A lot of logs in console related to WindowServer (Long render detected)

Sorry, but you are simply going down a rabbit hole with no end in site. "Rendering" is exactly what it means as the computer is displaying the UI elements onto the window. You jumped the shark when you somehow seem to connect this to a device connecting remotely to the computer viewing what is taking place.

Of course you will see open sockets streaming and here is a partial list of communication ports used and their purpose.

TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products - Apple Support

You will also find quite a bit of communication with Apple servers for various reasons including:

• Has the device been Activation Locked on restart?
• Find My communicates with nearby device to update locations on a private network
• Bluetooth devices have to be recognized
• Playing content requires verification
• Data is synced with iCloud
• Push Notifications
• Email Polling
• Many widgets running on computer will require external connections.

What we have found is there are many third party processes that will run on startup and conflict with the OS. This is why the EtreCheck report is essential to determine what these are and removing them has solved this problem for many. CleanMyMac is one application that has been shown to interfere with the OS causing unexpected results. Without the EtreCheck results, nothing will be able to be identified and jumping to other conclusions without any evidence is irresponsible.

There is no solution because there is no problem. The contents of the Console are notes from the developers to themselves, there are no user-serviceable parts or information there. Ignore and go on with your life.

Rooting around in Console Logs used to useful back in the times of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Since that time to now.

Using Console Logs to Trouble Shoot is a waste of your and my productive time

Most of what will appear in those logs, will Only be Understood by Apple Software Engineers

And Yes, the same messages may or will repeat 10s of time or thousands of time and still not make any meaningful sense to we normal human being

That said, is there a Specific Issue with the computer that needs attention ?

If not, move on to better things

Thanks Mac Jim JD for your suggestions.

Re: Ethernet ports, when I check the service order

I dragged WiFi to be first, but you can see here there is no Ethernet (en3 or en4). I can confirm my WiFi is secured with the lock icon as shown in your example.

I just did a MacOS reinstall this evening so all settings are "default" out of the box and the Activation Lock Status is still disabled:

My Network Preferences:

Firewall:

When I go to check iCloud Find My:

When I go to Battery/Energy Saver, I expect the options list to be those listed under Additional Options but clearly some are missing:

Change Battery settings on a Mac laptop - Apple Support (CA)

Changed the option Wake for Network Access to: Always

Activation Lock Status did not change with reboot.

There is something odd happening with my WiFi. If I leave my computer "on" over night by just closing the lid, the WiFi will disconnect and by some other mechanism, the laptop connects to a WWAN??

The only thing you can do is make sure you do not have a third party apps launching processes on startup that could be causing a conflict. Even if you are not actively running an application, some of these apps will install processes that run constantly. Post the free EtreCheck report and we will be able to identify the processes that are running on your computer. The report contains no personal information.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Logs are not used to identify a problem, but if you are experiencing an issue with your device, post those details.

In my case I'm coming off a fresh DFU restore done at the Apple Store on a new 2024 MBA M3.

The open ports are all in the 49152–65535 range which appear to be related to the Xsan Filesystem Access (thanks for the reference!)

I'm a regular consumer with no association to any corporate workplace. My sense is this machine is bound to a VPN that I cannot control or remove, and my web content and experience seems to be altered. For example, my Google search results are different when I search from other devices. I appear to be shown older, less relevant content going back to late 2000s to 2020 (could this be a form of censorship from a DNS-redirect or DNS cache poisoning?)

Many System Settings pages are modified with standard options missing (e.g. Power/Battery Preferences, Network Preferences etc.) compared to the content described in the MacOS software manuals. This leads me to believe that my device may have been MDM'ed some way.

Despite being logged in with Apple Account with FileVault enabled, the "Activation Lock Status" continues to be reported as "Disabled" in System Information.

Since doing the DFU restore at Apple, I have searched and come across references to a Mojo/Thor malware/virus that is believed to be transmitted through Thunderbolt adapters. It makes me wonder if the Apple Stores' Thunderbolt adapters may be a common vector?

From the EtreCheck report, it makes no sense that there are two additional ethernet adapters (en3/en4) configured as I am not connected except by WiFi (en0).

Nothing suspicious with the Ethernet Adapter showing under Networks in the Ethernet report. I can give you a couple of tips to gain more information:

• Go to  > System Settings > Network, then choose the button with 3 dots on the bottom of the screen and select Set Service Order. Note the order that these are in as this is the order your computer will look to find a network. The one on top is the first one and you will see in the next step this is called Service Order 0.
• Hold the Option key and choose then go to  > System Information. Release the Option key and choose Network. Here you will see each of these interfaces and get more information on them. The last item on each one shows the Service Order which you just saw.

I would want to make sure you are connected to a secure Wifi by going to  > System Settings > Wifi, and make sure you have the lock icon like what is seen in this screenshot.

For your search results being different on Google between devices, that will happen. Google acknowledges this as your results will vary depending on:

• Browsing History
• Device Type
• Personalized results
• I suspect they also take other information into consideration than what they disclose here:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/12412910?hl=en

To review the missing Settings, I would need to see a screenshot.

Your Activation Lock may be disabled because you are blocking all connections from your Firewall. What to do you show when going to  > System Settings > [name on top] > iCloud > See All > Find My?

Both @PRP_53 and @Mac Jim ID are both absolutely correct....the macOS logs are to be avoided at all costs if you value your sanity....it is too late for me. There are tons of weird, crazy, nonsensical, and scary sounding entries many of which do not mean what you think they mean.

I'm an experienced tech who was brought up on using system logs to investigate problems, but that is nearly impossible with the macOS system logs these day. In fact the system logs that Apple somewhat exposes now really don't have that much to do with the system. Most of the log entries are not hidden away and must be recreated on demand using command line utilities. Even then, they are a complete mess with entries sometimes repeating 100+ times per second.....yes per second. I'm not even sure the original developers understand them. Most of those entries should not even be filling the logs.....at best they should only belong to the developers debug mode & turned off on production code.

If there is any useful nuggets within the logs, they are far overshadowed by all the repeating nonsense.

The only somewhat useful macOS log these days are the Kernel Panic logs, but even they are becoming harder to decipher.

Do yourself a favor and ignore the macOS logs as those logs will only drive you insane.

macOS has great built in security especially when the user also practices safe computing practices as outlined in the following article:

Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community

Hey there, just letting you know you're not the only one. Although I don't have a solution, I say trust your gut. Something is very not right with our computers.

My best hunch is that "rendering" refers to one of two things:

1. Devices on the internet are connecting to view what is taking place on our device screen
2. Our device is rendering on-screen what is taking place on a virtual machine - local or on a server.

I think it's reasonable to believe our MacOS instance is running "virtually" hosted on a surreptitiously-installed Linux installation, and running as a passthrough on machine.

If you look at the output from Terminal and use command: netstat -A you will see many open sockets "streaming" data. My question is, what kind of data is being streamed from my computer, or to my computer and from what source?

Perhaps someone will share some technical knowledge and skill and try to problem solve instead of saying "this is normal process." If it's normal, Apple should explain what it is and how it works.

👍

Again, there is no reason to make this personal

Good luck with the Otherwise Friendly and free advise