MDNSResponder is a process that’s widely known for being a part of Bonjour.
The problem is that without this process, the device autodiscovery system started dealing with a variety of problems.
It’s certainly doable to remove this, even if it won’t be something you can eliminate on the spot.
The daemon itself will help discover services that are running on other devices on the network.
Another benefit is that it can also handle any DNS requests for services which are in need of an internet connection.
However, Apple chose to replace this with the discoveryd process. Sometimes you still have the MDNSResponder process working and some virus creators manipulated this in order to try and gain control over your device.
Aside from that, MDNSResponder can also flood your network with junk packets, something you can prevent!
Can You Disable The mDNSResponder?
mDNSResponder can be disabled if you want, and the process is extremely easy to do. You can sign out of iCloud and then maybe restart the computer.
Try to re-log to iCloud and force sync the process. Then you can disable the mDNSResponder, it should work. Of course, disabling it won’t always solve the issues.
Force Quit The mDNSResponder
The way you can do that is via going to the Activity Monitor. From there you can find the process and then select Quit.
Keep in mind that just normally quitting the process will not solve the issue every time. Instead, what you can do is to try and press Force Quit.
Do that and then go to the Network and CPU sections to assess the situation. That way you can see if the service is stable now or not.
In case nothing changes, then you might restart the Mac and enter boot mode for another solution.
Disable Your Firewall
What you will notice is that the Firewall combined with mDNSResponder can lead to issues.
Many times, if you use a third party firewall you might end up with interference.
The best approach here is to enter System Preferences, Security and Privacy, then choose Firewall.
Making sure that you choose to uncheck block all incoming connection. That might be the issue and why mDNSResponder is not working the way it should.
Disabling the firewall is going to help with a variety of networking problems, and this might very well be the case as well!
Use A Mac Cleanup Tool
If you don’t know how to fix it on a Mac, a cleanup tool can assist here. It can allow you to properly identify MDNSResponder instances and remove them properly.
Once you start doing that, it can help prevent issues, while offering an exceptional set of solutions and features along the way.
Using The Terminal
You can open the Terminal and you can remove the process via “sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSresponder.plist”.
However, if you want to eventually bring it back on, you can do that via “sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSresponder.plist Disable mDNSresponder on Mac”.
It’s a nifty approach that will allow you to turn the process on or off depending on the matter at hand and what you are doing.
Is It Safe To Leave It Open?
You can’t leave random processes open and think that they will be ok to leave there without knowing what they do.
That’s the issue, it can flood your network with some junk packets that are rarely useful or necessary to begin with.
Each one of the processes you leave open can be a problem on any Mac device.
Stop this service and then you can see the Mac will work even faster and better, without any possible concerns.
It’s also going to help if you identify the main cause behind this and why the system is keeping the service open.
We recommend whenever you want to remove the MDNSResponder to try and start with a cleanup tool if you can.
Then as you go along you can make some changes and even use the Terminal if that becomes a necessity.
It’s always going to be problematic to narrow down the source of such a problem, but each tool you use might help you achieve that.
It’s never going to be simple to prevent unwanted processes from working, but that’s how you want to pursue this.
Once you know the issue, it’s going to be much easier to remove the problem adequately and without error.
Rest assured MDNSResponder is a process you can remove, yet it can take a little while to do so!