MacRumors Site/Forums Causing Battery Drain?

[tennisproha]

I changed it in the past couple of hours. Still?

For me, it's fine when I'm initially browsing the forums. But then clicking a certain link seems to trigger the cpu utilization spike and it stays high even after I go back, off that page.

I've noticed navigating to the following link from the Notification Alerts always triggers it for me: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...n.2298839/page-14?post=30584472#post-30584472

 

[black_knight]

I am experiencing significant battery drain when browsing Macrumors. 5% drainage can happen in a matter of 10 minutes on the site. 12 Pro with 100% battery life for reference.

 

[GuruZac]

Yeah unfortunately this website is simply not usable for me anymore on my iPad. It drains the battery 1% every minute and my iPad gets noticeably warm. Only website that does this. I have multiple ad blockers active including AdBlock Pro, Ad Block, Ad Blocker, Firefox Focus. None of them seem to work. Bummer as I enjoy coming here but not worth the excessive drain and whatever else is going on with the CPU.

 

[GuruZac]

I am experiencing significant battery drain when browsing Macrumors. 5% drainage can happen in a matter of 10 minutes on the site. 12 Pro with 100% battery life for reference.

Yep, that’s where I’m at as well. (2021 iPad Pro for reference)

 

[arn]

Yeah unfortunately this website is simply not usable for me anymore on my iPad. It drains the battery 1% every minute and my iPad gets noticeably warm. Only website that does this. I have multiple ad blockers active including AdBlock Pro, Ad Block, Ad Blocker, Firefox Focus. None of them seem to work. Bummer as I enjoy coming here but not worth the excessive drain and whatever else is going on with the CPU.

I have a solution.

1. Keep ad blocker on
2. Settings -> Safari -> Advanced -> Website data - search for macrumors.com -> swipe left to delete

I’ve managed to test this in person and this seems to fix it. I’ll expand more later, still looking into it.

 

[GuruZac]

I have a solution.

1. Keep ad blocker on
2. Settings -> Safari -> Advanced -> Website data - search for macrumors.com -> swipe left to delete

I’ve managed to test this in person and this seems to fix it. I’ll expand more later, still looking into it.

Thanks @arn Trying now. Will keep you posted. Appreciate your willingness to work this out.

 

[Cayden]

I’ve tried the website data delete method multiple times, but it never seemed to fix the issue for me. I recently did find a solution that worked (for me at least). I had used a firewall application previously but for some reason the safari extension wasn’t turned on. I turned it on a few days ago and haven’t had a problem since (I guess it was an ad issue for me?)

 

[GuruZac]

Thanks @arn Trying now. Will keep you posted. Appreciate your willingness to work this out.

Hey @arn sadly no luck. I’ll keep trying and will test any procedures you send our way and give feedback.

 

[GuruZac]

BTW, presumably my ad blockers are not working? I have 4 of them being used in my Safari extensions and no luck. Still seeing ads on MacRumors. Maybe it’s my ad blockers Not working properly?

 

[yitwail]

BTW, presumably my ad blockers are not working? I have 4 of them being used in my Safari extensions and no luck. Still seeing ads on MacRumors. Maybe it’s my ad blockers Not working properly?

Ad blockers won't help. I don't see any ads whatsoever, but it still runs the battery down and turns phone into a hand warmer.

 

[GuruZac]

Ad blockers won't help. I don't see any ads whatsoever, but it still runs the battery down and turns phone into a hand warmer.

Why would none of my apps block advertisements I’m seeing on every website? Do I have to also enable Content Blockers? The only option under Content Blockers is to block All Websites which inhibits content to be shown I need to access like on my school D2L page.

 

[vddobrev]

Why would none of my apps block advertisements I’m seeing on every website? Do I have to also enable Content Blockers? The only option under Content Blockers is to block All Websites which inhibits content to be shown I need to access like on my school D2L page.

Can you just toggle off/on the ad blockers, sometime things get stuck. For me personally nothing worked until I became a contributor with $25 per year. Since then, all performance problems with the site are gone. So whatever @arn is switching off for contributors is working like a charm. Think about it, for just $25 a year you get the peace of mind and also support one of the best Mac sites.

 

[arn]

Still investigating this, and was able to replicate it. I'm convinced it's an Safari/WebKit bug. That doesn't mean I'm sure we'll get a solution for it.

But, I don't otherwise see how this would be possible.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1459690546402889735

 

[GuruZac]

Still investigating this, and was able to replicate it. I'm convinced it's an iOS/WebKit bug. That doesn't mean I'm sure we'll get a solution for it.

But, I don't otherwise see how this would be possible.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1459690546402889735

Thanks @arn for digging in to this.

 

[TimmuJapan]

I'm on a 2020 i3 intel MacBook Air and my CPU usage is going crazy when browsing macrumors with Safari. I just noticed this today. Why is macrumors attacking the Macs while using safari? I hope that this gets fixed soon.

 

[TimmuJapan]

This is a 2012 MBP 15 inch, and the same thing is happening. I have CNN and macrumors open in Safari. CNN is using about 1% CPU and having macrumors open is using close to 100%--I'm not even scrolling... It is just open and using 100% CPU.... I'm sure that macrumors would never use our CPUs to mine for crypto, so I'm not even going to go there, but something isn't right..... It is less noticeable on the 15 inch MacBook Pro compared with the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air immediately hits very high thermals on this site...... I'm a big macrumors fan, but this is not good. Other free websites can find ways to make money without eating through the users CPUs......

 

[TimmuJapan]

In MacOS, if I go to Safari --> preferences --> security --> then UNCHECK Enable Javascript, macrumors will stop eating through the CPU. Using this site with chrome normally, I see nothing abnormal happening with the CPU.

 

[arn]

Status update.

I've identified an issue that is reproducible that causes persistent high CPU usage. What I've found is related to ad-code, though can persist even when ads are blocked. It might explain the weird inconsistency we've seen on this. But not sure it explains it 100%. Regardless, I'm going to hope this is the issue.

- Reported to Apple. But even if they agree it's a bug and fix it, iOS updates happen relatively infrequently, so something we have to deal with
- Ad network is aware. I hope they can figure out how to fix it on their end. Right now I've implemented what is an unofficial patch for logged-in users. So if you stay logged in, I hope it doesn't recur. You may have to remove website data (Settings -> Safari -> Advanced -> Website Data -> find MacRumors -> swipe Left to delete) from MacRumors.com to completely clear it first. Hopefully a broader fix will be available soon.
- Even if the Ad network fixes the issue, it's something that presumably any Javascript can trigger. So even with an Ad network fix, I'm not sure we are completely in the clear.

arn

 

[TimmuJapan]

Thank you. This is all great, another unofficial fix is to just use chrome for macrumors, but it will be nice when macrumors and safari on Mac play nice again together, thank you.

 

[arn]

Thank you. This is all great, another unofficial fix is to just use chrome for macrumors, but it will be nice when macrumors and safari on Mac play nice again together, thank you.

On mac that will work, on iOS it prob won’t since all iOS browsers use WebKit.

 

[TimmuJapan]

In checking the system status with my iPad Air, macrumors uses about 26% of the cpu with the page open in safari and about 6~7% of the cpu in chrome. I think it is the same on iOS. Macrumors doesn’t attack iOS or macOS cpus while using chrome. I had no other apps open when I took these snapshots.


edit- I repeated these tests once more. Sometimes safari is fine and uses low CPU with Mac rumors in iOS like chrome, but it doesn’t seem to be consistent.

 

[aKansasKid]

TL/DR: It's happening on my iPhone 6s running iOS 13.7 if I turn AdBlock Plus off.

Wow! What a riveting thread! Just finished reading all 17 pages tonight. I seldom look at MacRumors on my phone, and my desktop is Windows 10, so I hadn't encountered this problem so far.

As a test, I turned AdBlock Plus off and surfed MR forums on my 6s. Ouch - each page load consumed over 1%. Battery dropped 10% after loading 8 pages. Turned AB+ back on and battery didn't drop even 1% doing the same thing.

Since I'm on iOS 13.7, I'd think if there's a problem in Safari or WebKit, it's been there for several releases. Given that, don't be surprised if Apple just hands the problem right back to you and your ad servers.

Good luck, Arn!

 

[arn]

TL/DR: It's happening on my iPhone 6s running iOS 13.7 if I turn AdBlock Plus off.

Wow! What a riveting thread! Just finished reading all 17 pages tonight. I seldom look at MacRumors on my phone, and my desktop is Windows 10, so I hadn't encountered this problem so far.

As a test, I turned AdBlock Plus off and surfed MR forums on my 6s. Ouch - each page load consumed over 1%. Battery dropped 10% after loading 8 pages. Turned AB+ back on and battery didn't drop even 1% doing the same thing.

Since I'm on iOS 13.7, I'd think if there's a problem in Safari or WebKit, it's been there for several releases. Given that, don't be surprised if Apple just hands the problem right back to you and your ad servers.

Good luck, Arn!

Were you logged in on your iPhone 6s when testing?

I can reproduce this particular issue on Big Sur and Monterey. There may be other issues as well. Chances are this is one of several potential issues. There's always complaints about battery drain on new point releases, so maybe it's part of it.

 

[aKansasKid]

Were you logged in on your iPhone 6s when testing?

I can reproduce this particular issue on Big Sur and Monterey. There may be other issues as well. Chances are this is one of several potential issues. There's always complaints about battery drain on new point releases, so maybe it's part of it.

No, wasn't logged in.

 

[aKansasKid]

No, wasn't logged in.

And, I should add: With AdBlock Plus off, and not logged in, each time I'd click on another thread, the page would load, and when apparently finished loading content, the "busy wheel" would spin for awhile, but never continued to spin for a long time. I'd then have ads - and over 1% less battery each page. Didn't notice any drop once a page was loaded.

So I guess all I can report is that with ads on, each page was consuming over 1% battery, and it dropped to almost no battery usage with ads off. Luckily, my phone didn't heat up, since activity seemed to lessen once all the ads finished.