High idle CPU usage (≈30%)

[ConnyJ]

Plan

Premium

Country

Sweden

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2
OS Build 19045.7058

My Question or Issue

I recently discovered (maybe a couple days ago) that my Spotify app (Windows store ver) on desktop has been using alot of my CPU while just idle. I have tried alot of things already, like reinstalling the app - both via their site and the windows store version - but to no avail. I also tried disabling/enabling hardware acceleration, no change. I don't have the Local Files feature turned on at the moment. I really don't know what is wrong, whether it is something on my side, or if it is a known issue with the desktop app.

I have attached a screenshot, this is Spotify when just idle.

Please, if anyone has had the same problem, or know of a fix, I would be really grateful!

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.86.502.g8cd7fb22

[joemakkio]

• No SpotifyLauncher in active processes
• Windows 11 25H2
• Tried fresh cache run. CPU consumption was fine until I logged in with my account.
• Using Windows Store app version, I can't find any logs nor on desktop after running your command, neither in "C:\Users\%%\AppData\Local\Packages\SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic_zpdnekdrzrea0\LocalCache\Spotify". The entire "Logs" folder is missing.

[-evan-]

Is this not reproducible? Did the Spotify QA team lose their windows computers? Are we going to have to decompile Spotify windows app and fix the bug ourselves? Confused.

[olafmol]

LOL, exactly. This should be 1 minute to reproduce. Asking all of these questions seems more like a way to pushback and win time tbh...

[olafmol]

- also during idling, there is (very) high CPU usage (and high disk I/O, but no network I/O)
- during idling there is no "spotify launcher" task or process running
- windows 10 
- also tried with clean fresh cache, does not make any difference.

Come on guys, this should not be hard. It's not a strange edge case or race condition, the bug was introduced in the most recent Windows version, there is an internal process going off the rails. Just compare with diff to the earlier stable version and you will see what has changed. Shouldn't be to hard.  If the team doesn't have time or resources, please roll back to the latest known good version, as this one is unusable on less powerful hardware.

[maypym]

My investigation using Process Explorer shows that a specific thread consistently causes high CPU usage on my system, regardless of whether Spotify is idle or playing.

When I suspend this thread, CPU usage drops to nearly zero, while Spotify continues to function normally and playback is unaffected.

This is my current workaround, as changing settings, clearing the cache or reinstalling had no effect.

I hope this information helps identify and fix the issue.

[Yordan]

Thanks for the details everyone and interesting discovery @maypym - I'll share it with the team.

Turns out there was a hidden invisible character in the command lines for creating a log file - I've now removed it and tested it on my end so it should be working. You can also try manually typing it out.

EDIT: The relevant team is unable to reproduce the issue on their end, but they believe a memory dump file of the specific Spotify process that's consuming a lot of resources would greatly help the investigation. You can create one by following the steps below:

1. Open Task Manager and locate the specific Spotify process that's causing high CPU load.
2. Right-click on it and select Create memory dump file.
3. When the operation is complete, open the file's location and upload it to a cloud service like Google Drive. You can then share the link with me and I'll forward it to the team investigating this - just make sure to set the file to be accessible by anyone with the link.

Cheers 🤘

[D_lta]

Even myself with a relatively powerful laptop (i7 - 13650HX, RTX 4060 Laptop), I'm also having the same issue. CPU stays at 0-1% in the login screen, but once I log in the spotify premium process spikes up between 5 - 10%. Tried doing everything in the steps they provided. Hopefully they fix this soon.

Plan: Premium

Update: After doing all the steps, logging out once again after logging in, and logging in once more seemed to fix the issue. 

[D_lta]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AtmE_kv5LAQmL2jJHY3s1Y0DDBfT2Fi2/view?usp=sharing

Hopefully this does help.

[ConnyJ]

A couple days have passed now with CPU usage back to normal for me, there was a moment where the usage got back up for a while, but it seems to have stabilised for now atleast.

I will update if the problem returns!

Update: CPU usage got up to around 30% again, but a simple restart of the app seemed to help for now atleast!

Update 2: Nevermind, the CPU is up again, I guess I'll just wait for the app update.

[maypym]

@Yordan I attached a debugger to gather additional details and identified that the thread causing the high CPU load is named "LgWebsocketClientThread". 

Here is a dump of the process:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O7r-OQi4n-3uYb7DF-Xu04uZ-lTeB8pI/view?usp=sharing

I hope this helps your dev team narrow down the issue.

[Yordan]

Hey everyone,

Thank you for assisting us in the investigation!

With your aid, the team was able to successfully pinpoint the root cause for this behavior and issued a fix in an upcoming version of the app. Stay tuned for updates.

Thanks again for helping us make Spotify better 💚

[Yordan]

Hi folks,

A new version of Spotify should be out now. Could you try updating to see if everything looks good on your end?

In case you don't see the option to update in the app, consider performing a clean reinstall instead - this will get rid of any leftover cache and ensure you're running the latest version of Spotify available.

Let us know how it goes 👍

[-evan-]

To update: 
Three dots top left -> Help -> About Spotify -> Click here to download

[Swift7]

CPU usage is still high for me after updating and also clean reinstalling.

[olafmol]

Unfortunately the latest version does not solve anything, still the same unusable behaviour 😞
I notice (as with the bad version before this one) a very high memory usage (about 2x the amount that earlier stable versions are using), and continuous high disk i/o and corresponding CPU. I am quiet confident this issue has something to with how it parses the cache and/or (large numbers) of playlists and/or tracks.  Maybe there was introduced some change in the caching structure, or a new library/framework to handle cache or other disk storage?

NB i notice after starting the latest version that it takes almost up to 5 minutes (!!) before it's even able to load playlists, it just keeps on "spinning/loading" with the 3 dots, or even claims the playlist does not exist, although it does. Only after minutes it seems to stabilize itself and able to load a playlist, but still with very high disk i/o and CPU usage. 

Going back to an earlier version (as described before in this thread) is still the only solution for me. NB i have about 2000MB in my cache. Already deleted the entire cache, and re-installed/restarted, does not solve anything with the newest version(s). 

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

Chiming in to let you know that there is a currently ongoing issue causing your RAM or CPU usage to become much higher than expected.

The feature causing this is being temporarily disabled and you can restart the app a few times for the change to be picked up. Alternatively, you can scroll down to the bottom of the settings page and under "Startup and window behavior" turn OFF "Allow nearby devices on the same network to start Spotify".

This is on our radar and we'll keep you posted as soon as there's anything new to share. Cheers!

[joemakkio]

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.87.414.g4e7a1155

No more unusual CPU usage on my end. It fluctuates below 1% as it should. 

[olafmol]

What setting should I look for that should be disabled?

[-evan-]

It's still completely broken. The setting they are saying should be disabled doesn't actually exist. Memory leak and high CPU still happening. They even pushed an update and (I assume) disabled feature flags on the backend and it's still broken. Guess sending them a memory dump and my logs didn't help.

Can we just rollback to the previous working version at this point.

[olafmol]

I'm also wondering about all of this? I suspect the developers told the customer support that the issue was from the "startup Spotify over the network" option, as this "option" now seems to be not there again in the settings. But i'm very sure that's not the issue of the high CPU, that seems to be related to heavy disk activity, probably related to the cache. BTW, i have similar issues on my iPhone iOS app, where it can take over a minute to load a playlist, and it stays on the "three dots" view, and the app is really non-responsive. I think Spotify should stress test their apps for large numbers of playlists and tracks, and they will see what we encounter.