A process called "cloudd" constantly consuming huge CPU resource

[Abba1]

When the poster says bird and cloudd are "using 96% of my computer", they mean CPU, not memory. These are processes associated with iCloud Drive that take over the CPU for very long amounts of time (even with no iCloud Drive activity), thus drastically reducing battery life as well as reducing interface responsiveness. The effect is much more noticeable on laptops than desktops (which mostly have higher-clocked quad-core chips, less thermal constraints, and where battery life is not a concern).

1. I did mention both Memory and CPU. But, you are correct in that the blogger was reporting a CPU problem; so, I stand corrected insofar as I simply mentioned CPU and stressed memory.
2. I have both MBP and iMac and have not had that problem with either although I have had other types of unrelated problems. Perhaps I am lucky; but, perhaps, I like the majority of users, have no complaints in this regard.

 

[sarthak]

This is also an on-going concern. If the following does not solve your issue or meet your criteria, please submit feedback to Apple using the Feedback tool for Mac. Hopefully it gets fixed in 10.10.2.

If you force quit "cloudd" from Activity Monitor it will return after a few seconds and continue working.
- A few seconds after relaunching cloudd it should reduce resource usage.

If not, then ensure you are not running any applications that store data in iCloud. For example, a photo management application, clipboard, backup program that is consistently making changes to files and/or creating temporary files which cloudd finds the need to sync. These apps should be left to their default directory /Library/Application Support for storing such data.

If all else fails, attempt to relaunch those applications that consistently update and store working data.

 

[sarthak]

Update:

FQ and relaunch seems to fix bird flu as well.

 

[lazarette]

force quit birdd, then cloudd, then restart fixed it

for me anyway. Killing cloudd on its own had no effect.

 

[nonuniform]

turning off icloud drive fixed it

I'd had the same problem, cloudd and bird using up huge amounts of CPU time, fan going nuts. Turning off iCloud drive in the iCloud settings fixed the issue.

Of note: I have never used the cloud storage at all. There were no files uploading, pending, or whatever. It was totally empty.

So, yeah, this is a bug.

 

[wolfpackfan]

Glad I found this thread. The same thing just started happening on my Mac mini. All of a sudden my fan started going crazy and the Mac was hot to the touch. I also noticed my disk drive usage was all over the place. Looked at the monitor and cloudd and bird were eating up everything. Will try turning iCloud Drive off and see what happens.

 

[stuzog]

Started happening on Yosemite

This recently started happening on Yosemite 10.10.2 after cleaning everything with Onyx (automation). It took a couple of restarts to fix it.

 

[psh]

turned off icloud drive and dropbox

I turned off both on my wife's mid-2007 iMac. Seems to have fixed it, which is good, because it was becoming almost unusable. I wasn't sure if it was just because I only had 4GB RAM. If stays resolved for a day, I intend to turn Dropbox back on to see if the slowdown returns.

Forunately, I haven't seen anything like this on my i5 MBP, but it has 16GB RAM and 500 GB SSD.

 

[HiRez]

Will try turning iCloud Drive off and see what happens.

Turning iCloud Drive off does get rid of the problem for most people, but that's not really a fix. It's like going to the doctor and telling them "It hurts when I walk" and they tell you "Just stop walking."

 

[Patro00]

Little snitch

Hi there.

I have the same problem with Cloudd in Yosemite 10.10.3.

It is fact that cloud is hungry. I bought LittleSnich and I am able to see what's going on in a better way than the Activity Monitor. Little snitch allow you to establish rules that allow or deny a connexion. Waiting for a release from apple I am able to block the outgoing connexion to iCloud without closing iCloud in the System pref.

Also, with Little Snitch, I was able to see that Cloudd is not the only culprit. Access to xxx.xxx.amasonaws.com is constantly in action. So I also deny access to the multiple servers associated with amazonaws.

Now I am in the process of checking all the access hidden in Safari.

Opening Safari after a reboot is awful. Sometimes it takes over a minute to access the requested page. I am new to this protocol analysis. But it's easy to learn Little snitch because each time your computer need to connect somewhere you have many choices to allow or deny temporarily or permanently these access to the port or the servers, or the Domain.

Hope this help.

Thanks from Québec.

 

[jbarley]

"amazonaws" stands for Amazon Web Services, this is Amazon's cloud computing, something that you have to subcribe to and after the free trial pay for.

 

[Patro00]

amazonaws.com

Thanks,

There is effectively a legal website http://aws.amazon.com/s3/

The connexion identify by little snitch I refer to is
us-ore-00001.s3.amazonaws.com in the nsurlsessiond

Google for amazonaws and see by yourself. As I understand it amazonaws.com is a site use to trace all the activity of the computer, etc, etc.

 

[simon lefisch]

"amazonaws" stands for Amazon Web Services, this is Amazon's cloud computing, something that you have to subcribe to and after the free trial pay for.

So what is the name server iCloud connects to when upload photos?

 

[Patro00]

your choice

But I don't know who is synaptic.att.com

I took a picture, transfer it to Photo and this Synaptic host appear

 

[simonsi]

As I understand it amazonaws.com is a site use to trace all the activity of the computer, etc, etc.

Then I think you misunderstand. A large chunk of all internet traffic goes via Amazon servers - the amazonaws servers provide a whole raft of webservices both direct subscription and services provided to other providers (so a subscription service in another name/company may connect to aws).

Referring to the amazonaws.com site as providing any single service is an oversimplification, if you block the whole domain then I'd expect some service(s) you actually want to stop working.

 

[palmwangja]

I had something similar, but it was called 'bird'. I disabled the syncing of documents and data (kept other icloud settings on) and that cleared up my problem. My computer was unusable a 'bird' was using 96% of my computer at all times. When I would kill the process, it would automatically start. Hope this is helpful to someone.

thx

This solved the following problem:

sleep 10 (sleep prevented by UserEventAgent)
autopoweroffdelay 14400
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 10
acwake 0
lidwake 1
$ pmset -g assertions
Assertion status system-wide:
BackgroundTask 1
ApplePushServiceTask 0
UserIsActive 1
PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep 0
PreventSystemSleep 0
ExternalMedia 0
PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 0
NetworkClientActive 0
Listed by owning process:
pid 351(UserEventAgent): [] 73:19:48 BackgroundTask named: "com.apple.bird.sync"
Created for PID: 6883.​

 

[RAnderson55]

The most likely cause for the CPU usage is iPhoto or Photos synchronising photos.

You can stop or delay this by going to Photos or iPhotos preferences and selection iCloud and delay the synching.

This will stop the synchronisation process and reduce the the CPU consumption.

 

[Carric]

This is what I thought, and i had disabled cloud on Photos, and CPU dropped temporarily - however, I noticed today that cloudd was ONCE AGAIN causing my MBP to cook and run horribly. Despite disabling all cloud features in both iPhoto and Photos "iCloud Photos" and cloudd are hogging 200% right now... I hate you cloudd.. Apple - wth?? Give me some options to control this please, because I'm getting tired of poor performance and having a laptop that BURNS MY LAP!!

 

[dsemf]

This is what I thought, and i had disabled cloud on Photos, and CPU dropped temporarily - however, I noticed today that cloudd was ONCE AGAIN causing my MBP to cook and run horribly. Despite disabling all cloud features in both iPhoto and Photos "iCloud Photos" and cloudd are hogging 200% right now... I hate you cloudd.. Apple - wth?? Give me some options to control this please, because I'm getting tired of poor performance and having a laptop that BURNS MY LAP!!

I don't remember if Yosemite has iCloud Drive. If so and you have it enabled, you might try turning it off and use Activity Monitor to kill the cloudd process. Go to System Preferences >> iCloud. Uncheck iCloud Drive.

I have had this problem since last July. It first appeared while I was on El Capitan. After upgrading to Sierra, it was still a problem so I opened a case with Apple. Engineering has been working on it with lots of traces but so far no resolution.

When I enable iCloud Drive, cloudd behaves properly for about a minute and then starts looping. This problem only affects my iCloud account and is independent of OS version and machine. Other accounts on the same machines are not affected. Based on the symptoms, my guess is that there is corruption on the Apple server that cloudd is not able to process which results in the looping.

Now that the holidays are over I am hoping to hear back from Apple.

I do not use iCloud Photo Library but I do have iCloud Music Library which is not affected by this issue.

DS

 

[rmpbklyn]

I had same problem and this fix it:

Did a CMD-R refresh and viola, fix problem.

Machine, Early 2014 MBA 11"

Now I have to fix the sleep wake freeze on my 2012 quad i7 with Yosemite

I still have GM 3, build 14A388a, and will download the public version from app store.

what's cmd-r ? is that command at bash shell?

 

[bjet767]

what's cmd-r ? is that command at bash shell?

Here's a list from Apple. This stuff is good to know.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

 

[thanar]

Could be related to this:
https://hbang.ws/blog/yosemite-slow-finder-fix/

 

[andrewpurnellUK]

This problem still exists on Majova 10.14.3 150% of CPU on CCloud and 91% for Bird. Does anyone know if this has been reported to Apple, and are they working on a fix?

 

[chrfr]

This problem still exists on Majova 10.14.3 150% of CPU on CCloud and 91% for Bird. Does anyone know if this has been reported to Apple, and are they working on a fix?

This is a problem specific to your iCloud account.

 

[RyanChan.MY]

This is a problem specific to your iCloud account.

What are the specific problems with the iCloud account? I'm facing this problem as well and I'm on 10.15.3 and searching high and low for a fix to this