Just in case you are bumping into the same issue, it hit me out of the blue: only observation: accountsd process eating up the whole CPU time.
What helped me:
Sounds stupid, but it solved it for me. I did the Cataline 10.15.7 already a few days ago … but it did hit me only today. So far for bug-free software of larger companies than Xojo ;-).
In case you missed it: I had said years ago that Apple’s move from basically an 18 month release cycle to 12 months was a mistake. Since then quality has suffered as expected.
What I predicted about Xojo’s move from a 12 month release cycle to a 3 month one is well known.
I didn’t miss that one. How could I, you are repeating it quite often, almost wherever you can? ;-).
I get where you are coming from, and I tempt to agree. However, then Apple’s release cycle would most likely have to be 24 months by now, as by nature complexity of OSes is raising with every new release. I think this is part of the problem: in theory (and a perfect world), you would need more time for changes on a product which is getting more and more complex with every release, but the “market” (aka us end-users and the competitors) is requesting the opposite (more and faster new features).
At least that’s what I’m observing with my customers too. The good old days, where a customer was satisfied with a product and mainly invested in making it even more stable are gone. Today most are more interested in new bells and whistles even though some old functionality still might have bugs (as they didn’t test thoroughly).
What I hate with Apple meanwhile is that they don’t listen any longer. 2 decades ago, they were helpful when you raised a ticket, today you rarely get any useful feedback if any. I would not be surprised if the “genius bars” will be flooded soon by people bringing their MBP pros with fans running at full speed to the “Apple service” ;-).
In Apple case, the time (you wrote 12 months) do not do anything to the matter.
The real problem is how many times / engineers are set to develop the new OS version.
Since I have no Apple internal insight, I cannot say more, but from my location, what I see is a team of engineers that works for less than 6 months * to provide a brand new macOS version. That is not enough, as all of us noticed.
Yes, the same OS engineers works on the whole supported set of OSes (and I suppose on the other technologies too: iCloud, etc.)
Your Xojo delenda Carthago is correct because the development team lack engineers IMHO.
Ockham * is right, but prefered does not means always.
Nope. I don’t repeat the Apple one often as this isn’t the Apple forum, but I will continue to mention my Xojo prediction from 2007 that the introduction of the Rapid Release Cycle will lead to a beta quality product.
And I would disagree that customers value “features” over stability. How many cars do you see that break down all the time? How many pace makers? If your operating system crashes all the time then you fix it or move to another - or don’t use it at all (eg Windows Vista and MacOS X Lion were ones I did not even install on my own machines, and most people I know did the same … and those that went ahead against my advice were very contrite when they asked me to fix their mess).
But wait there is more: Apple urges you to do the upgrade. And now they deprecated the command line command to forget a specific version 
.
My mistake, you are indeed focusing more on repeating your Xojo prediction from 2007 that the introduction of the Rapid Release Cycle will lead to a beta-quality product ;-).
Yup, very sad. But there are not many alternatives left. Even linux is pretty much the same for most bistros and users. apt-get update && upgrade and let the magic play 
Have the same issue since the latest update. Also Spotlight freezes from time to time.
yep, and on MacBook Pro 16"" the issue with the speakers is back as well. That’s the reason why I posted my solution here - I’m convinced that others will suffer from this as well.
I investigated a bit tonight and I found a lot of silly tips on the net. Only the disconnection of iCloud, reboot, and rebuilding the connection solved it for me. I made the update by mistake as I was in a rush. I usually never update my productive machines immediately but I’m waiting a few weeks to see the issues of others ;-).