The Hidden Cellular Engine
You might assume that because your MacBook Pro or Mac Studio does not have a SIM card slot, it has no need for cellular networking frameworks. This is incorrect. macOS shares a massive amount of foundational code with iOS (the iPhone operating system). The CoreTelephony framework is deeply embedded in macOS.
On a Mac, CoreTelephony is responsible for managing Continuity features, such as routing standard SMS text messages from your iPhone to the Messages app on your Mac, managing Cellular Hotspot tethering connections, and facilitating Wi-Fi Calling handoffs.
If the CoreTelephony SQLite database or its preferences cache becomes corrupted, the symptoms are bizarre network anomalies. Your Mac might refuse to connect to your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot (even though the password is correct), SMS messages in the Messages app might arrive 10 minutes late or out of order, or the CommCenter background process might spike to 100% CPU usage, rapidly draining your battery. To fix these Continuity and tethering issues, you must purge the CoreTelephony cache via the Terminal.
Locating the Cache Directories
The CoreTelephony daemon relies on cached carrier bundles and preference files stored in heavily protected system and user directories.
Because the framework operates at a low level, standard resets (like signing out of iCloud) often fail to clear the underlying database corruption.
Purging the Cache via Terminal
You must use the Terminal with elevated (sudo) privileges to bypass the filesystem protections and forcefully delete the corrupted states.
- Close the Messages app and disconnect from any active iPhone Hotspots.
- Open the Terminal application.
- First, delete the system-level CoreTelephony caches and carrier bundle states:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.coretelephony/*Press Enter, type your Mac’s administrator password (the characters will remain invisible), and press Enter again.
- Next, delete the user-level preference files that dictate how Continuity interacts with your specific iPhone:
sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coretelephony.plistRestarting the CommCenter Daemon
Deleting the files from the SSD does not immediately fix the issue because the CommCenter process (the primary daemon that handles CoreTelephony traffic) is still running in memory, clinging to the corrupted state.
You must forcefully terminate the daemon:
sudo killall CommCenterThe moment you execute this command, macOS’s launchd architecture will realize the daemon has crashed and will instantly spawn a fresh, clean instance of CommCenter. The new daemon will look for the .plist files, realize they are missing, and generate clean defaults.
Re-establishing Continuity
To finalize the reset, you must re-handshake with your iPhone.
- On your Mac, toggle Wi-Fi OFF and then back ON.
- On your iPhone, toggle Personal Hotspot OFF and then back ON.
When you attempt to connect your Mac to the Hotspot, or when you receive a new SMS text message, the clean CoreTelephony framework will instantly route the traffic without the previous latency or CPU spikes.