Messages on High Sierra has become increasingly unusable for me. I get frequent (every dozen words or so, at least once per message) long (5-20s) lags when typing — which seem to occur most often when something ambiguous has been entered (a typo or incomplete word) — or when switching to the Messages window.
Messages has been increased slow and a resource hog on macOS (to the point where I just shut it off most of the time) in general, but this unresponsiveness is the major annoyance.
What causes this and how can I fix it?
I've followed suggestions I've found online to turn off syncing of contacts in all accounts but one (in my case iCloud), but that seems to have no effect.
Pauses seem to be associated with log entries (filtered on "contact" errors) like the following, but it could be many other things too (e.g., changes of focus to Messages), and there's no clear association with the exact logging of an error and the lag:
default 11:47:26.437362 -0500 fmfd There was an error while trying to load accounts. We'll return an empty array. Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated.}
error 11:47:26.481193 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
error 11:47:26.610413 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
error 11:47:26.733041 -0500 AppleSpell Contacts change history truncated, resetting!
default 11:47:31.437365 -0500 fmfd There was an error while trying to load accounts. We'll return an empty array. Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated.}
error 11:47:37.781508 -0500 AppleSpell Contacts change history truncated, resetting!
error 11:48:27.269667 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
error 11:48:27.387438 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
error 11:48:27.593285 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
default 11:48:27.783845 -0500 fmfd There was an error while trying to load accounts. We'll return an empty array. Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated.}
error 11:48:27.794354 -0500 accountsd Could not donate contact information: Error Domain=CNDonationErrorDomain Code=1 "(null)"
error 11:48:28.294191 -0500 AppleSpell Contacts change history truncated, resetting!
default 11:48:33.094905 -0500 fmfd There was an error while trying to load accounts. We'll return an empty array. Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.AddressBook.ContactsAccountsService was invalidated.}
error 11:48:44.490877 -0500 AppleSpell Contacts change history truncated, resetting!
A related question focused on a possible cause (perhaps extending beyond Messages).
System Preferences > Internet Accounts, not merely stopped the syncing thereof? – IconDaemon Jan 18 '18 at 17:16