High CPU Usage & Memory Leak

[KieronQuinn]

Hi, I'm experincing issues with the Spotify program on Windows 10, it constantly uses around 15-16% CPU usage (enough to make my fans spin up more than idle), regardless of whether the program is maximised, closed (which doesn't actually kill the task) or playing music:

On top of this, ever since Windows introduced the feature of re-opening applications on reboot, I find that if Spotify opens or I open it and it restores its state, a memory leak occurs somewhere and it will slowly increase in memory usage until 100% of RAM is in use, at which point the system locks up. Strangely, the process causing this doesn't actually appear in task manager, but the memory tab increases to 100%.

Killing the Spotify task immediately stops the leak and reduces it to normal levels - proving it is to blame. In fact, I've killed it at 97% multiple times, with it falling back to the 40s almost instantly afterwards.

This is on a clean install of Windows 10, installed about a month and a half ago. I started using Spotify about a week after reinstalling for the first time, and both of these problems only started after then. I've tried reinstalling the program, disabling hardware acceleration, installing from the Windows store vs downloading from the web, nothing seems to help. The high CPU usage does not drop after a period of time, it has stayed that high since I launched the program about 10 hours ago.

Specifications:

Windows 10 Professional, Build 1709

Spotify version 1.0.77.338.g758ebd78

Processor: Intel i7-3770

RAM: 16GB

GPU: Nvidia GTX970

It's running off an SSD if that's any help too

[biterror]

I have a similar problem on xubuntu 18.04.  Spotify uses over 2 gigabytes of physical memory and the amount is increasing even when spotify is not playing music.  It also eats CPU while not playing.

The forum did not allow me to post the three lines of top output, it complained about the numbers and discarded my post.

[KieronQuinn]

This is also happening on my laptop, having only just installed it for the first time on this system too

Laptop specs:

Intel Core i7-4750HQ

12GB DDR3 RAM

Intel HD 4600/Nvidia GT950M

Windows 10 Home

This is running the Windows store version of the program, whereas the desktop is using the normal installer, so they both do the same thing clearly

[Denial94]

bump

[minklet]

I just had to force quit Spotify after my computer was being sluggish and I discovered it was using 10gb of Ram. 

OSX 10.13.4

[jmcsnyder]

I am still seeing this residual CPU usage and memory leak and I just checked for updates and confirmed this is leaking on the latest version as of 2018-06-24.  My primary OS is Ubuntu Mate 16.04 LTS.  It sounds like Spotify's desktop client has a problem across the board and this has been a problem for months now without resolution.  When is Spotify going to get on the ball and fix their software?  There are plenty of software development tools out there to quickly identify and fix these sorts of issues, especially when the problem is this bad.

[Loxer]

Hey @KieronQuinn,

Hope you are doing great! 

Please try to disable Hardware Acceleration and see how it goes.

If you have any issues, just give me a shout 😉

Have a nice day 🙂

[jmcsnyder]

What hardware acceleration option? I do not see one in the settings for Spotify. I looked at advanced options and did some Googling to see if Google knows and all I find are dead ends. Apparently at times on certain platforms the option has been there according to some posts, but I seem to fall into the camp of goes where they are told and sees nothing.

[KieronQuinn]

 wrote:

Hey @KieronQuinn,

Hope you are doing great! 

Please try to disable Hardware Acceleration and see how it goes.

If you have any issues, just give me a shout 😉

Have a nice day 🙂

As I said in the first post, I already tried that. Makes no difference.

[Alex_Community]

Hi,

i had simular problems as you.
I contacted the support but they unfortunately couldn't help me.

So what I figured out is, that my NVMe SSD from Samsung caused the issues.

I copied the Spotify Application to a HDD on my computer and created a Directory Junction to the HDD folder and the App was fixed.

Instructions (On Windows):

1. Close Spotify (Task Manager)

2. Copy the folder "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Spotify" to your HDD

for example "D:\AppData\Spotify"

3. Delete the folder "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Spotify"

4. Open a CMD as user (Not Admin) and type in

"mklink /j C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Spotify D:\AppData\Spotify"

5. Start Spotify again

I hope i can help some people with my solution, even if this might not work for everyone.

Spotify really needs to fix this.