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My Macbook was running really slow after opening it up and so I opened Activity Monitor and saw one process called softwareupdated that was not responding. It didn't say it was using any CPU but my laptop was crawling. I force quit it but then it restarted again. So I looked it up online and saw that App Store uses it (and maybe others). So I opened App Store and ran update. It seemed to use the process as it showed 104% CPU. Then when it was done it went back to 0 CPU. Still it showed in red that it was not responding.

How do I know what process is calling this? How do I prevent it from being called?

Pictures:
softwareupdated process: Softwareupdated process

softwareupdated process when clicking update in OS X App Store:
softwareupdated process when clicking update in OS X App Store

double clicking on the process in Activity Monitor:
Double clicking on the process in Activity Monitor

app store preferences and settings:
App Store preferences and settings

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  • 1
    Your problem is not with softwareupdated. Launch Activity Monitor and sort with % CPU. You want the one with the highest CPU percentage. That's what causing your machine to slow down, not a non responding daemon (which is what softwareupdated is). And for good measure, check the Memory tab as well and make sure the memory pressure is green.
    – akshay
    Commented Feb 7, 2015 at 8:51
  • Is a daemon the same as a service? FYI I eventually restarted and memory is green and softwareupdated is not using any CPU 0.0 and is not not responding (so not red).
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 0:35
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    Pretty much. I've seen the softwareupdated go 'not responding' after some time too, I think it's normal? Anyway, it doesn't affect the speed of my computer. Basically, softwareupdated is definitely not the culprit here, unless you're noticing it take a significant amount of CPU, which based on your post, it's not.
    – akshay
    Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 0:38

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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To answer your question which program is launching the softwareupdated:

In your System Preferences, click on the App Store.

It will show you the settings for updates.

Normal is to have it check for Software Updates continuously, that will explain the softwareupdated running in your Activity Monitor.

There you can also set what happens next, like download and auto install or not etc...

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  • I added a screen shot of the App Store preferences.
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 0:37
  • I have an old MacBook that's been upgraded to 4GB RAM. Web browsing was just now terrible, and it turns out the App Store was downloading an OSX and an XCode update in the background. softwareupdated was using a total of 0.75GB, when I usually only have 2GB to play with after OSX takes its share.
    – stevesliva
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 4:34
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    @stevesliva That is why I have it set to only alert me and not auto download and install. I want to be in control on that.
    – Ruskes
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 4:46
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I was wondering why softwareupdated was always running in activity monitor as well. I believe i fixed my issue by turning off "Check for new software updates automatically" in iTunes, in Advanced Preferences.

(1) iTunes (2) Preferences (3) Advanced Preferences (4) unselect: "Check for new software updates automatically"

So far, that has solved the problem. Before doing this, I would force quit softwareupdated, only for it to pop up again almost immediately after.

It's not popping up now.

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2

Similar to previous answers but I simply went to System Preferences -> App Store. Once there unchecked "Automatically check for updates"

Noticed that softwareupdated was still running in the activity monitor so I did a force quit on it since I was too lazy to reboot. Been going for about a half hour now and that process did not appear again. Glad to have ended it because it was using up almost half a GB on my 4GB machine.

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