Very high CPU load on MAC

@noris
I have found the way to reproduce this issue 100% of the time. It is related to network conditions changing.

  • Let’s say I am connected to the internet via my wired router and switch to another network via WiFi - BANG, CPU spikes up.
  • I am connected to the Internet via any type of connection and connect to a VPN - the second I connect to the VPN, CPU usage spikes. It always happens for bot RAATServer and ROON.
  • Restoring previous network conditions (disconnect VPN, connect to initial network) does not make the issue go away.
  • Restarting ROON changes nothing.
  • Issue persists in 1.7
  • It is mitigated ONLY by restarting the whole system (which is impossible to do when you’re actively working…). After which - any change to network conditions will spike the CPU again and the cycle restarts.

Kindly please be more communicative about this issue. This is a serious bug and more communication on your part would be appreciated by those affected.

Thank you!

Hello @Stefan_Stefan,

I appreciate you looking into this behavior further. I have forwarded your reproduction steps to our technical team who will investigate this issue further.

Apologies if you feel we haven’t been communicating enough. This issue is a tricky one to reproduce in the lab, and if we don’t get this behavior occurring on the dev machines it is hard to say what causes it.

I am hopeful your steps here will help shed some light in the issue, I will be sure to let you know once I have more info, thank you once again.

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@noris @support

I have a mac here that does not get out of high CPU usage, whatever I do.

I’m offering remote access to it for you to take a good look. You could even run a debug build on it you desired!

Come and get it while it’s hot!

@Nicolas_Will - I’ve followed up via PM.

Hi @noris,

Is there any update on this topic? I experience the identical issue on my iMac, where periodically the Roon CPU usage goes up to > 200% (even when not playing), and only rebooting the machine brings it back to a more normal 5%.

The iMac has a 3 GHz 6 core i5, 32 GB memory, and Catalina 10.15.2.

Thanks.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Mac Mini High CPU

I just signed for a trial and experience a similar issue. Roon takes 38-50% of CPU all the time.

MacBook Pro i5. Mojave.

Edit: Just found out that the CPU peaks are related to “Background Audio Analysis Speed”. Turned it off and problem solved.

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Thank you very much for your edit! I’d been suffering through the same problem, but now I’ve changed that setting (I’m using “Throttled” right now) and Roon’s started to use a reasonable amount of resources.

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Awesome! I’m glad to help :slight_smile:

My Roon Remote is a late 2013 Macbook Pro. Lately, several times the fan noise of the overheating laptop caught my attention, and every time the culprit was RAAT server. Exiting Roon and restarting the software after a while resolves the problem, until it comes back. I so wish there was a Remote package for Mac, without need to install all the server stuff just to select music on my core.

Same issue here on a MacBook Pro (mid 2014 with Catalina) with the latest version of roon. Core is on another Mac mini.

This seems to be reported by other users too, wanted to add my voice to the mix too.

Issue: persistent high CPU usage by Roon running as a client on my Macbook Pro, fans full blast, loud enough to be distracting while working.

System: Macbook Pro 13" 2019 / Quad core i7 2.8Ghz / 16GB Ram. Output is a JDS Labs Element II dac/amp connected via USB. Running latest version of Catalina and Roon. Connected to a dedicated ROCK on my Lan. Playing music both from ROCK core on my Lan and TIDAL.

Notes: I read earlier another thread that saw CPU usage drop when WLAN was used vs Ethernet. I also found that switching WLAN while I’m on Ethernet lowered CPU use but still burning enough CPU to keep the fan on.

I’m getting the same behaviour.

When I first bought roon last summer everything was smooth, now when I open it not too long after the fans of my mac mini kick in pretty loud and activity monitor shows that room is using over 300% cpu.

This is pretty bad, I don’t want to burn down my computer prematurely.

This problem is old, support is unable to solve. Really disappointed.

Catalina iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)
3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB
Nucleus+

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It is disappointing effectively!

My specs are as follow:
Mac Mini 2018
6 core 3.2Ghz i7
32 gig ram
OSX Catalina

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Hi - posting my experience in case it helps other community members or devs.

I have a recent model iMac (8 core i9 running Catalina) with a wired network connection. It runs Roon remote while the core runs on a high powered intel NUC.

For the first month of running Roon remote on on this machine the CPU ran very high 9 out of 10 times I started it.

I read a thread about how changing the network connection can help.

While Roon was still running and the wired network connection remained active I also enabled (and then disabled) the wifi network connection.

Immediately the CPU usage fell from 320% to 4% and stayed that way.

That was 2 months ago. Since then CPU usage has stayed low 9 out of 10 times I start Roon.

On the 1 out of 10 occasions I start Roon and the CPU goes high I can fix it in a few seconds by enabling and disabling wifi again.

Thanks a lot for the tip I’ll make sure to give it a try next time this happens.
You see, I rebooted my mac 2 days ago and didn’t get CPU issue since then! Go figure, last time I tried that I don’t recall it making a difference.

Hello All,

Please see Dylan’s update on this issue here:

Hi Mark,

I experienced a high CPU issue today, flicked wifi on and off a few times and the CPU got back to normal. Thanks a lot for the tip!

Dear @noris

FYI: Another mac later and countless updates to ROON this issue persists. I constantly have over 200% processor most of the time when ROON is open - even after fresh reboots, essentially making it impossible to use software i Paid for.

I would just cancel Roon at this point, alas I’ve paid the lifelong subscription and all I can hope for is that by the end of this life Roon will have fixed this obnoxious bug.

Honestly, Really disappointed.

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