swelling out of control was absolutely the problem in my case.  And possibly it's an old bug that has just gotten much worse?...

     

    I have 2 POP accounts and a mac.com IMAP account.  My old plist file was 21k. The 2 POP accounts each appeared once, but already the mac.com address is repeated *13 times*.  I wonder when this first happened?

     

    Post upgrade, the file swelled to 13.4mb, with the mac.com address repeated *18,697 times*.

     

    My clean plist file is now down to a svelte 3k.  Mail is humming along on my dusty 2008 MacBook Pro 17" (aka 'The Aircraft Carrier'), using only ~25-50mb of memory, so it doesn't even appear in the top 5 list.  Previously, Mail was taking up to 30 minutes to launch, consuming up to 2gb of my precious RAM and bringing everything else to a standstill, and then still hogging about 1gb after it settled down.

     

    I'm very curious to know what other users are seeing:  is it always the last mail account in the list that is repeated ad mortem, regardless of account type? Or is it IMAP accounts as a whole, regardless of position, so it happens to each account?  Finally, if it's just IMAP accounts, is this bug not only causing users a lot of pain across the globe, but also hammering IMAP mail servers when Mail launches?

     

    After searching in vain for solutions on the Internet yesterday, I finally discovered the bug on my own after many hours of experimenting.  Now Googling 'Mavericks accounts.plist', I see I'm not the first.  Surely Apple must realise what a HUGE bug this is, especially if it's also affecting network traffic?  Why have they not fessed up and released an urgent upgrade to Mail that will run a clean-up script? IMHO, it warrants a 10.9.1 release all by itself, and everything else can be bundled into 10.9.2.

     

    Good luck everyone.  I will also submit these comments to Apple directly.

  • by lederhond,

    lederhond lederhond Nov 1, 2013 12:51 PM in response to lederhond
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 1, 2013 12:51 PM in response to lederhond

    P.S.  Another oddity is that I was having no trouble with Mail for the first few days after the upgrade.  Checking through my backups, Accounts.plist went berserk right away, and didn't degrade further up to the point where I cleaned it up this morning.  Any clues anyone on why it would not have manifested itself right away???

     

    Finally, do you just need to FIX the problem and get on with it?  Just repeating some of the excellent advice already given above, you have two options.  The quickest is to edit Accounts.plist directly to clear out the duplicate xml (~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Accounts.plist).

     

    If you don't feel up to this challenge, then move the file to the trash (or change its name), relaunch Mail and reenter each mail account.  All your existing email and attachments are stored elsewhere, and will not be lost.  (Also, if you're like me and maintain a separate list of SMTP servers for different locations/circumstances, don't forget to take note of these too and reenter them.)

     

    Again, good luck!

  • by mrsfuss,

    mrsfuss mrsfuss Nov 2, 2013 6:53 AM in response to lederhond
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 2, 2013 6:53 AM in response to lederhond

    My accounts.plist seems to be fine, but Mail is not. All the accounts now have separate folders and subfolders for Trash, Junk, etc. My mail indicator shows that I have several unread messages, but even after perusing all the folders I can't find any unread. The messages that should be showing up in my main account folder are either in the Junk folder or the Archive folder (where the heck did this come from??) and too many messages are being lost. I only know this because they show up on my iPhone. I've already lost one client because of this.

     

    I did delete and reinstall all accounts, and am still having these problems. I don't know what I can do anymore, except to uninstall Mavericks. But will that help or just create more problems?

  • by designdirector,

    designdirector designdirector Nov 2, 2013 1:26 PM in response to lederhond
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 2, 2013 1:26 PM in response to lederhond

    I had a 73mb Accounts.plist which I cleaned up to get mail partially working. I also checked in timemachine and the day before Mavericks it was 5.9mb with repeating accounts so must have already been a problem which Mavericks massively amplified. Mail still not working properly still though, after removing and adding exchange several days ago most messages have no content, won't load even when opened or selected and no inbox search results either. Also not saving to sent folder. I'm using my iphone in the interim and hoping for an update or fix.

  • by mrsfuss,

    mrsfuss mrsfuss Nov 2, 2013 2:08 PM in response to designdirector
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 2, 2013 2:08 PM in response to designdirector

    I also had the problem of empty messages, but I found if I double-clicked on the message so it opened in a new window, I could see it. Doesn't solve the problem but at least you can see them.

  • by Gamo,

    Gamo Gamo Nov 2, 2013 3:33 PM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 2, 2013 3:33 PM in response to Drewli77

    This solved my problem:

     

     

     

    1) Backed up all the folders with emails I has "on my mac" just in case by right-clicking on the mailbox and selecting export mailbox.

     

    2) Everything I had on the inbox I put on a new mailbox and exported it.

     

    3) Did the same thing with the sent emails. New mailbox and everything in them.

     

    4) Deleted the "Accounts.plist" (previous back up just in case)

     

    5) Relaunched mail with all accounts gone (but all the emails in the mailboxes were still there)

     

    6) Re-added all my accounts

     

    7) Put all the emails from the "inbox" mailbox I created back to the regular inbox

     

    8) For the sent items I prefered reimporting from the exportes files becuse when it does the export, it creates separate files for each account. This way when you import them back all the .me were in the .me sent items, all the hotmails were back in the hotmail sent items, etc.

     

    9) I had a few duplicate emails when the accounts downloaded everything from the servers, but nothing too serious.

     

    My Accounts.plist is back to normal size and I didn't loose anything.

     

    Email backup programs are no good in this situation (like Email Backup Pro) becuase they backup also the Accounts.plist file too so when you restore your files you are back to the start.

     

    Hope this helps...

  • by lederhond,

    lederhond lederhond Nov 3, 2013 2:04 PM in response to mrsfuss
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 3, 2013 2:04 PM in response to mrsfuss

    mrsfuss,

     

    Here are a few things to mix & match to see if they can get you up and running again.  Sorry about the length - 'Brevity' is obviously not my middle name...

     

    1) Junk Folder:  If you've suddenly acquired a folder/mailbox called Junk, and new mail is running off to hide in there, that's because Mail's built-in spam filtering feature has been switched on, even if you weren't using it before.  I found the same thing happened to me when I first cleared out my accounts list and relaunched Mail to rebuild it, so presumably it's a default setting when Mail is reinitialised.

     

    This can be turned off in Preferences under the main Mail menu, third tab in the window that pops up.  You can then move or delete any mail that's already sitting in Junk, and delete the mailbox.  I forget if Mail allows you to delete the mailbox within the application itself;  if not, you can get rid of it via brute force over in the Mail directory of your user library.

     

    (As a side note, personally I've used SpamSieve for years for spam filtering, which does a fantastic job learning as it goes via Bayesian filtering.  It's easy to correct as you go along, including the ability to review and manually modify the specific rules it has created based on sender, key words, etc.  I heartily recommend it.)

     

    2) Archive Folders:  Not sure how these would have appeared out of the blue.  An Archive mailbox is created when you select one or more emails and choose the Archive option under the Message menu (also available by right-clicking on them).  I'm not sure what service this provides v. moving things around yourself to get them out of your inbox (they're still indexed for searches, etc.).  Perhaps it's just offered as an easy solution for basic users.

     

    I gather Mail thinks it owns the right to create and control any folder/mailbox called 'Archive', so things can apparently get messy if you create your own mailbox with the same name.

     

    Moiving forward, you should be able to move all these emails to other folders easily (or delete them).  In my case, Mail wouldn't allow me to delete the empty mailbox, however.  If you really want it to disappear, you will have to delete it from the Mailboxes directory, and edit it out of accounts.plist.  Perhaps for now it's best to leave it alone and see if it becomes useful in the future.

     

    3) Corrupted Mailboxes: Often if Mail isn't displaying messages correctly within a mailbox, or showing incorrect new message counts, etc., this can be corrected by selecting the mailbox and choosing the Rebuild option under the Mailbox menu.  Alas, I've found this less reliable under this first release of Mavericks.  If this doesn't work, here is what I think is a handy solution for hunting down all your missing/corrupted emails following the Mavericks upgrade...

     

    4) REIMPORTING LIVE MAILBOXES TO REBUILD & REARRANGE:  Using the Import option under the File menu, you can go off to your user Mail library and reimport any mailbox as a new mailbox, without corrupting or changing the source in any way!  This means you can even reimport live mailboxes!  Chose the 'Apple Mail' option in the dialog box that appears, and go off hunting down any and all MBOX files in your user mail directory (main directory, V2 subdirectory, nested personal folders, etc.).  Navigation and selection is easiest if you have first added your user library to Finder Favourites.

     

    When you do this, Mail will create an Import folder, and shove a shiny new copy of the mailbox under it, with the same name.  Again, because it puts it under this subdirectory, the original mailbox is not touched.  If you select multiple mailboxes on a single run, they will each appear separately.  If you prefer to do this one mailbox at a time, Mail just creates copies of the Import folder:  Import-2, Import-3, etc.  Once you've pulled all your old stuff in, you can tidy up and move things around to the correct folders.  Sometimes it's just enough to verify the total email count v. your old folder to give you peace of mind.

     

    Note:  if you have nested folders/mailboxes anywhere, the Import utility will only grab email from the top level.  You then need to navigate down and select each nested mailbox separately for its own import.

     

    5) Duplicates?:  If the end result of all of this is lots of duplicate emails, more then you feel up to dealing with manually, there are scripts out there that can do the job for you.  One I have used in the past on a friend's Mac is:

     

    http://c-command.com/scripts/eaglefiler/remove-duplicate-messages

     

    It flags duplicates and moves them into a separate folder.  Can't confirm if this works on Mavericks, but if loads and is accessible, the script is probably safe to run.

     

    6) New Mail Still Missing?:  If after all of this you think some of your recent inbound email is still MIA, the index in Mail that matches downloaded mail to your mail host is MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded, which can be found hanging around and smoking cigarettes with Accounts.plist in the same MailData directory.  Delete/move/rename this, and Mail will think every email on the server is new and download it again. (Also, if you ever have a problem with mail on your server being dowloaded over and over again, this is your likely culprit; the above-mentioned friend somehow ended up with multiple copies of the same file and it was making Mail (and him) go mental.

     

    7) A Final Caveat:  [Readers who are still awake let out a long sigh, followed by reluctant applause...]  I've written all of this from my personal perspective of using mostly multiple POP accounts, and only one IMAP account.  It's my understanding that IMAP email gets copied locally when you move it to separate folders outside of the account, so it still applies.  I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.  If youre troubles lie within mail folders created directly under your IMAP account so they sync with your iPhone, etc., I really may not have a clue what I'm talking about.

     

    I don't use GMail a lot, but I also gather the cold war between Apple and Google may be hotting up, and Gmail users are having an especially hard time with Mavericks.  It doesn't seem clear yet whether this is due to bugs, a standards war, or simple bloodymindedness.

     

    I hope at least some of this is helpful to you or othersl.  'Likes' are always welcome ('Points mean Prizes!').  If I'm hopelessly deluded on anything I've written, please someone correct me.

     

    Have 'fun'!

  • by Jay Dedapper,

    Jay Dedapper Jay Dedapper Nov 3, 2013 7:34 PM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Nov 3, 2013 7:34 PM in response to Drewli77

    I had the heat and fan but not the giant plist file -- then again I've never had a Hotmail account which does seem to be one connection here. I solved the problem by simply killing the com.apple.internetprocess process in Activity Monitor. If you don't have a giant plist in your MailData folder you should try this simple step first. So far the problem hasn't reocurred.

  • by ezski,

    ezski ezski Nov 6, 2013 8:31 PM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2013 8:31 PM in response to Drewli77

    I had the same problem after the mavericks upgrade.  I backed up my plist file, deleted it, recreated all the accounts and it is back to normal.

     

    Too Bad apple hasn't addressed this as i know people like my parents would never be able to resolve this on their own.

  • by Swallet0,

    Swallet0 Swallet0 Nov 11, 2013 11:10 AM in response to Drewli77
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 11:10 AM in response to Drewli77

    A huge thanks to Brad and all the others above.

     

    My accounts.plisy was also full of thousands of hotmail duplicates (>50mb).

    Deleted the duplicates and now back in action.

     

     

    A real result - Apple tech were no use :-(

  • by francoisbernard,

    francoisbernard francoisbernard Nov 11, 2013 3:46 PM in response to nothin7
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iWork
    Nov 11, 2013 3:46 PM in response to nothin7

    God bless you !

  • by mrsfuss,

    mrsfuss mrsfuss Nov 11, 2013 4:46 PM in response to francoisbernard
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 11, 2013 4:46 PM in response to francoisbernard

    There is now a download to update Mail which supposedly fixes all these problems. Naturally, I can't download it and I can't find out why. But it is out there, and maybe everyone here will have better luck downloading it.

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