RTProtectionDaemon constant high CPU use on macOS

[mbite]

MacBook Pro 15" i7 CPU (2018)

RTProtectionDaemon constantly uses 30-40% CPU making everything sluggish and raises the operating temperature of the laptop.

The CPU usage setting under Advanced doesn't matter, as I understand it it only applies to scans, but I did try Medium and Low and did not observe any difference. The only solution is to turn off real-time malware protection.

There are numerous other reports in the past of the same issue in the Apple Community, Reddit and here in the forums, so this is not a new issue.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252425388

 

[treed]

If you're seeing that the RTProtectionDaemon is constantly and consistently hitting 99% after setting the CPU usage setting to low, something is definitely wrong, and I'd encourage you to submit a support ticket so that our support agents can work with you on getting logs. (This setting applies to both scans - either manual or scheduled scans - and to real-time protection

Unfortunately, some machines do tend to see lots of CPU usage, depending on what's constantly running in the background and what those apps are doing. Some things can cause LOTS of disk activity that has to be monitored. Again, if you work with support, logs can potentially provide some clues as to what might be causing the problem, and there may be something you could add to the allow list to improve the issue.

[mbite]

It is not 99%, it's a constant 30-40% even when the laptop is otherwise idle. I can see it in the Advanced tab in the MB app. If I turn real-time protection off the CPU use drops to 1-5% and CPU temp drops by 10C.

Edited October 8, 2022 by mbite

[treed]

It might seem idle, but if you're seeing that, it most definitely isn't. There has to be some kind of constant activity - either files on disk being created or modified, or processes being launched frequently - that Malwarebytes deems worthy of attention, otherwise it wouldn't be happening. Work with support, and get them logs, so they can see if they can identify what's going on.

[mbite]

I know my laptop very well, I do monitor I/O, CPU use, temperature using iStat Menus among other things. There is minimal disk I/O of course, but nothing that should cause high CPU use from RTProtectionDaemon.

Between this issue and constant attempts to connect to telemetry.malwarebytes.com it's starting to become clear to me that Malwarebytes has no place on my laptop. I used to use Malwarebytes many years ago on Windows and I figured I'd come back to it on Mac, but things have changed, Malwarebytes does not appear to be what it used to be 7-8 years ago.

Edited October 10, 2022 by AdvancedSetup
Corrected font issue