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11.5+: TouchBar, CapsLock usage causes beachball and overheating, WindowServer high CPU

twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
I noticed with macos 11.5 and 11.5.1, sometimes when I'm watching a video (youtube in Chrome or Safari or Spotify) when I try to change the volume up or down the visual representation on screen of the volume changing will be very slow (a few seconds for each tick instead of instantly) and the cursor will beachball. The area above the touchbar will overheat.

I just had to hard reset and it's not doing it right now, but seems to do it after my MBP has been running a while.

In Activity Monitor, WindowServer seems to be spiking for % CPU.
Touching CapsLock repeatedly also triggers this.

This still happens with only Finder and Activity Monitor open.


Automatic graphics switching is on. Should I turn it off?
 
Last edited:
twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
In Activity Monitor, WindowServer seems to be spiking for % CPU.

Other TouchBar touches like changes brightness are the same. Delayed on screen and beachball.

This doesn't seem to be related to video now, altho it's more noticeable when video is playing.
This still happens with only Finder and Activity Monitor open.

MBP (2019) i9 2.4GHz/32GB/1TB
 
Last edited:
twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
Screen Shot 2021-08-05 at 2.12.29 PM.png


Screen Shot 2021-08-05 at 2.13.53 PM.png

This still happens with only Finder and Activity Monitor open.
 
Last edited:
jackqu7

jackqu7

macrumors newbie
Aug 7, 2021
3
1
I have found a workaround for brightness at least:

In keyboard preferences change touchbar to function keys

In keyboard shortcuts -> display, set brightness up/down to (eg) F6 and F7.

This seems to avoid the lag. You could do this for volume too but I think you'd need a third party tool for that.
 
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twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
jackqu7 said:
I have found a workaround for brightness at least:

In keyboard preferences change touchbar to function keys

In keyboard shortcuts -> display, set brightness up/down to (eg) F6 and F7.

This seems to avoid the lag. You could do this for volume too but I think you'd need a third party tool for that.
Click to expand...

Interesting why that would fix things since it's still using the Touchbar? I'm just using Control Center as a workaround but I'd like a real fix.

Yesterday I noticed there was a new version of the NTFS driver, and I haven't had the main issue since then

www.seagate.com

Paragon Driver | Support Seagate US

Get support information about the Paragon Drivers for external Seagate drives.
www.seagate.com

Strangely, the caps lock causing WindowServer to spike CPU is still happening.
 
jackqu7

jackqu7

macrumors newbie
Aug 7, 2021
3
1
Just to rule something out - I had "Logi Options" installed for a Logitech keyboard, tried removing that just in case but the problem has recurred. It seems like rebooting every day is the only solution at this point.
 
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twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
jackqu7 said:
Just to rule something out - I had "Logi Options" installed for a Logitech keyboard, tried removing that just in case but the problem has recurred. It seems like rebooting every day is the only solution at this point.
Click to expand...

Someone mentioned Xcode beta somewhere else, but I only have Xcode (non beta).

homebrew too. not much else.
 
jackqu7

jackqu7

macrumors newbie
Aug 7, 2021
3
1
Yeah, me too. Also BetterTouchTool but the feeling from their forums is that it is not related, the dev says it's an OS issue.

I think the problem is people are changing things and then rebooting so it seems like it's fixed but it recurs after a while, which makes it difficult to pin down.
 
twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
jackqu7 said:
Yeah, me too. Also BetterTouchTool but the feeling from their forums is that it is not related, the dev says it's an OS issue.

I think the problem is people are changing things and then rebooting so it seems like it's fixed but it recurs after a while, which makes it difficult to pin down.
Click to expand...

Hmm I don't have that or Logitech stuff so it's not that.

Any logs we can check?
 
twanj

twanj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
1,176
1,634
Pompano Beach, FL
I think it's been mentioned before but logging out also stops WindowServer so not sure if that's faster than rebooting.

macsecurity.net

How to fix WindowServer high CPU and memory usage on Mac - MacSecurity

This guide explains how to address high CPU usage by WindowServer, nsurlsessiond, mdnsresponder, mds_stores, hidd, trustd, and syslogd processes on Mac.
macsecurity.net macsecurity.net

Going thru the above & see I had dropbox & virtualbox in LaunchAgents. Nothing else sketchy looking but always good to clear out the junk.
 
ryanmillercg

ryanmillercg

macrumors regular
Jul 25, 2014
100
136
Toronto, ON
twanj said:
I noticed with macos 11.5 and 11.5.1, sometimes when I'm watching a video (youtube in Chrome or Safari or Spotify) when I try to change the volume up or down the visual representation on screen of the volume changing will be very slow (a few seconds for each tick instead of instantly) and the cursor will beachball. The area above the touchbar will overheat.

I just had to hard reset and it's not doing it right now, but seems to do it after my MBP has been running a while.

In Activity Monitor, WindowServer seems to be spiking for % CPU.
Touching CapsLock repeatedly also triggers this.

This still happens with only Finder and Activity Monitor open.


Automatic graphics switching is on. Should I turn it off?
Click to expand...
You're definitely on to something, but might I suggest eliminating Chrome as a possibility?

You can read up on a Chrome/WindowServer issue here: https://chromeisbad.com/
 
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