MacBook – Thunderbolt monitor Ethernet adapter causes network preferences pane to crash

ethernetmacbook proNetworkthunderbolt

I have a 2014 Macbook Pro 15" running 10.9.3, connected via Thunderbolt to two Apple Thunderbolt monitors. Each monitor has an Ethernet jack.

The Ethernet seems to pick up an IP address, but doesn't work unless I turn of Wi-Fi, then disconnect my VPN, then pull the Ethernet and reconnect it.

When I plug in my ethernet cable to monitor, the Network Preferences pane crashes every time I open it.

6/3/14 2:38:36.962 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: assertion failed: 13D65: liblaunch.dylib + 25164 [38D1AB2C-A476-385F-8EA8-7AB604CA1F89]: 0x25
6/3/14 2:38:36.971 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: assertion failed: 13D65: liblaunch.dylib + 25164 [38D1AB2C-A476-385F-8EA8-7AB604CA1F89]: 0x25
6/3/14 2:38:37.130 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: Bogus event received by listener connection:
<error: 0x7fff785aab50> { count = 1, contents =
    "XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff785aae60> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }
}
6/3/14 2:38:37.235 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: Could not find image named 'InvalidDataIcon'.
6/3/14 2:38:37.318 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: -[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670
6/3/14 2:38:37.319 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: An uncaught exception was raised
6/3/14 2:38:37.319 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: -[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670
6/3/14 2:38:37.320 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: (
    0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04425c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
    1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff887dee75 objc_exception_throw + 43
    2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04712d -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 205
    3   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa2322 ___forwarding___ + 1010
    4   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa1ea8 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
    5   Network                             0x00000001117ea6fd Network + 50941
    6   Network                             0x00000001117ea35d Network + 50013
    7   Network                             0x00000001117e8b6b Network + 43883
    8   Network                             0x00000001118284e7 decryptOldStylePassword + 130098
    9   Network                             0x00000001117e7549 Network + 38217
    10  CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c012e0c __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 12
...
)
6/3/14 2:38:37.320 PM com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice[23014]: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[__NSCFString count]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x7fb8fb502670'
*** First throw call stack:
(
    0   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04425c __exceptionPreprocess + 172
    1   libobjc.A.dylib                     0x00007fff887dee75 objc_exception_throw + 43
    2   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8c04712d -[NSObject(NSObject) doesNotRecognizeSelector:] + 205
    3   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa2322 ___forwarding___ + 1010
    4   CoreFoundation                      0x00007fff8bfa1ea8 _CF_forwarding_prep_0 + 120
    5   Network                             0x00000001117ea6fd Network + 50941
    6   Network                             0x00000001117ea35d Network + 50013
    7   Network                             0x00000001117e8b6b Network + 43883
    8   Network                             0x00000001118284e7 decryptOldStylePassword + 130098

...    )

Best Answer

I had this same issue (10.11.1). It was triggered in my case by plugging an ethernet cable into a 5k iMac that had previously only ever used WiFi. The network preferences pane would hang and com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice was shown as taking 100% CPU and "(not responding)" in Activity Monitor.

I tried deleting several network related files in /Library/Preferences but the one that seemed to do the trick was /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist. Deleting that file and rebooting allowed me to load Network Preferences, and everything seems good now.

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