After many complaints from the developer community about poor networking performance on Yosemite, the latest beta of OS X 10.10.4 has dropped discoveryd in favor of the old process used by previous versions of the Mac operating system. This should address many of the network stability issues introduced with Yosemite and its new networking stack.
The discoveryd process has been subject to much criticism in recent months as it causes users to regularly drop WiFi access and causes network shares to list many times over, due to bugs. Many developers, such as Craig Hockenberry, have complained about the buggy software and workarounds have been found to include substituting the older system (called mDNSResponder) back into Yosemite.
discoveryd would cause random crashes, duplicate names on the network and many other WiFi-relate bugs. In the latest beta, Apple appears to have applied the same fix as the enthusiasts by axing discoveryd completely.
Looking at Activity Monitor on OS X 10.10.4 seed 4, discoveryd is no longer loaded by the system — instead relying on mDNSResponder. The ‘new’ process is really the one Apple used to use pre-Yosemite and did not have these problems.
It is still unclear why the change in the networking stack was ever made given that the old process worked so well and the new process had so many issues. There has been some speculation that the new stack is related to AirDrop and Handoff functionality although testing showed that these features still worked when the system was reverted back to the old process.
Regardless, it will please many to see that Apple has finally addressed these complaints, even if it embarrassingly involves going back to the old system rather than fixing the new code. OS X 10.10.4 will be released to the public in the coming months.
Apple is focusing on performance and stability for iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, so it will be interesting to see whether discoveryd makes a comeback in Apple’s next-generation operating system.
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Thank god for that – it’s been a complete mess. Can’t believe this has taken so long to fix, but very glad it finally has.
I agree. Boy, I can’t tell you how much sleep I have lost knowing that discoveryd was in there in the first place. After reading this story yesterday, I think I had the best sleep in my life last night.
I hope you realize HOW utterly pathetic that statement is.
(otherwise don’t forget the [sarcasm] tags)
LOL!
discoveryd has been the shame of Apple since Yosemite release!
How can they make such a simple piece of software so buggy!?
Good ol’ and open source mDSNResponder, welcome back!
This was doomed from the start. I never understood the switch; mDNSResponder has been used for years and works pretty damned good compared to discoveryd. I’m glad they came to their senses though..so many absolutely ridiculous bugs.
Thank goodness. Also kind of embarrassing and funny for Apple. But as long as what I see ends up being an improvement, I’m happy about it.
I always had a problem with it. Especially as I could never force quit it when facing issues. Now it’s good news that Apple could point the issue and resolved it. As I checked, it’s not in activity monitor currently. So I continue to check for issues and reports. Thanks for this article.
Now all we need is root pipe fixed…it’s only been around 8 months now since it was first reported to Apple…sigh.
“although testing showed that these features still worked when the system was reverted back to the old process”
Really? I still can’t get AirDrop to work ever.
Then likely not a problem with you Mac, but something else in your setup. Router blocking ports?
It doesn’t use your router. It uses Bluetooth to establish the link and Wi-Fi Direct for the data transfer.
I do want to know what the motivation for implementing discoveryd was? Is it a small, more nimble daemon? Faster? Easier to maintain? There had to be a good reason for them wanting to invest time and energy into developing it.
Exactly my thoughts.
Echoing the “thank God” comments. I have had to disable “wake for network access” on all of my machines since Yosemite came out. Hopefully I can now turn it back on!
Test it and give us an update.
discoveryd was implemented to help with low power modes (sleeping, but awake enough to do fancy things such as wake up when you try to access a Macbook even though the lid is closed). It was one of many pieces to help increase battery life.
That’s not true. Wake for network access which you described was around before it.
I don’t think the suggestion is that discoveryd enables wake on access, but that it was a new design whose intention was to replicate mDNSResponder functionality, but to operate with less battery drain.
And I was wondering why I could no longer keep the Mac functional more than about 12 hours. With 10.4, there’s been a slow improvement. I’ll have to try this when I get home again.
Anybody know if it IS the version directly from Mavericks or has mDNSResponder been updated for Yosemite?
I bet this will clear up all of my 3rd party AirPlay speaker issues (ie: missing from LAN) I’ve been having ! (Auris, eXtremeMac, Harmon K)
Question: Does Mail app also use Discoveryd? If so, maybe Mail will get better also.
Who was it said “Better is the enemy of good enough”?
The first time I saw the warning that “some other device on the network is using your IP address” it led to a lot of head scratching, until I finally found out it was a Yosemite bug. Thanks, Apple.
I would LOVE to know whose bright idea this was, and why, and if they’re being punished.
I had so many problems waking the Mac from sleep and waiting 2mins> for it to connect to the network. Don’t know if that was down to this but looking forward to the update installing now!
I can’t think of a single OS X release that didn’t also introduce new WiFi issues and problems… I don’t know what it is but Apple is at war with WiFi.
There was that time when I replaced my $200 AirPort Extreme base station with a cheap $20 DLink box and suddenly all my networking issues disappeared… it just worked from that moment on.
Can someone explain how the change of this on a Mac will have an impact on other wireless devices on the network (e.g. an AppleTV)? Will the change back to mDSNresponder be included in software updates for those devices (iOS devices, Airport routers, etc)? When I would see AppleTV (2) or MacBook Pro (4) in device listings, I would assume all of the devices are having the same issues.
Hallelujah!!!!
If they can fix the windowserver process while they’re at it, this would be a marvel.
Before Yosemite beta, I used to restart my Mac every … basically whenever a system update required a restart. Ever since I joined the beta testing program last year, I’ve had to restart my Mac every few days. The windowserver would climb to a minimum 45% cpu usage, ui responsiveness would degrade seriously and then I’d start looking reboots. Resetting the PRAM also doesn’t solve the problem… it comes back to being slow after a few days.
Thus, you’re in the beta program… ! It’s not meant for production use.
still, now that my Mac is running the production version of the OS, the problem persists
I had an issue where my CPU was being used 100% all the time and battery life was 2 hours instead of 7.. I force quit discoveryd process and trashed Preferences.plist file and now everything worked great.. good ridance.
“revert *back*” Seriously…. I just reverting is enough :-)
sadly, after updating to 10.10.4, once i enabled AirPlay my wifi performance goes way way way down. disable airplay again and i’m back to normal.
so i’m glad this helps people, but it hasn’t solved at least one of the big issues with wifi perf.
WiFi is still running terribly.