analyticsd and permission

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ThomasD3 Author

Level 1

45 points

analyticsd and permission

I have analyticsd running on my system. It is constantly writing stuff to the log.

When I researched what is does, I found the following:

analyticsd is a system daemon that collects diagnostics and usage data

locally for users that have opted in.

There are no configuration options to analyticsd, and users should not

run analyticsd manually.

So, then a bit more research yielded that:

Opt-out of sharing analytics

You can opt-out of sharing analytics from your Mac at any time:

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then click Privacy.

Click Analytics.

Deselect “Share Mac Analytics.”

Deselect “Share with App Developers” to stop sharing analytics data with app developers.

The problem is that the option was never enabled in the first place:

So, it looks like on High Sierra, analyticsd is running regardless if you permit it or not.

The process is here:

> ps -ef | grep analyticsd

263 194 1 0 6:12PM ?? 0:07.55 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreAnalytics.framework/Support/analyticsd

and it is run by user 263, which is:

> dscl . -list /Users UniqueID | grep 263

_analyticsd 263

So, there is a user _analyticsd created on the system, despite me not accepting the feature at install.

Running 'find -user _analyticsd /' doesn't reveal anything special, just logs and a local db with references to these logs.

I found it created a very large number of entries in the logs. Has anyone else noticed also a lot of activity from this, despite not enabling/authorizing it?

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6), 2017

Posted on Dec 28, 2017 4:29 PM

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Answer 1

ThomasD3 Author

Level 1

45 points

Dec 29, 2017 10:30 AM in response to John Galt

You're probably aware of the 13th month bug from High Sierra, right?

In this screenshot, you can see 14 log entries within the same second.

Right now I have analyticd disabled, so it doesn't show entries anymore; Since High Sierra, it was quite similar with tons of entries all having the same error-like message; so something is not working right.

Someone's bringing up a similar problem in the developer forum: analyticsd | Apple Developer Forums

But in my case, the issues show as high cpu / tons of logs entries and this cycles on / off.

Since analyticsd is disabled, this has stopped, although I still get an horrible amount of entries from the Month 13 bug.

One thing I had suspected was that its DB may have been corrupted since I had seen a similar problem with another service a few year ago, but in that case it would be isolated to my system which doesn't appear to be the case.

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

140,832 points

Dec 28, 2017 7:13 PM in response to ThomasD3

Has anyone else noticed also a lot of activity from this, despite not enabling/authorizing it?

Yes. If you assumed that disabling the ability to share analytics data with developers will stop the deamon from running, that's not so.

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Answer 3

ThomasD3 Author

Level 1

45 points

Dec 29, 2017 5:08 AM in response to John Galt

So, collection is happening regardless of settings.

I guess the difference is then if the data is sent back to Apple or not.

The issue I am taking here is that the analyticsd process is very noisy in the log and this wasn't the case before High Sierra. That combined with the new 'Month 13 is out of bounds' bug that pollutes the log as well is very unwelcome.

Is there a 'clean' way to shut this service down? right now I just did a chmod 0 on the file to solve the problem.

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Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

140,832 points

Dec 29, 2017 6:15 AM in response to ThomasD3

I guess the difference is then if the data is sent back to Apple or not.

That's how I understand it.

You can mitigate the problem by quitting Console. Having it open and running will affect performance by several orders of magnitude more than analyticsd. Confirm it yourself using Activity Monitor. The unified logging system is designed specifically for efficiency.

Is there a 'clean' way to shut this service down? right now I just did a chmod 0 on the file to solve the problem.

Wonderful. You're going to create problems by doing that. I suggest you leave things alone, unless you're fond of breaking things (which is not intended to be derogatory. Breaking things is one way to find out how they work, but do so with an appreciation for the consequences).

Perhaps it's a bug, or perhaps it isn't. If you think it's a bug, then tell Apple about it. All I can tell you is that it's normal.

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

140,832 points

Dec 29, 2017 12:38 PM in response to ThomasD3

Frequent "out of bounds" log entries exist in iOS also. Assuming your macOS version is up to date that particular log entry has absolutely no effect on performance—but running Console does.

(Clarification: Prior to the current macOS version had been speculation that it was the cause of performance degradation. The macOS update resolved the performance degradation but those log entries continue to exist.)

Besides, what do you intend to do about it? Hack the OS some more? That will only make it impossible for anyone who has not done that to help you.

If your Mac isn't working properly, explain. You alluded to high CPU use, so correlate it to a process. Is it analyticsd or something else?

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Answer 6

ThomasD3 Author

Level 1

45 points

Dec 31, 2017 5:18 AM in response to John Galt

I talked about the 13th month bug to illustrate that we can't assume things 'just work' because apple put them there.

The problem process was analyticsd, as I wrote in my first post; it was becoming a cpu hog at times.

I'm still looking for a 'clean' way to disable it: I did chmod it to 0, but that doesn't mean something isn't trying to start it at regular interval.

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

140,832 points

Dec 31, 2017 11:09 AM in response to ThomasD3

There are bugs in every macOS release, just as there are bugs with any complex operating system. There will always be bugs in every operating system there will ever be. Addressing them is a continuous process with no end.

Some bugs matter; some don't. The "out of bounds" log entries are decidedly in the latter category. Not a very high priority for Apple right now.

I'm still looking for a 'clean' way to disable it:

Don't. Hacking macOS is only going to make things worse. If you really want to help, then report it to Apple like I said. None of us are in a position to reverse-engineer macOS or fix whatever might be broken with it.

Has anyone else noticed also a lot of activity from this, despite not enabling/authorizing it?

Question answered. Move on.

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Answer 8

Mac_slide

Level 3

605 points

Dec 31, 2017 7:40 AM in response to ThomasD3

I wouldn't worry about it much.

BUT if it's a tic, then you gotta remove the tic... happy hunting !!!

I'd say THAT's ONE place to start.

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