3 Steps to Stop McAfee ATP freezes on Mac | Terminal Code Copy
If you are working on a managed Mac operating system with Mcafee installed, chances are you’ve likely experienced a slow-down or freeze with your Mac getting hot and fan sounds equal to a small plane taking off.
In August I wrote a post on Stopping McAfee Scan Manager freezes on Mac OS via Terminal (2 minutes — Level Easy) after experiencing a lot of the aforementioned. While that article addresses an issues with Scan Manager, a new problem popped up this morning after updating a Mac OS Catalina patch. Browser freeze, pages stopped loading – even after disconnecting from WiFi.
Checking Activity Monitor (can be found here: Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor), I saw McAfee ATP (Adaptive Threat Protection) was spinning up the % CPU — so to Google I go and find a similar solution to the Scan Manager freezes.
McAfee’s Knowledge Center on this issue, Solution Step 3 recommends removing the trouble modules. This requires “the administrator password set by the ePolicy Orchestrator”. No password, no removal… Next best option, stop the process.
Step 4 of McAfee’s solution (is it really a step 4 if step 3 isn’t an option?):
“If you are still unable to remove ENSM, try to add the following command before you try the removal command:”
sudo /usr/local/McAfee/fmp/bin/fmp stopIf you read my other article on stopping McAfee Scan Manager process, this looks familiar and is just as easy.
Stopping ATF
- Open:
Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) - Type:
“sudo /usr/local/McAfee/fmp/bin/fmp”
sudo will request/require password - Confirm:
If ATF/virusscan is running, Terminal should output the following:
stopping...210/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mcafee.ssm.virusscan.fmpd.plist: Operation now in progressStopped gracefully
Now you should be able to confirm in Activity Monitor that the McAfee ATF process is no longer listed and you can go about your merry way.
McAfee on a Mac is the new Internet Explorer…
RELATED: “#KextMeLater”
If you are experiencing other freezes/oddities, Mac is phasing out Kext support that a lot of 3rd-party apps leverage —especially common with corporately issued/managed Macs including McAfee. You might find my recent post helpful: Mac Users: 3rd-Party Kernel Extensions (Kexts) are causing your issues
If you found this helpful, like > follow > share > comment.
CR Rollyson is a Digital User Experience & Web Manager for a S&P 500 Fintech company and is the COO of Side Role, a marketing team in Charlotte North Carolina partnering with In-house Teams & Agencies, Non-profits, and Start-Ups. Learn more about Side Role here.
