Embodiments of this application relate to the field of communications technologies, and provide a system service timeout processing method and an apparatus. The method includes: when a target system service thread in at least one system service thread times out, determining, by a terminal, a first application process communicating with the target system service thread, where the timeout of the target system service thread includes at least one of the following: a locked object occupied by the target system service thread is not released within a preset time, and the target system service thread is blocked; and ending, by the terminal, the first application process.