securityd using 100% CPU and polluting system.log
Since I upgraded to Mavericks, I often have the following processes using full CPU power:
securitydsyslogdkernel_task
I guess securityd contains a bug, because it is polluting /var/log/system.log with thousands of messages per second, and the system can not follow up.
Here is an example of messages I get:
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 44365 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 26642 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 44365 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 11 15:55:10 localhost securityd[22]: assertion failed: 13A603: libxpc.dylib + 26642 [4554927A-9467-365C-91F1-5A116989DD7F]: 0x13
Nov 11 16:14:47 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
I believe this is a critical issue, as it makes Mac OS X is extremely slow and unresponsive.
Killing securityid doesn't help. The process is recreated, and keeps polluting syslogd.
If I reboot the entire system, everything seems ok for a while, before the same issue happens again. I didn't figured out what triggers this issue yet.
I have the same problem with securityd occupying high CPU on a Mac, it's caused by Source Tree credentials in Keychain Access. Removing the login data of SourceTree in KeyChain restored my CPU usage back to normal levels.
In my case, the haywire securityd process was caused by GitHub desktop app - during commit, network issues caused an error in ssh handshake. Subsequent commits went fine. GitHub app was left open, securityd was heating up my CPU. Quitting GitHub app fixed the problem - probably terminating something in securityd. So my guess is, securityd has some infinite loop issue during crypto operations, maybe just with ssh and handshakes.
So, check if and how your daily workflow can trigger securityd (logging into server? github?) and isolate the problem.
You can temporarily alleviate the problem by restarting SecurityAgent using the following terminal command:
sudo killall SecurityAgent
This worked each time for me. I am still investigating the root cause.
As far as I can tell, this was triggered by switching to another user account where I'd had to reset the password as I'd forgotten the original password. This caused multiple Keychain failures (original password required to unlock the Keychain) and I got an 'endless loop' of prompts along the lines of 'Apple Messages Agent wants to use the item 'login' from your keychain..'