Mail.app accountsd taking up all CPU

Hello


I have suddenly (did not see when it is happening and when it is stopping) CPU peaks, which is coming from Mail.app and accountsd all together


i did a screenshot of the activity monitor as well as the console, where, when this spike is happening, it is creating +/- 3500 messages a second, all the same as the one on the Screenshot shows some of it.


Screenshot CPU Usage : https://bazinga.lu/mail1.png

Screenshot Activity Monitor : https://bazinga.lu/mail2.png

Most of the messages are like this one:


Connection error changed for account: <MFIMAPAccount: 0x7feae862fd90> <email> <mailserver (F75D0734-9BD7-478D-9DBA-DFC2E0FEBEE0), error: (null)


this for all mail accounts. Killing all the accounts and readding, or dis/enabling it did not help


Also another strange thing happening is, in the message list, some users (i found out they are in the contacts and have a different string in the contacts entry than in the one they provide in the mail header) will flash every second from one to the other name in this list. It is a flckering which is constant, let's say every second, a bit delayed the further down in the list the mail is.


Current "solution" is to stop the mail.app and restart it, it will be good for up to 10 minutes and it will happen again


any ideas ? It started when upgrading from 10.14 to 10.15


Latest Mac OS Version 10.15.1 (19B88)


Many Thanks


Tom

Replies

Same problem here. I tried reinstalling Catalina without effect, killing the viewer window and reopening it without effect as well. The Mail Activity window shows mail trying to download thousands of emails at those times - I suspect that's part of the clue to the cause, since it's possible that Mail is losing sync with the IMAP server and rechecking every message.

Found this in the Apple Discussion Forums, but I don't think this issue is the same. Option 1 would suppose that Google's and Apple's mail servers are going down simultaneously (since this affects both at the same time in my testing). Option 2 is a possibility, I suppose, but unlikely as the problem is intermittent.


From Apple Discussion Forums:

Linc Davis
User level:Level 10


(209,164 points)


NotebooksSpeciality level out of ten: 1



Jan 25, 2016 12:26 AM in response to MarkStar0013

There several possible causes for this issue:

1. The mail server is refusing connections.

2. Something in the network, such as your router, a proxy server, or your ISP, is blocking the connection.

3. Third-party software that you installed is blocking the connection.

4. The settings for the mail account are wrong.

You may be able to narrow down these possibilities by means of the following tests or observations:

A. If another device on the same network can send or receive mail through the same server at the same time with what you're sure are the same settings, that rules out everything except 3.

B. If the problem is intermittent (sometimes it works, sometimes not) and you're not changing anything, that rules out 3 and 4.

C. If you can always use the account when connected to a different network, but never on this network, that rules out everything except 2.

D. If you can never get or send mail from any device on any network, with the correct server settings according to the mail service provider, that rules out everything except 1.

Please post the results of as many of the above tests as you can run.



Jan 27, 2016 8:40 PM in response to MarkStar0013


Please sign out of iCloud in its preference pane and see whether there's any change. No data will be removed from the servers, and you can retrieve it by signing back in. That said, you should always have a current archiveof the data for safety's sake, even if you don't sign out.

If you use iCloud Keychain, when you sign back in to iCloud follow one of the procedures described in this support article to set it up on an additional device.

Anyone know if 10.15.3 beta fixes this horrble issue?

It does not fix the issue. But for me it's Mail and suggestd that are out of control.

Oh and I also have millions of these as well:


Mail Connection error changed for account: <MFIMAPAccount: 0x7fcd11...870> account@domain.com imap.gmail.com (B07C9CCA-3B2C-4026-B18B-7AE7FC....0F), error: (null)

Ugh!! Worst news ever. I really hope Apple has a team working on this. Judging from the millions of console errors accountsd is dropping, I think it's either related to an Address Book Database issue (triggering accountsd) or a ghost keychain. I have a mix of Exchange Accounts, GMail and iCloud. I've tried clean installs, nothing seems to fix this issue except for deleting the accounts all together or keeping Mail closed.

This is an extremely serious issue. The Mail app becomes unusable, CPU gets to 600%, battery is stressed. It is enough to start a class action.

This happens to me when the Mac cannot access the Apple servers because the internet connetion goes down (e.g. it takes a while to restore the hotspot conneciton after sleep or I am on a public wifi blocking Apple servers).

Based on the response I wonder..


Connection error changed for account:


So what is changing? Do you have multiple devices where the setting are toggling between the various devices. I'll be playing with this later.