Solving the problem of CPU overload by the “configd” process in Mac OS X. The new Apple MacBook Pro and iMac Pro began to display the “kernel panic” error Possible causes and solutions

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If you have a computer under running MacOS(MacBook or iMac), then you have more than once noticed the “kernel_task” process in the “Activity Monitor”. What it is and why it loads the system will be discussed in our article.

Given system process can significantly load the hardware of the device (especially the processor). The load is accompanied by an increase in the speed of the cooling system coolers.

What is the process

Apple's website states that the main function of the "kernel_task" is to control temperature by "suppressing" performance-intensive programs.

If the computer begins to heat up, then the process starts and limits the operation of the application that caused this increase in temperature. The load percentage of “kernel_task” depends proportionally on heating.

How to disable

This problem is especially worrying for owners of outdated Mac models (2012 and earlier) due to the low performance of the device itself. This can be solved by removing some components. Let's consider two options.

Important! You do all actions at your own peril and risk. Be careful.

For MacOS Yosemite and earlier

If you have an operating system version younger than El Capitan, the shutdown process will look like this.

Go to “Terminal” → enter two commands in turn:
Open About This Mac.
“More details” → “System report”.
Remember the information from the “model identifier” item (for example, “MacBookPro5.5”).
“Go” → “Go to folder”.
/System/Library/Extensions.
Right-click on the file “IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext” → “Show package contents”.
“Contents” → “PlugIns” → right-click on “ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext” → “Show package contents”.
In "Contents" → "Resources" find the file with the name of your Mac (for example, "MacBookPro7.1") → delete it.
Restart your PC → open “Terminal” → enter 2 commands:

Pay attention! If the method does not help, then try the next one.

For MacOS El Capitan and later

IN new versions The Apple system has system integrity protection, which is better known as SIP. Because of this, the method differs from the previous one.

Pay attention! To re-enable protection, you must enter csrutil enable instead of the above.

Many readers have encountered or at least heard about such a phenomenon as “ blue screen death" (BSOD) that appears in operating systems Windows family when critical system errors occur that it cannot cope with without full reboot. OS X has something similar. Critical errors at the Mac OS X kernel level are called “kernel panics”. The core is the heart of the system, responsible for the interaction of both components and peripherals, as well as software your computer. Therefore, if a critical error occurs in the kernel, recovery from it often requires a restart of the kernel, and therefore the system.

Most often these critical errors appear as a gray screen, against which the different languages you are asked to forcefully shut down your computer due to an error.

However, this does not always happen. Sometimes kernel errors lead to completely freezing system or spontaneous reboots and shutdowns of the computer. In this case, the main sign of “kernel panic” will be the appearance of a corresponding entry in the system logs with a name like “Kernel_ YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS _ComputerName.panic" where YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS is the sequentially indicated year, month, date and time of the error occurrence accurate to seconds, and ComputerName- computer name.

Many equipment malfunctions, both internal (for example, RAM), and the periphery (such as external drives), as well as software malfunctions. Unfortunately, when diagnosing critical system errors, the “circle of suspects” is very large, since the kernel interacts with every process and service in the system, not to mention every external and internal device. As with many things with Mac OS X, when critical errors occur, it is much easier to try a few general approaches to solve the problem than to try to figure out who is at fault using reports and logs.

Possible causes and solutions.

Malfunction or failure of random access memory (RAM)

Problems with RAM are one of the most common causes of critical crashes. If you are unable to trace the dependence of the occurrence of “kernel panic” on the connection of any specific devices or running certain processes, it is worth checking the RAM.

To do this, you can use the Apple Hardware Test (AHT) or, if your Mac was released after 2013, Apple Diagnostics. If your computer came with a system software disc, insert it into optical drive, turn off your computer and press D the next time you turn it on.

Devices shipped with OS X 10.7 and later also support running the online version of the tests. To do this, make sure that your Mac is connected to the Internet and hold down the key combination ⌥Alt + D when starting.

To test RAM, you can also use third-party utilities, for example, Rember or Memtest.

It is also worth noting that some versions of the system or firmware may be more (or less) compatible with one or another type of equipment, and therefore their updates may lead to conflicts with the equipment and critical failures. This happens rarely and more often it happens the other way around, but there is still a possibility.

NVRAM and SMC failures

A small section of your computer's memory called non-volatile RAM, or NVRAM, stores certain settings that OS X can quickly access. Errors can creep into the settings saved in NVRAM, which in certain cases can lead to a kernel panic. In order to eliminate possible errors NVRAM memory should be reset. To do this, turn off the computer and the next time you turn it on, hold down the ⌘Command + ⌥Alt/Option + P + R keys until the computer restarts and you hear the boot tone for the second time.

On older ones Mac computers such information was stored in parametric RAM (PRAM). Resetting NVRAM on Intel-based Macs uses the same key combination and is similar to resetting PRAM.

If you are using wireless keyboard, there is a small chance that the computer will not respond to key presses on it. In this case, it is worth connecting a USB keyboard (it does not matter whether it is an Apple or Windows keyboard) and try again with it.

In addition, on Mac computers with Intel processor a system management controller (SMC) is installed, which is responsible for many low-level functions such as battery resource management, temperature control, reaction to closing the lid laptop computers and many other aspects related to powering your Mac. If problems arise with the operation of the computer, the SMC parameters should also be reset.

On laptops with a non-removable battery:

Turn off your computer.
Connect the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter to a power source and to your computer.
On the built-in keyboard, press ⇧Shift + Control + ⌥Alt/Option (left) and the Power button at the same time.
Release the keys and the power button at the same time.

On Mac laptops with a removable battery:

Turn off your computer.
Unplug the MagSafe power adapter from your computer if it is connected.
Remove the battery.
Press and hold the Power button for five seconds.
Release the Power button.
Reconnect the battery and MagSafe power adapter.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

On Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini and Xserve:

Turn off your computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait 15 seconds.
Connect the power cord.
Wait 5 seconds and then press the power button to turn on the computer.

Malfunctions of external devices (peripherals)

Firewire, Thunderbolt, and USB devices are also very likely culprits for critical failures. The reasons may vary, but the main one is that these devices very often access the controller of your computer, exchanging data packets with it, and if the controller receives an incorrect packet, it can cause a crash.

In this case, “kernel panic” may occur immediately when the device is connected, when the system starts, if the device has already been connected to the Mac, and when the computer wakes from sleep mode.

In the latter case, one of the workarounds may be to disable the computer's sleep mode in the System Settings → Energy Saver menu.

A more common approach to this problem is usually to disable all external devices and connecting them in series. Thus, by searching through the options, you can determine which device is causing the failure, although this can be quite difficult in some cases, since sometimes the problem may not appear immediately, but after a few minutes or even hours.

Once you've figured out which device is causing the problem, it's worth checking for firmware and driver updates for that device, as well as updates for the system itself. There is a possibility that the problem is more of a software nature and updates will fix it.

If you use hubs or splitters that allow you to connect multiple devices simultaneously to one physical port on your computer, you should at least temporarily abandon them, as they can also cause critical errors.

Finally, if none of the above helped, you should try connecting a similar device of a different model or from a different manufacturer. Unfortunately, it happens that some peripheral devices may not be compatible with your computer for one reason or another.

Component malfunctions

Regularly recurring failures can be caused by faulty, damaged or incorrectly configured components, such as built-in Airport and Bluetooth controllers and others network devices, hard drives and solid state drives, and sometimes faulty or incorrectly functioning processors.

Often such problems can be solved by simply reconnecting the appropriate components. If you've recently upgraded your Mac (especially if you did it yourself), you should make sure that all PCI, PCI Express, AirPort and other expansion cards are correctly connected to the appropriate connectors.

Cache errors

Temporary files created by the system and user applications play an important role in the operation of OS X, which is why if some error appears in them, subsequent access to them may lead to failure. Before you start diagnosing the problem in detail, it is worth starting by clearing the cache, as this can save you time and effort. You can use specialized utilities like Onyx or Cocktail, or delete temporary files manually. Whichever option you choose, we strongly recommend that you make a full backup of your system first!

Open Finder and press the key combination ⌘Command + ⇧Shift + G
In the window that opens, enter /System/Library
Click the "Go" button
In the folder that opens, find the files named “Extensions.kextcache” and “Extensions.mkext” and delete them.
In the same directory, find the “Caches” folder, select all its contents and delete it.
Press the combination ⌘Command + ⇧Shift + G again and enter /Library/Caches/ in the window that opens
Select again and delete all contents of the folder.
Finally, press the combination ⌘Command + ⇧Shift + G again and enter ~/Library/Caches in the window that opens
Delete the contents of this folder.
Reboot your system and check if any critical errors occur.

Incorrect Mac OS X components and kernel extensions

Mac OS X components and kernel extensions are a very broad topic, not only because they are vulnerable to a huge number of different malfunctions, including data corruption, hardware incompatibility, incorrect permission settings and many others, but also due to of its numbers. For example, you can look at the /System/Library/Extensions folder, each file in which extends the functionality of the Mac OS X kernel and may cause a “kernel panic”. On average, the system has about 250-300 kernel extensions (and this is far from the limit), which can turn diagnosing an error into searching for a needle in a haystack.

IN in this case, if you are sure that the problem really lies in the system files, it may be easier and more efficient to reinstall the system over the existing one from the recovery partition (which can be accessed by holding down the key combination ⌘Command + R when turning on the computer), which will leave user data intact , but will replace system files with ones that are known to work.

In some cases, critical errors may appear after a system update or upgrade, which also most often refers to problems with system files. The most in a simple way the solution to such problems would be the restoration of backup copy at the time before the update, however, there are other methods, which we wrote in one of ours.

Incorrect settings

Incorrect settings of your system or damage to the files themselves in which they are stored can also cause critical failures. Often system behavior can tell you which parameters are configured incorrectly. For example, if the problem occurs when the computer or disks (due to inactivity) enter or exit sleep mode, you may be able to disable functions in the System Preferences → Energy Saver menu.

If you cannot determine the source of the problem, you can use one of the general approaches and create a new account. So the images you reset for a new one account all user settings and you can check if this solves the problem. If the problem has been resolved in the new account, but you have not been able to determine the cause, it may be more convenient to transfer all the data you need to the new user and delete the old one.

In addition, starting the system in safe mode. To do this, turn off the computer and hold down the ⇧Shift key the next time you turn it on. This way you will not only temporarily disable everything third party extensions kernels, system additions and settings that may cause crashes, but also clean up some temporary files that may also be causing the problem.

And finally, if you have external media(flash drive or external drive), you can spend clean install system to it, then restart the computer and hold down the ⌥Alt/Option key when turning it on. As a result, the screen will display a list of devices from which you can boot the system. Select your external drive and press ⏎Enter. This way you can check the operation of your computer with clean system without third-party software and additional user settings.

If the methods described above did not give positive result, we can say with almost complete certainty that the problem is hardware in nature. In this case, attempts to independently solve the problem have little chance of success. It is worth considering contacting service center to receive qualified assistance for further diagnostics and troubleshooting.

Owners of new laptops MacBook Pro and desktops iMac Pro We encountered the sudden appearance of a “kernel panic” error (analogous to the BSOD from Windows for MacOS).

The appearance of the error is evidenced by numerous complaints from the forum technical support Apple and third party resources. An error window and subsequent system reboot occurs 1-2 times a day, more often after unlocking the device.

Causes of the problem

Based on the data available today, the problem is caused by the built-in Bridge OS and a special T2 chip, which are responsible for non-power-intensive computer functions - controlling the rotation speed of coolers, sound processing, and so on. The problem only occurs on computers with a T2 chip. However, to date there is no direct evidence of a direct cause in T2 and no data on the prevalence of the problem.

Attempts by users to fix the problem by cleaning the drive and reinstalling the OS, restoring a copy of the OS via Time Machine, disabling peripheral equipment, and even changing the computer were not completely effective. Based on this, it can be assumed that the problem is hidden deep within the system.

Sometimes you notice that your Mac isn't running as fast as it used to be. Programs run slower, the processor gets hot, and the fan works at its limit. Today we will tell you one of the reasons why the computer works this way.

« configd" is a system configuration daemon that runs on top of the Mac OS X system. Most users will never see it because "configd" runs in background Mac. Also, this demon can sometimes become capricious, which causes unusual surges in CPU performance, and the sound of your Mac's fan becomes like a hum like in a wind tunnel. All of this can be diagnosed by running Activity Monitor, and then sorting the processes by "% CPU". If it does not work correctly, “configd” will take up somewhere between 20-95% of processor resources. If this behavior continues for a minute or so, then it is a normal occurrence that you don’t need to think too much about, just let it work through honestly. But there are times when "configd" can load the CPU for several hours without any problem. apparent reason on this.

Solving the problem of running “configd” through the terminal

To force "configd" to resume, we will first kill the process using the "killall" command. Since this is a system process, it will be restarted immediately. In every case where "configd" will waste CPU resources, this trick will solve the problem.

Launch a terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and enter the following command:

sudo killall configd

You will need to enter the administrator password to execute the command as a super user. Running the command without sudo will not work.

If you leave Activity Monitor open and have it sorted by CPU, you will notice that “configd” will disappear and immediately appear again, while it is no longer in the top of the list, and it is no longer eating up the CPU. Now a normal daemon will be somewhere between 0% and 1% CPU.

If you are having problems with configd after using the "killall" command, scroll to the bottom of this article to learn more about troubleshooting this daemon.

Working with "configd" without a terminal

If you are not familiar with command line, there are two other options:

Close everything running applications Mac
Restart your computer

Rebooting the Mac has the same effect as killing the configd process in the terminal. This method can help if the inadequate operation of the daemon is caused by the incorrect operation of one of the running programs.

Diagnostics "configd and daemon help"

Officially Apple describes configd as follows:

« Configd" daemon is responsible for many aspects of configuration local system. "configd" stores data used by the current state of the system, provides notifications to applications when this data changes, and carries out a variety of configurations for other agents.»

If you want to try to diagnose the reason for the incorrect behavior of "configd", then first of all, you can look at the discrepancies in the PLIST files, which are located in the following directories:

/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Another option is to run "configd" again, but in advanced mode, using the following command:

sudo /usr/libexec/configd -v

This command will export detailed information about what is happening in the system on the console. Comparing this information with that found in the above-mentioned system directories can be very helpful in finding the exact reason why the daemon is not working correctly.

General experience has shown that some applications and processes call the "configd" daemon more often than others. This occurs with some printers, applications running Java, and with repeated unsuccessful attempts to connect to the network. This is why sometimes resetting all applications on the system can be very effective in resolving this issue.

Google's security division, Project Zero, discovered the flaw. macOS kernels, with a “high level of security” (via AppleInsider).

Kernel error

The core is the core operating system. It has complete control over everything and handles things like input/output from software, memory, computer accessories and more. XNU is the kernel name used in all Apple operating systems.

The flaw allows a hacker to make changes to a file without notifying the operating system. This messes with something called copy-on-write (COW), which allows processes to write data between themselves, but it must be protected from other things modifying it. This flaw allows this to happen.

This copy-on-write behavior not only works with anonymous memory, but also with file mappings. This means that after the target process has started reading from the migrated memory region, the increase in memory footprint may cause pages containing the migrated memory to be removed from the page cache. Later, when the evicted pages are needed again, they can be reloaded from the backup file system.