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

[Vasil · Accepted solution]

Hey folks! Thank you for your patience.

Happy to let you know this should now be resolved for everyone!

Please pay attention to your RAM and CPU usage and let us know if they start fluctuating again.

We're here for you if anything comes up 🙂

[olafmol]

how is it resolved, and what was the issue? Do we need to install a new version?

[OscarDC]

Hey @olafmol,

Thank you for your message.

The confirmation received from the internal teams was about its fixing, but didn't include such details. For you to see the improvement, it's not necessary to reinstall the app, just make sure that you're running the latest version. 

We appreciate the patience and cooperation of you all.

If anything else comes up, the Community will be here for you.

[olafmol]

new updated version still doesn't seem to fix the issue. Very high CPU, very high disk I/O, very sluggish non-responsive startup behaviour, more than 5 minutes until playlists even load and show.

[olafmol]

So please remove the "solved" status.

[olafmol]

had to go back to old version for a usable version of the windows desktop app. Older versions (like 1.2.84) work ok

[Swift7]

Issue is still present.
Marking the issue as solved while its still present indicates Spotify is neglecting the issue and doesn't care enough for the users who are suffering from it 

[olafmol]

It’s highly irritating and disrespectful to paying customers. I’m a paying Spotify customer since day 1, and now I’m stuck with a Windows desktop app that simply is unusable. It’s not acceptable that I A) need to wait more than 5 minutes or more for the app to even start loading playlists and playing music, and B) have my laptop use a huge amount of power and CPU while Spotify is loaded but not doing anything. 
But the most irritating thing is declaring a serious issue as “solved” just to reach your metric targets. Again, it’s NOT solved. A serious bug was introduced somewhere between x.84 and .87 and now the windows desktop app cannot be used normally anymore. Remember the Sonos f-up? This feels a lot like it. 

[Yordan]

In that case the root cause for you might be something different @Swift7, @olafmol.

What you can try is changing the current Hardware acceleration settings for the app - you can do this from the three dots menu in the top-left corner > Troubleshooting > Disable/Enable Hardware acceleration and restart.

Something else that comes to mind is heading disabling any proxies you might be using. In the app, you can do this via the steps below:

1. Click on your profile picture at the top right.
2. Select Settings.
3. Scroll down all the way to the bottom and under Proxy Settings, set the 'Proxy type' to No proxy.
4. Click Restart.

Lastly, it's worth flushing your DNS cache to rule out any potential issues with corrupted data:

1. Press Win + R to open Run.
2. Enter the following command: ipconfig /flushdns

Hope this helps.

[olafmol]

Listen, I work in IT, i already did ALL of these things (and more). Believe me that this bug has nothing do with with networking, GPU accelartion, stale configs, stale caches, proxies, network settings etc.

[Swift7]

I have tried those methods and yet the issue is still there..

[-evan-]

I'm going to tentatively say that the problem is solved for me, however, I'm not sure yet. I'll edit this comment if I observe it again.

However, the devs might've used my logs and memory dump to "solve" this issue, so maybe they just solved it on my machine **bleep**. I would give logs and memory dump while problem is occuring to Yordan and maybe he can pass them onto the devs.

Obviously, all of the generic troubleshooting steps are useless, the app itself is/was just broken

[olafmol]

When i scroll down my playlists and skip a big number of playlists, then try to open a playlist, i see the cpu and disk spike up again for a few minutes, as if its trying to load/cache this new playlist and a set of surrounding playlists in memory, and can only hold so much. The strange thing is that .84 seems to behave

much more efficient on the same hardware and with the same settings. 

Update: i did some more timing etc. With the latest .87 version, it takes me about 5 minutes before the app settles down and I can actually load playlists and play a song. During that 5 minutes, loading playlists also times out most of the time, it simply shows the blinking dots and then shows "this playlist does not exist", even though the playlist is existing. 

With an older version .84 there is also high CPU and disk I/O for about the first 2 minutes, but the app is not unresponsive, i can click on a playlist and it will load and show after about 5 to 10 seconds, and then playing a song takes also about 5 to 10 seconds. But no time-outs with loading playlists on this version. When the app settles down after about 2 minutes, the response is much snappier with loading playlists and playing songs.