The Big Sur kernel_task Troubleshooting Saga

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2021-06-12 21:00:09

Following last week’s post regarding my kernel_task woes (which began nearly two weeks ago now), I decided to strip out the updates from that post and consolidate them here with a little more detail.

Update 1: I’ve since had two sets of feedback (via e-mail and Twitter) from a few people, many stating they have similar issues with OneDrive triggering kernel_task stalls, and a few with similar stories of 11.4 upgrades. One of them has upgraded to 11.5 Beta 2, which (so far) appears to have solved the issue. I also got some more tips on how to go about collecting data, which I will try to leverage this week. So far nobody has complained about video playback issues as well, but I suspect that is only a matter of time.

Update 2: A week later (and two weeks after upgrading to 11.4), the stalls have become almost an hourly occurrence of varying duration. After a 2-hour stall where I cooled down the office to under 22oC and could confirm every single sensor was under 65oC with kernel_task still taking 150%+ CPU, I decided to install Big Sur 11.5 Beta 2, but the machine rebooted straight into another stall, and disabling applications/removing peripherals is still of no avail.

I may update this post (again) later if I have more details on why this is happening, but for now let’s start with the whats and hows:

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