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High CPU usage on MacOS when playing from Playlist Folder

High CPU usage on MacOS when playing from Playlist Folder

Plan

Premium

Country

Belgium

 

Device

MacBook Pro Early 2015

Operating System

MacOS High Siera 10.13.6

Spotify Desktop 1.0.85.257.g0f8531bd

 

My Question or Issue

 I see high CPU usage during music streaming by Spotify. These CPU usages are up to 80% CPU. Strangely enough this happens in intervals, there are periods of low CPU usage (about 2-5%) and then intense usage (60-80%).

 

See attached screenshot to see the interval of the CPU usage.

 

Any ideas?

Screen Shot 2018-07-13 at 14.59.34.png
Reply
12 Replies

Hey, thanks for reaching out.

I know it sounds simple, but it's often overlooked. Could you try restarting your device? If that doesn't help, try a quick clean reinstallation of the app. Just follow the steps here. Try to disable Hardware Acceleration as well and see how it goes. You can find it under Spotify Menu next to the Apple logo. 🙂

If you're still having trouble, could you let me know the exact version of Spotify and the exact version of the operating system you're running?

I'll see what I can suggest!

Hi Loren

 

Both MacOS and Spotify versions are posted in the initial post 😉

 

Edit:

 

Disabling HW acceleration did not help.

Rebooting did not help.

 

Even when Spotify is just open, not streaming music its CPU usage is 50+%

I can't recall this was the case before updating to the latest version.

Hey @Skye07,

 

Thank you for the information.

Try to reinstall Spotify using these steps:

  1. Click Spotify in the menu bar then Quit Spotify.
  2. Open Finder then click Go > Library in the menu bar. (You may need to hold the Alt key if Library isn’t visible).
  3. Open Caches and delete the com.spotify.Client folder.
  4. Click the back arrow.
  5. Open Application Support and delete the Spotify folder.
  6. Download and install Spotify.

Let me know how it goes 🙂

Hi

 

I think I found the problem. Reinstalled but that did not "fix" it.

 

But, the songs that were streaming were from playlists that are nested under a folder. I selected the folder and hit PLAY, if you do that you can see Spotify CPU usage jump from 2-5% to 50+% instantly.

 

Could this be a bug?

 

See attachment:

Hitting the green play button makes Spotify use a lot of CPU (bug?)

Hitting play on a specific playlist does NOT make Spotify use more CPU than expected.

Screen Shot 2018-07-13 at 15.50.59.png

Worth looking into! Does your spotify lag too?

Hey @Skye07,

 

It is important that you follow the steps I mentioned in my previous post. That way you get rid of some leftovers when just reinstalling Spotify.

However, if you don't use local files with Spotify, please go to Settings and disable them.

 

Let me know that goes 🙂

Spotify UI does not seem to lag noticeably when the CPU load is high.

 

@LorenXK I followed your steps to uninstall and then re-download and install the application (perhaps that was not clear from my statement in the earlier post).

 

I also found the 'disable local files' as a possible solution for high CPU usage, tried that as well without any change.

 

I'll be happy to help debugging this problem, just let me know.

Hey @Skye07, thanks for letting me know 🙂

 

Please try to create another user account on your Mac and install Spotify there as well to see if that helps.

If possible try to sign in with another account or sign in with your accoun on another device with similar specs.

Did this high CPU usage happen before or only on the latest version?

 

Thanks!

Hey @Skye07,

 

Do you happen to have a second external monitor?

Could please tell me if playing a song that is not in any of those folders makes a different?

 

Thannk you 🙂

Hi Loxer

 

I can reproduce Skye07's problem. When you create playlist folders and doubleclik on them (or press the green play button to play the whole playlist folder), the CPU usage goes up to 75% (!). When you play a single playlist (not the folder), it drops down to 1,1%.

 

Definitely a bug. Is this the place to report this, or should I post/mail this somewhere else?

 

Just to be clear: fresh Spotify account, local file storage disabled and hardware acceleration off.

 

 

Hi.

 

I noticed from your post that you're not running the latest version of Spotify. The latest version should be 1.0.89.311.gb4a0b2aa. Have you tried updating to that version?

I also tried to reproduce the issue but I couldn't. I played a playlist folder that included 32 playlists. The max CPU % that Spotify used was 3,4%. Running macOS 10.13.6 too.

Thank you for your help!

Hm, Spotify didn't notify there is a new version available. Currently running version 1.0.88.353.g15c26ea1.

 

Just to be sure, after your reply I did a complete reinstall of the application, as per the instructions given on https://support.spotify.com/is/using_spotify/troubleshooting/reinstallation-of-spotify/

 

After the reinstall, I was presented with the same version number as above.

Same procedure to reproduce the problem, same problem remains.

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