Hi all,
In an attempt to speed up my machine (MacMini 2018, usually no issues), I removed NTKDaemon from Login items (along with a bunch of other apps) in an attempt to reduce background processes.
I knew NTK daemon had something to do with native access, and just assumed that if it needed to be running (ie when using native access), the process would just boot up upon opening native access, and perhaps wasnt necessary to be running from login in the background (other software updaters can sometimes do a similar thing, and arent necessary to have running 24/7 in the background necessarily.)
BIG MISTAKE!
I've spent the past 3 hours trying to fix my mac. Upon booting, Finder would continually crash. I was unable to boot in Safe Mode - Mac would just beachball.
Running Disk Utility in Recovery mode would not work - beachball when finding the disks.
Even after resetting PRAM (helped inasmuchas Finder wouldnt just hang upon a normal startup), Finder would still be weird - not allow me to copy/move files, open files. The keyboard would randomly stop typing (it would work for other non-character functions like Command-Tab between apps, but unable to type characters in search boxes, safari, etc).
Suspecting an issue with NTKDaemon/Native Access, I Zapped all existence of Native Access from machine, and re-installed from most recent download on NI website. Still nothing - it was not re-installing the NTKDaemon.
Thankfully on a backup, I had an old version of Native Access. I copied this across, opened it, and was them prompted to install the update. Upon doing this, it promted me to re-install NTKDaemon. The issues have seemingly dissapeared...
I dont know what the exact functionality of NTKDaemon is, but removing it from login items caused some really serious problems with the entire functionality of the OS (not just NI-related software). It was pretty damn scary. NI should definietly look into this, to make sure someone else doesnt have the same issue.
