About High Battery Usage

aserhatkaraduman

Hi,

I think Zotero is quickly draining my MacBook Air M2’s battery. About an hour ago, the battery was fully charged, but now it’s down to around 70%. Normally, I don’t see this kind of battery drain; it would usually last from morning until evening. The applications I have open on my computer are Zotero 7, Word, ChatGPT, and Acrobat Reader. There is also around 2.5 GB of RAM usage. Do you think this is normal?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3565171/waw32otuuvumfgf7u678.png

dstillman

Restart in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”), which temporarily disables all plugins. Does that fix this?

aserhatkaraduman

Hello again,

I did as you suggested, but it seems like there is more consumption now. I hope I’m not doing something wrong.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u3565171/lqx5mqiv3ps79owi571j.png

dstillman

That's certainly not normal, but the Energy tab isn't that useful for troubleshooting unless it's showing something not reflected in other tabs. What do you see for Zotero in the CPU tab during normal usage?

aserhatkaraduman

I'd like to take a screen recording to help you better understand the issue. When I'm actively using the program, such as moving through pages while reading PDFs, the consumption spikes significantly. However, when I'm not doing anything and just leaving it idle, it drops. Therefore, if it's okay with you, I'd like to take a screen recording and email it to you.

dstillman

I mean, that sounds normal. When you use any app, the CPU usage will spike. But you can email a video (or, if it's large, a link to it) to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread if you want us to look at something.

apf102

Did you ever get to the bottom of this. Zotero is also using a LOT of power on my MBP M1. Just having it on and with a pdf open to read means it is using about 40% of my total power consumption with the rest coming from extensive streaming and video calls. Am also wondering if the Zotero plugin is causing strain in Safari too.

Am going to to switch to using a different viewer and only opening Zotero when needed. Will see what happens.

EDIT

Ran some tests just scrolling through PDFs to simulate reading. If I do that via Zotero then Energy Usage sits between 100 and 350 on the live update (with a peak around 650 when opening). Usually sitting somewhere between 150 and 200.

If I switch to the Preview app instead and close Zotero then the range is more 50 to 250 (with a peak around 450 when opening) sitting mainly in the 70-95 region.

So Zotero is definitely more of a battery hog and I am not sure why. So a few hours of active Zotero reading today used 59 in the 12 hour Power stat. Word, which was open for the same amount of time used 38.