After installing OS 10.11.4 my Mac becomes sluggish. I check the Activity Monitor and see that the "Keychain Circle Notification" is not responding. Force quitting hangs the entire Mac and I'm forced to do a hard restart. Does anyone have any ideas on this or we just at the mercy of Apple rolling out a fix?
iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
Hi Dove - and any others reading this:
Distnoted is definitely the one hogging all the CPU and killing it fixes the problem immediately. There are usually several instances of it in Activity Monitor, so force quit the one that says it has been running for hours (if you have one). From some of the reading I have done around the place this is not necessarily a problem with distnoted, it appears some other apps can cause it to go manic. Finding which ones is the problem.
At the time mine started to grind to a halt - I recognise the symptoms now and get into console and AM straight away - my CalNCService was going nuts and recording a time out error every 5 seconds.
I googled this service and found this tip:
http://www.dgkapps.com/blog/osx-tips/osx-tips-turn-off-disable-calendaragent-fro m-the-command-line/
And also this thread on Apple Support:
Recentsd and Calncservice processes Yosemite
I will be trying the first option as I use Outlook and don't need my notifications duplicated. Will report back if it fails.
There is a mention of killing any or all of your notifications in system preferences.
There was something else but my mind has suddenly gone blank - like my console does then this happens!
By the way, killing the distnoted service also fixed the keychaincircle and escrowsecurityalert that were not responding. I am not sure if they are linked as there is nothing when I google that.
EDIT - remembered what I forgot! I have an MBP running exact same OS and apps and have none of this issue on that....
This has been happening to me since six months after I got my brand new MacBook Air in 2014. I'd hoped Sierra would fix this, but nope. Happened again yesterday. I can't find a pattern. Somedays I'll have five or six Safari windows going and it's fine. Other days, I'll be in just Scrivener and it happens. I'm going to keep Activity Monitor open and sorted so I can watch distnoted. As soon as I hear the fan start, I'll try to kill it. This is a workaround. If I wanted intermittent random crashes, I'd go back to Windows. Whatever happened to "It just works."?
I've had the same problem, and quitting the CPU-hogging Distnoted has done the trick. Whether the issue keeps coming up remains to be seen for me.
The senior Apple advisor that I spoke with ran system logging software on my machine and sent it to their software engineering department. I forwarded the link to this thread to him, and he said that he would forward that along as well. I have taken extensive notes on the problem, which he said would help them diagnosis the problem and find a solution. I hope that the fact that all of us has this issue will make it more likely that they will fix this.
For me, I usually have two or three days before a hard boot is required, but I don't use Mac Mail or Safari. Perhaps switching to third party apps might help you a bit. The problem seems to be a bit more frequent when I am running Moom or Bettersnaptool (apps that let you manage window placement). If I get any information, I will certainly post it to this thread. If anyone else has any ideas, please let us know!
To everyone on this thread. The problem continues and in fact gets worse when you introduce any Microsoft 365 product into the mix. I have contacted my local Apple Store (North Michigan Ave. Chicago) and was told that there was nothing they could do. They recommend a complete reinstall of the entire system and all of my apps. 😮 This is a huge setback to my business. I have not installed 10.11.4 on any of my other machines. The only one that seems to be just fine is my Macbook Pro. At this point I am prepping to wipe my iMac and do a clean install this weekend if possible. Hugely disappointed in Apple for the lack of attention.
I installed 10.11.5, and the problem has not gone away. The senior advisor that I am working since late March has replied to some of my queries, usually after a week or more. All he has said is that engineering is working on the problem, though he had me run some diagnostics. I am frustrated that we are supposed to just live with a unstable system. I left Windows years ago because the OS was so unstable. Perhaps its time to go back.
Try the reindexing. Oh, I just remembered something. Do you have any other users on your mac? There is a suggestion out there that you need to log in as the other users after a software update to ensure all users are updated as well. I haven't done that myself this time so will do that first... because I don't have the foggiest about Windows 10 and am getting too long in the tooth to be bothered re-learning Windows - especially when it is so different to my last (XP)
Until I found this thread I thought I was the only one with this problem. Three hard resets today. I have stopped the disnoted process and that cleared it up for a short while. I then deleted a Brother printer driver and had no problems for 3 days. Today I stopped the WebGL as suggested in OSX Daily and rebuilt the spotlight index which seemed to help others. Neither did anything to fix the problem. I tried using App Tamer but that too does not seem to fix the problem. I tried changing browsers from Safari and that did not work. Even waited 10 minutes for the system to come back to life but that never happened.
Apple seems to have become Microsoft, more interested in new features than in a stable and functional OS.
This is all happening on a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display - early 2015
This is a "me, too" with a bit more info. Always running the latest update to OS X.
Ever since the Sunrise sunset announcement from Microsoft, I've been trying to learn to love the Apple Calendar app. And since then, I get the hangs and must do the hard resets described in this thread. So maybe there is a link.
I've also seen some correlation when using Office 365 products. I was hopeful their latest update would fix the problems, but it did not.
In this morning's hang, I was trying to use the Reminder app. I noticed the following hung before I eventually had to do a hard reset:
That's when I found this thread.
I'm tempted to clear out my keychain since there may also be a correlation with my last password change. I always have keychain issues whenever my company forces me to change my password. But there is mental anguish involved there as I try to remember 50 passwords. Don't want to do it.
Since installing 10.11.4, my machine has been unstable. One app will hang, then another, then the entire system hangs. Only a hard boot will bring it back.. Sometimes, the system hangs when trying to wake from sleep. I have had five calls to Apple and been in touch with a senior advisor; however, the problem still persists. I have reinstalled the operating system, updated all apps, delete caches and similar files, and reset the SMC. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have exactly the same problem. Force quitting the stalled apps doesn't help. They just hang serially. The prime offenders for me appear to be Mail and Safari; that is, they are generally the first apps to hang. Activity Monitor shows CPU usage off the chart. A hard restart is the only remedy. Lately, this is happening half a dozen times each day. Is there a fix?
Bugger, sorry to hear that. There are a few people who have had an issue with something called emacs. Also mdworker (spotlight). I usually have 6 or more instances of that in AM but ti doesn't slow everything down. Unfortunately, the links above are all I could find on this in hours of trawling google. I have also posted on the developer/beta forums and have not had a response from anyone in a month.
Can only add myself to the list of suffering users. Seem to affect most programs used (incl MS Office, Safari, Spotify and more. May even be linked to the Bluetooth connected speaker. Normally one reboot per day. The mroe programs I have running, the quicker the issue arrises.
Having the same problem for several weeks (months?) now on an iMac mid 2011, currently running 10.11.5. Just froze again moments ago (didn't look for distnoted process yet, because I just came across this thread). Will further investigate (again). Really annoying problem.
Has anyone seen any improvement by installing 10.11.5? I haven't installed yet, and I hope it fixes this awful problem.
I have the same problem. About two hard reboots a day.
Mac Book Pro Retina 13' Early 2015
10.11.4. 3.1 I7 16GB 1T
"Keychain Circle Notification" not responding.
