HIGH CPU usage Mac.

[jwindmoeller]

Hey all.

Hoping someone can help.

After the latest update, I am running on overdrive on my machine, spinning fans etc. I have uninstalled and reinstalled and I am getting the same issue even when spotify is at idle. Just running it is straining my CPU. Can anyone help?

A more detailed description, using numbered steps

1. First, I was originally running a previous verison of spotify without the follow feature. 

2. I then downloaded a new install of spotify and installed over the previous version. (The problem started then)

3. I then un-installed and re-installed spotify without removing the caches. (problem persisted)

4. Then, I finally un-installed spotify and deleted caches.

5. I re-installed and am still experiencing the problem.

6. Now I am here.

What I expected to happen

I expected the first install to be an update and my machine to run as normal.

What actually happened

Instead, I am now running on fans whenever spotify is open (not even playing music), I have tried on multiple networks with different proxies as well.

My Operating System

(From the Apple menu, select About This Mac)

E.g. OS X 10.8.3, 

2.3 GHz Intel Core i7

8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

.

My Spotify version

E.g. 0.8.8.454.gfb120cda

My internet provider and country

USA, varied providers

My username

jwindmoell

[jwindmoeller]

Additionally

System profiler information.

Parent process : Launchd_(178)

Process group : Spotify (10082)

%CPU:  182.43

Memory__

Real Memory Size 698.1 MB

virtual memory size 1.75 GB

Shared memory size  0 bytes

Private memory size 626.3 MB

Virtual Private Memory: 927.8 MB

[superpronker]

Is your mac a retina? I'm wondering if that has something to do with it... mine sits on 30% cpu constantly and 125 mb ram. It doesn't help to switch to offline mode or private session or disabling music news on the front page. 

Btw I'm streaming 320 kb. 

[Spotty-fly]

It seems the developers at Spotify must be heavily invested in power shares because my CPU runs at over 30% when playing and well over 20% when not (and supposedly just sitting there doing nothing).

Somebody with more technical knowledge than me should do a sample process on Spotify to see what's really going on, because it's busier than a 4 year old hopped up on sugar on his first trip to a toy store.

(13" Retina MacBook Pro)

[superpronker]

---

@Spotty-fly wrote:

It seems the developers at Spotify must be heavily invested in power shares because my CPU runs at over 30% when playing and well over 20% when not (and supposedly just sitting there doing nothing).

Somebody with more technical knowledge than me should do a sample process on Spotify to see what's really going on, because it's busier than a 4 year old hopped up on sugar on his first trip to a toy store.

(13" Retina MacBook Pro)

---

Hmm, my mac is a retina as well. I wonder if that has something to do with it...

By the way, if you set down the maximum memory spotify is allowed to use it can bring down the CPU usage a bit (30% to 10% for me... still far from optimal but a large improvement). 

[Spotty-fly]

Well, their last update seems to have done the trick. My MacBook is reporting only 10% CPU use during playback and about 6% on pause. Well done Spotify 🙂

[superpronker]

---

@Spotty-fly wrote:

Well, their last update seems to have done the trick. My MacBook is reporting only 10% CPU use during playback and about 6% on pause. Well done Spotify 🙂

---

Dammit, mine is back up to 30% now 😞 I'm on version 0.9.0.133 which version are you using? 

[Spotty-fly]

Hi,

Same version a you but with .gd18ed589 at the end, if that makes any difference?

[superpronker]

Hmm now it's back down to ~7%... don't know what's going on. It may have installed an update in the meantime. At least now I see that I have the same ending as you do. 

[Aslate]

---

@Spotty-fly wrote:

Well, their last update seems to have done the trick. My MacBook is reporting only 10% CPU use during playback and about 6% on pause. Well done Spotify 🙂

---

It uses about 13% for me paused / stopped. Why is it acceptable for an idling program to use so much CPU?

Non-retina but on 10.8.3

[superpronker]

It definitely isn't. I've switched to using the beta web browser player. Even though it runs in flash it's way more efficient. Still 6-10% bu spotify often goes to 30% for hours.

[Spotty-fly]

Interesting solution, I've not tried the web browser player. But I'm still operating at 10% play utilization...not sure why I'm getting the lower figures...possibly because I'm not running high quality streaming?

[stephenc]

I'm using a retina MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8.4. This is not a slow computer, yet Spotify uses 5% of my CPU when idle. Why?!

iTunes, by comparison, uses 0% CPU when idle.

Screenshots below:

http://cl.ly/image/1C3k2d3O3R2P

http://cl.ly/image/261d3V0O1B13

[superpronker]

Be glad it's only 5%... mine is 5% if it's been idling for a while but it seems to sometimes go all the way up to 20%. Maybe it depends on how many other spotify listeners spotify is "seeding" to? 

[ruccola]

I've posted about this too in the general feedback threads. I'm also on a retina Macbook pro, and it seems like the CPU usage increases over time. Now my computer is recently restarted because I installed 10.8.4, and CPU usage right now is 7%. I've seen it as high as 27% before, even on the latest version of Spotify. 

To be fair, that was just after installing it, so maybe it was doing some indexing or something. 

[danshure]

I'm on Mac OS 10.6.8 - Spotify was idling at about 30% (playing music though). I deleted some Apps I don't use and it's idling at 17% now (playing music). I'm not high quality streaming FYI.

[familymangreg]

Hi all, 

I'm a developer with over 15 years experience of developing apps for the Mac.  Its completely unacceptable that an app which essentially when ticking over is doing little but playing a music file, should use so much CPU.  A good development team could sort this out and I think Spotify really need to address this for their  users.

I have a Mac Pro with 2 x 2.4Ghz Quad Core Xeon processors and 17Gb or RAM, so not short on resources.  

I was seeing CPU usage sitting at around 15-16% when playing music and 13-14% when paused.  Clearly unacceptable.

But here is some great advise for you all...  On the view menu, unselect the option to show 'Activity feed'.  As soon as I did this, my CPU usage while playing music dropped to 4-5% and while paused 1-2%.  

So its even more frustrating that it isn't even the core functionality of the app (i.e. playing music) which hogs the CPU.  

Even though with the 'activity feed' switched off its better, the app is still using more CPU than most other apps running on my machine (and believe me I have  alot), even when paused and doing nothing at all!).

So its not a great app and its performance issues certainly need addressing (please listen to us Spofity), but at least things can be improved by switch of the 'activity feed'.

Who needs the activity feed anyway, I just wanna pay my money and listen to music, I don't want others to know what I'm listing to and I couldn't give a hoot what others are listening to either!!!

:wq

[clausmuzak]

There is some crappy coding in this app for sure. Turning off the Activity Feed helps with CPU usage, but even at 2% CPU while idle, this app is consistently at the top of my Activity Monitor. What on earth does is this app doing when idle? PLEASE STOP!

[Peter__]

---

@clausmuzak wrote:

There is some crappy coding in this app for sure. Turning off the Activity Feed helps with CPU usage, but even at 2% CPU while idle, this app is consistently at the top of my Activity Monitor. What on earth does is this app doing when idle? PLEASE STOP!

---

Even when idle the desktop client will still be sharing content on Spotify' p2p network with other clients (just like skype). 

Peter

[ruccola]

I haven't used Activity Feed for a looong time, and my CPU still ends up at 25%. So I don't think that's the culprit either.