I'm definitely seeing parentalcontrolsd spiking, and one cause for it is definitely app usage statistics gathering by the JSS.

How to reproduce:

• Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and move its window to the side of your Mac's screen, keeping its window visible.
• Enter: top -u at the Terminal prompt and press return. (The top command shows the Mac's Unix process table, sorted by cpu usage and updated constantly.)
• Now click on a different app's window — can be any other running app.
• In the Terminal window, watch under the COMMAND column for parentalcontrolsd to spike to top of cpu usage list and then drop again.
• If you missed it, simply click on any other app, while watching the Terminal window. This is endlessly repeatable.
• To exit the test, enter ctrl-c in the Terminal window. (This will terminate the top command. You can also quit Terminal.app if you don't need to use it further.)

Note: To trigger the cpu spike, you have to click on an entirely different app, e.g. from Safari to Mail. Switching among multiple open windows or tabs within the same app (e.g. Safari) will not trigger the cpu spike.

This has dragged on forever with absolutely no progress, it seems. Is it ever going to get resolved?

Just found this discussion.. we have the same problem on a 15" MacBook Pro, running macOS 10.12.6... :-(

I recently got the problem myself (with 10.13 GM). When opening or closing Safari parentalcontrolsd was using a lot of CPU:

@Gonzalez pointed out he hasn't seen the problem when removing the Configuration Profile with a Security & Privacy payload. I've excluded my Mac from the Configuration Profile (it only contains Security & Privacy) after which I have not seen the issue. I removed my Mac from the exclusion and have seen the issue reappear.

This issue doesn't not always take place. I witnessed the issue myself now and it looks like the Security & Privacy payload causes the issue. Maybe other Jamf Nation users can confirm?

What I’ve found is that some configuration profiles cause the parentalcontrolsd process to seemingly hang. What has finally resolved this is to use more discrete configuration profiles for specific settings we want to enforce. Using something bundled like the Security & Privacy configuration profile provided by Jamf causes the problem. In our environment, a custom payload for Safari also causes the problem. For Security & Privacy, I’ve had to test each setting individually and create a custom payload. For Safari, I’ve moved to scripting preferences. Doing this has allowed the parentalcontrolsd process to shutdown shortly after boot.

I exempted myself from any login window, security, or safari config profile and was still seeing the issue. I also have all app usage,font, and plugin inventory collection disabled.

however, killing the process does work (till reboot). Will be very interested to know what the root cause/fix (if any) is.

We've had a support case with Apple for a number of months. I was just informed the problem has been addressed with 10.13.2 beta 1. I have not validated but wanted to share with others should they have the opportunity to check.

Are there any updates on this issue. We have a few users with the same problem. We have been avoiding High Sierra, but if 10.13.3 has fixed it, I'd be willing to test it out on a couple users.

Any update on this yet? I have a few users that reported this issue.

Any updates?

Hi all,

Without going into details, the problem is still there on 10.13.6, i have open case with AppleSupport, at present there is no answer to this issue, just try Mojave....

Anyone have any solutions to this that work long term? Does Mojave fix the problem?

@DanGio yep, it does, we don't see such behavior on 10.14.x