Compatibility with Apple M1?

[insaniac80]

I saw the issue come back on my new mac mini sadly after more use. Upgraded to 4.7.9 and it was there again too. I keep MWB running but I turn off Malware Protection so at least periodic scanning happens. No performance issues while scanning. Just seems to be however the real time protection engine is running for me.

[Omoeba]

Here's a feedback assistant report that I originally sent to Apple that describes the issue in more detail:

- The problem only seems to occur during Time Machine backups.
- 3rd party apps take a long time to launch but not 1st party apps like App Store and Settings.
- The following launch times of the app “Authy Desktop” were recorded with a stopwatch and are measured in seconds. The recorded time is likely 1-2s longer than the actual time due to human reaction times. The time was measured from when the mouse was clicked on the app icon to when the white dot appeared below the app icon in the dock.
- 46.12, 13.09, 32.35, 46.28, 45.74.
- Although the aforementioned app “Authy Desktop” is an x86 app, the same behavior occurs with Universal apps (tested with “StopTheMadness”, which took 45.81 seconds to launch).
- Accounting for human error, all apps typically take exactly 45 seconds to launch.
- The Time Machine backup is frozen when apps take unusually long to launch.
- A restart fixes the problem; it also seems to randomly disappear. Addendum: the issue disappears when the backup finishes and not "randomly" as per the original report.

[Omoeba]

Addendum 2: Terminal commands like SSH are also affected in addition to 3rd party apps.

[treed]

@Omoeba Interesting, so you're seeing issues with all kinds of other third-party apps during Time Machine backups? 🤔

Some questions for you and @insaniac80: 

• Do you have any other Macs that are backing up to the same network drive that are not M1 Macs, but are also running Big Sur? If so, are you seeing similar issues with those machines, or are the issues only happening on the M1 Macs?
• What kind of network drive are you backing up to?
• What happens if you turn off the App Block feature in Malwarebytes, but leave Malware Protection turned on?
• What happens if you turn on App Block but turn off Malware Protection?

[Omoeba]

@treed I do have an Intel MacBook Pro but it's currently unusable due to a butterfly keyboard issue. However, I haven't noticed any issue running Big Sur before the keyboard broke. The destination drive is a samba share running on a raspberry pi. Stopping App Block with Malware Protection still enabled or vice versa causes the issue to immediately disappear.

[Omoeba]

From further testing, it appears that only disabling Malware Protection resolves the issue.

[treed]

That's very odd, as the Malware Protection doesn't do any network blocking, nor does it scan external or network volumes. This is looking like a macOS bug.  We'll have to do some testing and see if we can find some data to send to Apple on this.

Incidentally, I don't know what the current state of Time Machine is with respect to non-Apple hardware, but I know that at one point, it only worked reliably with an Apple Time Capsule, or an external drive connected to an Apple AirPort router. There were a lot of reports some years ago of people making it work with third-party NAS solutions, but those were highly prone to failure.

It's possible this info is no longer relevant, and that Apple has fixed that issue (seems likely after they discontinued their AirPort routers). But I do wonder if this issue still persists, at least in some form.

[Omoeba]

The backup has worked reliably for about a year prior to the issue occurring.

[Omoeba]

The issue still persists in macOS 11.2 RC3

[alvarnell]

1 hour ago, Omoeba said:

The issue still persists in macOS 11.2 RC3

macOS 11.2 RC3 was publicly released today as macOS 11.2.

[Omoeba]

Thanks, I didn't realize that it was officially released today.

[Massimiliano]

I have been using Malwarebytes on the MacBook Air M1 since yesterday.

Personally I can say that it works very well even if still in x86 version: there was no slowdown of the machine.

The only thing to report, as can be seen from the attached screenshot, is the reported high power consumption (This was not the case with the MacBook Pro Mid 2012; Safari was already in the high-power apps). It happens sporadically, but more frequently than it first seemed

Has anyone else noticed this shift in power consumption by Malwarebytes? 

Let me know if you need anything else to learn more

Thank you

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by MAXBAR1
changed information on frequency of the problem

[edbro9]

Yes, I am seeing Malwarebytes being the biggest battery drain on my system too. 

[blaztek]

@edbro9

@MAXBAR1

I've seen that too but I think it's listed because you can't kill it.

Clearly, you can see that Safari, Spotlight, and Slack use more energy that Malwarebytes but only Malwarebytes Protection is listed as using significant energy.

[Omoeba]

The issue persists on macOS 11.2.3.

[edbro9]

I have had to disable all real-time protections, basically rendering my paid version the same as the free version. Very high CPU usage and very slow program openings. I regret my purchase and do not recommend this product to anyone looking to purchase.

[treed]

For those having CPU usage issues, please try the Malwarebytes for Mac 4.8 beta and see if changing the CPU usage setting helps. If you have feedback on the beta, please provide that over on the beta forum.

 

[drmoss_ca]

I came looking for answers on this issue. I have an MBA M1 and either after the upgrade to 11.2.2 or the quickly following 11.2.3, my battery endurance went down from 15 hours to 5. Activity Monitor shows the RT Protection Daemon using 50-65% CPU, and if I stop Malware Protection it goes down to 0.1%.  When I was at 11.2.1 (and I think 11.2.2, with the change being noticed after 11.2.3) there was no such problem, and Malwarebytes was at v4.7 the whole time.

I'll try the beta and report back.

[drmoss_ca]

I checked the beta updates option and installed 4.8. No change in CPU usage by the RT Protection Daemon, so I restarted the machine, and found it using 80-92%! If I stop Malware Protection it falls to <1% (although the battery menubar item still declares Malwarebytes Protection is using a high battery percentage).

So I'm leaving Malware Protection turned OFF, and hoping this can be fixed before too much of my subscription is wasted...

[edbro9]

With CPU limit set to Medium and no other programs or activities running, I find usage vary between 0 and 65%. Why would it be using over 50% when there is no activity on the device? I didn't even have Safari open. 

[drmoss_ca]

Thanks for reminding me about the setting for CPU usage. If I set it to low and turn on Malware Protection, I get 35% usage. I'll see over the next couple of days whether that brings up the battery endurance.

[Omoeba]

The 4.8.10 beta appears to have fixed the time machine app launching issue.

[treed]

On 3/17/2021 at 3:06 PM, edbro9 said:

Why would it be using over 50% when there is no activity on the device? I didn't even have Safari open. 

On a modern Mac, there's no such thing as "no activity." There's always something going on in the background, potentially a lot of something depending on what software you have installed. If the usage is still staying too high on Medium, try setting it to Low. In my personal testing, Low makes scans take longer (roughly 4x longer), but interestingly RTP detections don't seem to be hugely impacted. I was testing some stuff this morning and getting RTP detections quite quickly.

[drmoss_ca]

With v4.8beta set to Low I'm getting 10-12 hours on battery, but never the 15 hours I was getting a couple of weeks ago. It's a trade off I shall live with.

[treed]

4 hours ago, drmoss_ca said:

With v4.8beta set to Low I'm getting 10-12 hours on battery, but never the 15 hours I was getting a couple of weeks ago. It's a trade off I shall live with.

Any kind of active scanning going on in the background is going to have some impact on battery life. I'd like to see some automatic reduction in CPU usage when on battery power at some point in the future, but can't say when that might happen yet.