2

It's not a new problem, I'm facing it for sometime now. My MacBook runs fine all the time but this kernel_task issue occurs whenever it awakes from sleep. No issues with DisplaySleep. I can't put the lid down and have to restart every time. I have googled a lot and tried the following:

reset smc/nvram/pram multiple times, ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext Solution, also left the macbook running for whole day and rebuild the spotlight index.

I've gone through the following two links on this forum: debug kernel_task process and investigate high kernel_task memory

Output of above mentioned command follows:

  • kextstat | grep -v com.apple

     Index Refs   Address               Size       Wired      Name (Version) <Linked Against>
  110    0    0xffffff7f80b77000   0x5000     0x5000     com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.6.6) <109 5 4 3>

  • kextstat -l -k | awk '{n = sprintf("%d", $4); print n, $6}' | sort -n

    kexstat_result at pastebin

Edit:

Ran syscallbypid.d while facing the kernel_task problem and again ran sudo syscallbypid.d while system was normal. After comparing the output of these two commands, I found the following process were unique to kernel_task problem and were not shown in the normal run.

AirPlayUIAgent, WorkflowService, locationd, networkd, diskarbitration, SleepServicesD, EscrowSecurityA, mdworker & launchd sysctl.

Any one of these might be causing the problem. Another difference I noted was com.apple.iclou process was running in normal run and not in the problematic one.

Can this problem be narrowed down further ? Any light on how to overcome the CPU throttling will be of immense help.

Community
  • 1
lawsome
  • 331
  • Does the same thing happen when you put the Mac to sleep before you close & reopen the lid? – IconDaemon Jan 01 '17 at 17:47
  • 1
    It isn't a solution but since lid-sleep is the main cause for spike in cpu usage for kernel_task, I've disabled it through insomniaX and the trouble is avoided for now. Normal sleep & lid down is not a problem. – lawsome Jan 03 '17 at 07:20
  • hi @icondaemon, I've made an edit to the original question. Can you see if the edit helps. – lawsome Jan 05 '17 at 20:14
  • What are you using Soundflower for, in particular? Is it essential for what you do? Have you installed the latest version to make sure it's not a compatibility issue? Does the problem disappear when you uninstall Soundflower? Questions, questions, questions! – IconDaemon Jan 05 '17 at 23:12
  • @icondaemon, soundflower is not relevant at all, removed it completely & checked, the problem still persists. However in an another approach. I turned wi-fi off, removed everything from login items, disabled other login items individually. Then put my system into sleep four times, every time after a restart, for 20 sec, 35 sec, 50 sec & 90 seconds respectively. Only for 20 and 35 seconds the problem doesn't occur. I took out the console logs for these four occasions. Here is the filtered [result] (http://pastebin.com/L3YkF1mK) from my console. This was my last try. 'll reinstall OS afterwards – lawsome Jan 06 '17 at 10:15
  • I just started experiencing this issue this week. I have a MacBook Pro 16' 2019 with latest Catalina (10.15.6). I strongly suspect this has to do with external monitors, as suggested by this other SO question. Even though my MacBook doesn't seem to be hot and the fans are silent, the problem started just a day after I first connected it to an external monitor after about a month or two.

    https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find-cause-of-high-kernel-task-cpu-usage

     – Eyal Roth Aug 25 '20 at 08:27

0 Answers0