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Why is "dock" taking up 90% of my CPU?!

K

ki2594

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hey all,

Just got my brand new macbook air and restored it from a time machine backup. but for some reason activity monitor is showing "dock" as taking up extreme amounts of CPU usage and it's burning up the fans. Not sure what to do. any ideas?
 
Try restarting the computer. Did your Time Machine backup include any massive applications that could cause your computer to slow down?
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Got Parallels Desktop installed?
Killed Dock via Activity Monitor yet and seen, if the behaviour returns?
Click to expand...

no to parallels and yup, same thing happens.

barredfreak: i do have some big apps which is really the only reason i did it from a back up. but i don't understand why that's making the dock take up so much cpu. it's actually scary how it's still going on lol
 
No parallels install, no VMware, no indexing appears to be going on- still 80-90% cpu usage from the dock. :/ frustrating.
 
have you got any applications open without knowing it? i have the weird knack of just going out of an application and forgetting i even had it open.
 
ki2594 said:
Hey all,

Just got my brand new macbook air and restored it from a time machine backup. but for some reason activity monitor is showing "dock" as taking up extreme amounts of CPU usage and it's burning up the fans. Not sure what to do. any ideas?
Click to expand...
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.
 
GGJstudios said:
  1. Launch Activity Monitor
  2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
  3. Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
  4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
  5. Take a screen shot of the whole Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
  6. Post your screenshots.
Click to expand...
here you are. please save it.
 

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ki2594 said:
still at 90 percent.
Click to expand...
Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Then start quitting processes one-by-one, beginning with the ones that have are owned by your user name, and keep an eye on the Dock.app usage. Hopefully, you'll be able to isolate the culprit.
 
I am having the exact same problem. I just received my Macbook Air today, brand new. Have not loaded Parallels or any other VM ware. I did load CrossOver.

My Dock is running at 94% even after I followed the above suggesting of deleting the plist record from my library and killall Dock.

My Activity Monitor processes looks similar to the Ki2594.

I will try killing the processes as last suggested.
 
I tried killing several processes, either they don't quit or they come back and it's still running at 93% on dock. there is one process that won't force quit called com.apple.dock.extra. Do you know what this process is, whether it's needed, might be the culprit? And how to safely remove it / stop it?
 
Ke5 said:
I tried killing several processes, either they don't quit or they come back and it's still running at 93% on dock. there is one process that won't force quit called com.apple.dock.extra. Do you know what this process is, whether it's needed, might be the culprit? And how to safely remove it / stop it?
Click to expand...

Do you have a /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.extra.plist file? If so, try deleting it and killing your Dock, as I described earlier. Or try deleting that plist, then immediately rebooting.
 
Hey Ke5,

I have the same computer as you do (got it yesterday) and the exact same problem. I'm going to the genius bar today at 5:45 PM PST, I'll update this thread with what they tell me.

Hopefully they can fix it.. I called applecare earlier today, and they said it was a hardware issue, and it might need to be replaced. IMHO, I think it's software, but we'll see.

Not sure if this is happening to you, Ke5, but since dock is using >85% cpu, my temperature is going >90C, making my fans go to 6000RPM, which in turn is killing my battery--I get about 45min on 100%.
 
GGJstudios said:
Do you have a /Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.extra.plist file? If so, try deleting it and killing your Dock, as I described earlier. Or try deleting that plist, then immediately rebooting.
Click to expand...

Hi GGJstudios, I have searched everywhere and do not see a com.apple.dock.extra.plist in the either my home or system library folder. I've also searched for it with spotlight and finder search to no avail.

----------
NitrousFlare said:
Hey Ke5,

I have the same computer as you do (got it yesterday) and the exact same problem. I'm going to the genius bar today at 5:45 PM PST, I'll update this thread with what they tell me.

Hopefully they can fix it.. I called applecare earlier today, and they said it was a hardware issue, and it might need to be replaced. IMHO, I think it's software, but we'll see.

Not sure if this is happening to you, Ke5, but since dock is using >85% cpu, my temperature is going >90C, making my fans go to 6000RPM, which in turn is killing my battery--I get about 45min on 100%.
Click to expand...

NitrousFlare - Yes, please let me know what you hear from the genius bar. Man, I hope it is NOT a hardware issue. Keep me posted. Thanks. 🙂
 
Ke5 said:
Hi GGJstudios, I have searched everywhere and do not see a com.apple.dock.extra.plist in the either my home or system library folder. I've also searched for it with spotlight and finder search to no avail.
Click to expand...
You would have to follow the exact path I posted. Spotlight is useless, as it does not search Library folders. Only Finder can do that. You probably already know this, but some may not: your Library folders are hidden by default in Lion. To get to your /Library or /Users/yourusername/Library (also known as the ~/Library) folders in Lion:
  • Launch Finder and click Go > Go to Folder and type: /Library or ~/Library
  • Hold the Option key while clicking the Go menu item, which reveals your ~/Library folder in the menu.
  • Make it permanently visible by entering the following command in Terminal, then press the Enter key:
    chflags nohidden ~/Library​
  • 18 ways to view the ~/Library folder in Lion
 
GGJstudios said:
You would have to follow the exact path I posted. Spotlight is useless, as it does not search Library folders. Only Finder can do that. You probably already know this, but some may not: your Library folders are hidden by default in Lion. To get to your /Library or /Users/yourusername/Library (also known as the ~/Library) folders in Lion:
  • Launch Finder and click Go > Go to Folder and type: /Library or ~/Library
  • Hold the Option key while clicking the Go menu item, which reveals your ~/Library folder in the menu.
  • Make it permanently visible by entering the following command in Terminal, then press the Enter key:
    chflags nohidden ~/Library​
  • 18 ways to view the ~/Library folder in Lion
Click to expand...

GGJStudio - I do it a slightly different way, but I think it's the same outcome. I was looking in the same directory where I found the other plist file you had me delete earlier (com.apple.dock.plist), so I think I was in the correct place, but didn't find it the one with extra in it (com.apple.dock.extra). I checked the system library file as well, just for good measure. 🙂

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder
 
Ke5 said:
GGJStudio - I do it a slightly different way, but I think it's the same outcome. I was looking in the same directory where I found the other plist file you had me delete earlier (com.apple.dock.plist), so I think I was in the correct place, but didn't find it the one with extra in it (com.apple.dock.extra).
Click to expand...
You did it right, of course. There are many who post questions who don't know such things. It's tough to know in advance what someone's computer literacy level is. It was just a guess on the possible presence of the plist file. I'm finding it somewhat difficult to get definitive information on what that process is or does, exactly. I'm guessing it may be new to Lion, as I don't have that process on Snow Leopard. If I find anything else, I'll let you know.
 
GGJstudios said:
You did it right, of course. There are many who post questions who don't know such things. It's tough to know in advance what someone's computer literacy level is. It was just a guess on the possible presence of the plist file. I'm finding it somewhat difficult to get definitive information on what that process is or does, exactly. I'm guessing it may be new to Lion, as I don't have that process on Snow Leopard. If I find anything else, I'll let you know.
Click to expand...

I completely understand. I also work in the IT world (not Mac support) but other software, so I can 100% relate to your statement. Ha. And absolutely take no offense. Better to assume that way. I also did some searching and couldn't find anything definitive on that file.

Hopefully the guys at the genius bar can help our other buddy NitrousFlare in the next few hours all we'll get some resolution.

Thanks again for your time.
 
so I talked with Apple and after trying everything with them, nothing really worked.

So I made a new admin account and when i logged into that, everything was fine. So I had to delete the other admin accounts (i didn't lose my applications still) and now I have to manually move my music/movies over BUT all is well now at least.
 
GGJstudios said:
You did it right, of course. There are many who post questions who don't know such things. It's tough to know in advance what someone's computer literacy level is. It was just a guess on the possible presence of the plist file. I'm finding it somewhat difficult to get definitive information on what that process is or does, exactly. I'm guessing it may be new to Lion, as I don't have that process on Snow Leopard. If I find anything else, I'll let you know.
Click to expand...



Here's something on com.apple.dock.extra issue aka Voice over issue etc 😱


More on Voice over issue
 
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