10.13.2 cause SECD to use very high CPU

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10.13.2 cause SECD to use very high CPU

After upgrading multiple computers from 10.13.1 to 10.13.2, the SECD process is using very high CPU in all my Macs. Omg a brand new iMac 5K 4.2Ghz it's running 98%! One a Mini it's 70-80. This is slowing own everything in addition to running some hot. (Oddly enough IOS 11.2 is boring batteries on all 6 iPads and new iPhone Xs'). I looked this up and found this problem goes back to 2016 and I tried the workarounds involving keychain/icloud, etc. but nothing seems to fix it. Is anyone else seen this in Activity Monitor?

Posted on Dec 9, 2017 10:22 AM

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Answer 1

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Mario MG Author

Level 1

57 points

Jan 2, 2018 10:26 AM in response to brycesteiner

I finally got this fixed. I saw lot's of web references to icloud keychain but turning iCloud Keychain off did nothing. I viewed the running talks and found it to be the iCloud security task (don't remember the name). I had to sign each Mac out of iCloud one by one then the Macs, iPads, and iPhones all settled down to normal. It was a last resort since signing out of iCloud forces a resend/download of everything, in my case 5000 photos in iCloud library. But it was finally fixed. This was a bad one because it affected all 8 IOS devices (hot batteries for a few days) in the house and 3 macs.

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Answer 2

Dec 31, 2017 8:21 PM in response to Mario MG

I have seen this and posted about it. All computers that i have with High Sierra are having this huge energy leak. Not only using a lot of processor 70-110%, but it is working too hard, sucking batteries quickly. It doesn't matter if it's mac mini's , iMacs or laptops. This was not the case with Sierra for me. They show about 0.0 - 0.2 on the older OS.

Since your post is a little older, did you find anything out? I have filed a bug report with Apple. I also believe it is a security process that is related to iCloud Keychain. If internet is disconnected, after about 30 seconds the energy and processor drops much lower - almost normal.

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Answer 3

Jan 2, 2018 4:12 PM in response to Mario MG

Ok. I'm glad you found a solution.

Just to clarify, You signed out of all your Macs, but not your iOS devices?

I also found that my iPads and iPhone also were draining very quickly and charge was very slow if connected.

When signing out of iCloud was that it or did you turn off everything else that has anything to do with iCloud?

Did you tell your devices to keep their saved passwords or to delete them when signing out?

Did you also completely remove them from your device list in iCloud?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm just trying to get this nasty thing solved. It was so bad that I reverted 3 Macs back to Sierra just so I could get work done (the process is down to 0.0 to 0.2 on all of those). I'm still having high SECD process on the ones that are still on High Sierra, so hopefully this will get the those solved, along with all the traffic on the iPads and iPhones.

thanks!

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Answer 4

Mario MG Author

Level 1

57 points

Jan 2, 2018 4:47 PM in response to brycesteiner

Macs only, I have three. Once I signed out of the main one things settled down and the IOS devices got cooler.

Yes it affected my IOS devices.

I did not turn off everything, only signed out of iCloud, but some things needed deleting, for instance contacts since they would resync anyway.

I don't remember about saved passwords, I think HomeKit was only password I save.

I did not logon to iCloud and removes them, I only signed out of iCloud on the Macs.

Yes SECD was the bugger, it was high (90-99%!) on all Macs but it seemed only one Mac had to be signed out to fix it. Problem is.. Since all were high CPU you can't tell which one.

Anyway, once I signed out of iCloud on the correct Mac the affect was almost immediate. But keep this in mind... It could have been that all my Macs affected because it was the last one I signed off that fixed it.

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Answer 5

Jan 2, 2018 5:49 PM in response to Mario MG

well that sounds interesting to try. I do believe I know which one it is because it all started when I upgraded High Sierra on my server.

I'll let you know my results when I get to that point (Hopefully tomorrow).

thanks!

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Answer 6

Jan 3, 2018 5:31 AM in response to Mario MG

Well I found out which one it is. It is the the one I suspected. After I logged it out of iCloud my iphone when all night being connected to cell and wifi and only lost 1%. The previous week it would have been dead by morning after a full charge the night before. That sounds good. I guess the positive was I had a nice pocket warmer when it was below 0 here.

I don't think I needed to but I went ahead and signed out all Macs, including Sierra OS (though no problems on it with SECD), from iCloud and then rebooted them. I started signing them back in one by one and went well until I signed in to iCloud on High Sierra on my server and it then went very high CPU usage again.

Even after a few minutes it would not calm down so I just signed it out of iCloud. It's probably my computer that effects me the least of not being in iCloud so that is good. It also started the other ones to increase their usage.

Obviously, this is a bug that needs fixed. I don't know if it has to do with sharing, remote login, etc. because there are so many variables when it comes to this.

It's funny how one computer can screw up the rest even if they are not on the same network, just same account.

Thanks for you help. I will also update my bugreport with Apple.

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