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MBP 14" CPU Load issue windowserver + Audio Issue

Z

zepain

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 13, 2021
11
1
I want to report the following issues I see with my new 14 MBP, both are software bugs I am sure.

a) After watching youtube HDR videos on Firefox(!) I see windowserver at 100-400% sucking my battery empty, evn if all apps are closed, only fix is restart. That must be related to the other HDR issues that are known

b) Sometimes when playing apple music the sound suddenly goes all dull, going to next song fixes that.

I have Montery on my M1 MBA as well and havent seen either issue there.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if the first issue has anything to do with watching HDR, but you can see my experience with WindowServer at the link (in short, seems to have fixed itself, though it's still reporting a GB of memory, which seems high).

Someone else mentioned an issue with sound changing while listening to music.

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I got my base 16" M1 Pro last Wednesday. Four or five days ago I set up Safari Technology Preview (STP) on it, which is just Safari with some experimental features and developer tools. For the purposes of this post, I'm pretty sure it's no different than regular Safari. It hasn't updated since I...
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16" Max - audio goes "soft"

I've noticed this a few times, first couple of times I convinced myself I imagined it, but this time I'm more sure - although not 100%. Put on music, enjoy at a pretty decent volume level, listen for 10-20 minutes, then the quality of the music changes. It's like someone is adjusting the EQ...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
zepain said:
I want to report the following issues I see with my new 14 MBP, both are software bugs I am sure.

a) After watching youtube HDR videos I see windowserver at 100-400% sucking my battery empty, evn if all apps are closed, only fix is restart. That must be related to the other HDR issues that are known

b) Sometimes when playing apple music the sound suddenly goes all dull, going to next song fixes that.

I have Montery on my M1 MBA as well and havent seen either issue there.
Click to expand...

Same issue, base MBP 14.

"windowserver" was at 100% CPU and 15GB Memory use. The battery was being drained quickly.

Reason i noticed it was due to my MBP getting hot, with extremely low intensive usage. Went to activity monitor and saw these numbers. Restart did fix the issue.

So far i had this happen twice, randomly. Weird thing is, i have another base MBP 14, and never saw the issue (or maybe didn't notice it).

Hopefully it's not a hardware defect
 
hululu said:
Same issue, base MBP 14.

"windowserver" was at 100% CPU and 15GB Memory use. The battery was being drained quickly.

Reason i noticed it was due to my MBP getting hot, with extremely low intensive usage. Went to activity monitor and saw these numbers. Restart did fix the issue.

So far i had this happen twice, randomly. Weird thing is, i have another base MBP 14, and never saw the issue (or maybe didn't notice it).

Hopefully it's not a hardware defect
Click to expand...
Can't imagine it being hardware if it only happens after being on youtube so far.
When I watch series via VLC or Apple TV it never happens. Must be some windowserver bug. I am sure many more are affected but nit necessarily monitoring their processes as closely.
 
Sanpete said:
I wonder if the first issue has anything to do with watching HDR, but you can see my experience with WindowServer at the link (in short, seems to have fixed itself, though it's still reporting a GB of memory, which seems high).

Someone else mentioned an issue with sound changing while listening to music.

forums.macrumors.com

Self-healing Mac: The jitters and freezes, WindowServer leak

I got my base 16" M1 Pro last Wednesday. Four or five days ago I set up Safari Technology Preview (STP) on it, which is just Safari with some experimental features and developer tools. For the purposes of this post, I'm pretty sure it's no different than regular Safari. It hasn't updated since I...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

forums.macrumors.com

16" Max - audio goes "soft"

I've noticed this a few times, first couple of times I convinced myself I imagined it, but this time I'm more sure - although not 100%. Put on music, enjoy at a pretty decent volume level, listen for 10-20 minutes, then the quality of the music changes. It's like someone is adjusting the EQ...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
FYI I was using Firefox, I never use Safari.
 
Sanpete said:
Yeah, doubt that affects the WindowServer thing, but who knows? Don't think anyone has pinned down what leads to it.
Click to expand...
I agree but many used Safari when hitting the kernel freeze issue which never happend to me
 
I'm having this same exact issue with my new MBP 14. Activity Monitor tells me 'WindowServer' is over 100% and reducing my battery life significantly. Restarting my MBP helps but eventually the error returns. I even tried a full erase and restore and it didn't help. I am also using Firefox by the way.
 
I havent encountered the issue now since I posted. Neither the audio issue. God knows why :) Hope it stays that way, also my battery runtime increased a lot, it's better than on my MBA M1 now.
 
Noticed this happen yesterday and again just now. Was listening to Apple Music both times via the speakers. 14" M1 Pro is currently on battery with moderate auto brightness and the estimated run time is only 8 hours, WindowServer estimated at 189% cpu!
 
Same here, windowserver way too high (over 100% CPU, sometimes over 20GB RAM).
It's better after a restart, but is coming back. I don't have a lot installed and even less running (only Safari, Firefox and Mail at the moment). Annoys me a bit to be honest
 
For me it only triggers after certain YT videos, not any other time
 
I have also been experiencing WindowServer hogging the CPU at 100+%, and sometimes eating a lot of memory. I'm on a 2021 Macbook Pro M1 Pro 16" on Monterey 12.0.1. I also use Firefox for browsing the internet and playing YouTube videos, usually in its tab and sometimes fullscreen.

Apps I usually have open: Finder, Messages, Mail, Notes, Firefox, Discord, Signal, 1Password, Goofy (Messenger), Terminal, VS Code, Spotify, Xcode, tvOS Simulator, Textedit.

I have to restart several times a week to prevent it from eating up my battery.
 
Try just letting it go, not restarting, and see if it fixes itself. If you can stand the side effects long enough. Worked for me.
 
I have disabled Develop > Experimental Features > GPU Process: Canvas Rendering... and I have not seen this issue ever again in Safari.
 
Sanpete said:
Try just letting it go, not restarting, and see if it fixes itself. If you can stand the side effects long enough. Worked for me.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering how long this takes. Right now, windowserver takes about 30GB of RAM in an 16GB Macbook...it runs smooth, but still bothers me
 
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I found out what triggers the windowserver load issue - Fullscreen YT Video , almost always
 
I've got the same issue. I was watching a movie. Laptop was charged 90% at the end of it the MacBook was hot with only 20% left.
It's extremely annoying. Is it related to Monterey?
 
Sanpete said:
Try just letting it go, not restarting, and see if it fixes itself. If you can stand the side effects long enough. Worked for me.
Click to expand...
this was the only fix for me. plugged in and screen off but not in sleep.
haven't had it happen via safari (to my knowledge since 12.1 update) but can reproduce it every time via yt, netflix, prime on chrome
 
zepain said:
I found out what triggers the windowserver load issue - Fullscreen YT Video , almost always
Click to expand...
for me it seems its any video content via chrome (and i've read others via firefox).
safari since 12.1 update for me has been fine.
i'm thinking its an efficiency bug in windowserver, maybe it tries to throttle something to try use less power when playing video content and gets caught in a loop. (i originally thought it was something to do with hdr but it's happened with sd content on prime).
the bugs via safari seem to have got patched so that's why that's fine.
anyway that's my theory
 
I'm also having a similar issue. 14" M1 Pro. 10cpu 16gpu 32gb of ram.

The couple times I've noticed high WindowServer usage has been after watching video content in Chrome. Logging out and back in temporarily fixes the issue. I've not done much testing yet, but it sure is triggering!
 
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