Calculating roots seems significantly slower on darwin compared to
linux. Checking for /profile/ links could show some false positives but
should still catch most issues.
It's pretty easy to unintentionally install a second version of nix
into the user profile when using a daemon install. In this case it
looks like nix was upgraded while the nix-daemon is probably still
unning an older version.
A protocol mismatch can sometimes cause problems when using specific
features with an older daemon. For example:
Nix 2.0 changed the way files are compied to the store. The daemon is
backwards compatible and can still handle older clients, however a 1.11
nix-daemon isn't forwards compatible.