I just started zotero chrome and pdf reader，it happend about 3hours after I started the above app，and I checked zotero energy usage which is 30+ higher than others ，chrome is about 10.then，the power was only 30%，so I close all program and charge the macbook until it fully charged. But the same situation happened ,so i shutdown and reset my macbook,which return to normal，run cold，power consume normally.
The question is about what you see in Activity Manager while you're using Zotero, though, particularly in the CPU tab. If there's a specific action after starting Zotero that causes the CPU or Energy usage to increase and stay elevated, we'd want to know what it is.
Zotero has been using ~30% of CPU for a while. I haven't been doing anything on Zotero for more than 20 minutes. The "CPU Time" column on Activity Monitor says "33:49.59". Zotero uses 67 Threads.
I then quit Zotero and relaunch it. As soon as possible, I click on the Activity Monitor and don't touch Zotero. Its CPU usage changes rapidly 45% -> 25% -> 72% -> 5% -> 9% -> 5% within a minute or so and stays at ~5% after that.
For a while (~5 min), Zotero stays at ~5% and then ~4% and its "Threads" say 57. I haven't touched Zotero at all.
Now I click on the title bar of Zotero. Its CPU use jumps up to 12% and comes down to 7% and stays there.
I click on Activity Monitor again and then Zotero's CPU use goes down to ~4% and stays there. In the meanwhile its Threads goes down to 55.
I then activate a webbrowser, go to a journal article, and click on the Zotero connector. Zotero's CPU jumps up, but eventually settles at 2.7% (record low) and then eventually comes back up to ~4%.
. . . This is the result of an experiment. Zotero hasn't reproduced the initial 30%-CPU state. But, as an idol application, Zotero is the top CPU user on average.
@ryofurue: If you're mostly using Apple Silicon apps, Zotero as a Rosetta app may be a little higher.
30% when idle is certainly not normal, though, and if you see that again you should open Help → Debug Output Logging → View Output to see if anything is happening.
For the idle numbers, are you testing with the cursor in the search box? That will increase the idle usage due to the cursor flashing, which requires constant redrawing.
On an M1 Mac Mini, I'm seeing Zotero use ~0.0% when idle as the frontmost app when the cursor isn't in the search box. With the cursor in the search box, it's ~3.5%.
On a 16" Intel MBP, it's 0.0% not in the search box and ~1.9%–2.2% in it.
In the background (which hides the cursor in the search box), Zotero uses 0.0% either way, even without App Nap kicking in.
Yes, my report was for an M1 mac mini. As you say, on my Intel MacBook Pro, Zotero consumes ~0% CPU when in the background.
No, the cursor position doesn't seem to have an impact upon CPU use. See below.
I've further observed Zotero on my M1 mac mini.
Launch Zotero and click on Activity Monitor right away. Zotero settles on 3.6–3.9% and stays there. (I do something else and from time to time look at Activity Monitor. I never bring Zotero to foreground.) While in the background, Zotero shows no cursor and so you can't tell where the cursor is.
After more than 30 minutes, click on the title bar of Zotero and you find that the cursor is in the search box. I click somewhere else, like one of my collections. The cursor is no longer in the search box.
I then click on other applications to send Zotero to the background again. Zotero goes back to 3.6–3.9%.
That's today. Yesterday, I certainly saw Zotero staying at ~0%. I have no idea why that doesn't happen today. Zotero has stayed at ~4% for several hours.
The Energy tab isn't that useful beyond relative measurements on your own computer (unless you're seeing high Energy numbers while the CPU is idle, which could indicate high GPU usage, but that's unlikely). The main information we'd be interested in is the CPU percentage when idle, without Zotero having an active (flashing) cursor.
the CPU usage jump after opening the first PDF in Zotero
Can you reproduce that reliably? Idle CPU usage is low, and then once you open a PDF, it jumps up and stays up when idle? Does it stay up after closing the PDF tab?
(@ryofurue is using 5.0.96.2, which doesn't have the PDF reader.)
Zotero appears to use a lot of resources. CPU usage on my Mac mini (M1) is very high when active, often >50%, and commonly around 60-80%, sometimes settling to below 1% if idle, but not always. Often when I start up from standby, OS is very slow (not always) when Zotero is open, but sometimes especially noticeable when it detects an update and I install the update. After a while it seems fine, but sometimes it just hangs by Mac completely and have to force quit it, and the OS just dosent seems smooth anymore unless I restart without Zotero running. Very unpredictable I feel.
@Andrew_74: We're seeing the much lower numbers I give above, so if you're seeing something different, you'll need to do as I say above and figure out how to, from Zotero startup, reproduce it going to and staying at higher CPU usage, as well as check debug output to see if anything is happening while it's idle and provide a Debug ID if so. We also need to know the version you're using.
Since this appears to be Apple Silicon/Rosetta–specific, it'll also be worth seeing if this changes in macOS Monterey, which should be released later this month.
Zotero Ver 5.0.97-beta.49+9432cb7e7 & Big Sur 11.6
Admittedly I do have the Mac mini (M1) connected non-natively to an old Apple 27in monitor (via USB-c and DVI - UBS-c adaptor) and an external G-Technology drive (connected directly to USB 3 port on Mac Mini) that often sleeps on idle and slows the OS considerably too when engaging.
It's not just a performance problem as in slowness -- browsers (and Zotero is still based on Firefox) depend hugely on hardware acceleration by the GPU, and since displaylink can't offer that, it offloads the problem to your CPU, which will be working overtime; it will be slow *and* burn through a battery charge like nobodies business. Or at least that used to be a massive problem with displaylink when I was using it a few years ago. If you're seeing a big drain by Zotero, check if that is still the case without a displaylink monitor attached.
Yes thanks, il report back when I install OS Monterrey and eventually upgrade to a proper 4k monitors. Im using a generic USB-C - DVI cable, but not sure if its the cable or just the connection which is not natively supported. Il see as time goes by. Thanks for all your support folks.
I'm seeing exactly the same thing on my MacBook Air M1. I took it into work today fully charged (leaving the charger at home) and was shocked to see the battery down to 20% in mid afternoon. Usually I get well over a day's use out of it. When I checked Activity Monitor Zotero was using way more power than anything else. I'd dragged one doc into Zotero in the morning and left it open in the background.
I don't have any logs but as a quick check just looked at the activity monitor with a few apps open (not inc Zotero) and nothing much happening. Highest energy impact 2.1 (DropBox syncing I think). I opened Zotero and waited for the energy impact to settle after its initial boot and it settled at around 25 to 30... this is with me doing nothing in the app.
@mgoodson: See above — the Energy tab isn't really useful to us. The CPU tab is generally much more relevant, paired with a Debug ID if CPU usage is high. CPU usage should be close to 0% when idle.
We've pushed a new beta version that should fix high (20-60%) CPU usage on M1 Macs after opening the PDF reader. In our testing, this should bring CPU usage after opening the reader back below 1% when idle. (Same with other platforms, where the reader was using ~2-3% CPU before this.) Thanks for all the reports.
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If so, does it happen immediately after starting Zotero, or do you have to do something first before it happens?
But the same situation happened ,so i shutdown and reset my macbook,which return to normal，run cold，power consume normally.
I then quit Zotero and relaunch it. As soon as possible, I click on the Activity Monitor and don't touch Zotero. Its CPU usage changes rapidly 45% -> 25% -> 72% -> 5% -> 9% -> 5% within a minute or so and stays at ~5% after that.
For a while (~5 min), Zotero stays at ~5% and then ~4% and its "Threads" say 57. I haven't touched Zotero at all.
Now I click on the title bar of Zotero. Its CPU use jumps up to 12% and comes down to 7% and stays there.
I click on Activity Monitor again and then Zotero's CPU use goes down to ~4% and stays there. In the meanwhile its Threads goes down to 55.
I then activate a webbrowser, go to a journal article, and click on the Zotero connector. Zotero's CPU jumps up, but eventually settles at 2.7% (record low) and then eventually comes back up to ~4%.
. . . This is the result of an experiment. Zotero hasn't reproduced the initial 30%-CPU state. But, as an idol application, Zotero is the top CPU user on average.
Zotero 5.0.96.2 on a M1 mac mini with macOS 11.4.
30% when idle is certainly not normal, though, and if you see that again you should open Help → Debug Output Logging → View Output to see if anything is happening.
For the idle numbers, are you testing with the cursor in the search box? That will increase the idle usage due to the cursor flashing, which requires constant redrawing.
On an M1 Mac Mini, I'm seeing Zotero use ~0.0% when idle as the frontmost app when the cursor isn't in the search box. With the cursor in the search box, it's ~3.5%.
On a 16" Intel MBP, it's 0.0% not in the search box and ~1.9%–2.2% in it.
In the background (which hides the cursor in the search box), Zotero uses 0.0% either way, even without App Nap kicking in.
Yes, my report was for an M1 mac mini. As you say, on my Intel MacBook Pro, Zotero consumes ~0% CPU when in the background.
No, the cursor position doesn't seem to have an impact upon CPU use. See below.
I've further observed Zotero on my M1 mac mini.
Launch Zotero and click on Activity Monitor right away. Zotero settles on 3.6–3.9% and stays there. (I do something else and from time to time look at Activity Monitor. I never bring Zotero to foreground.) While in the background, Zotero shows no cursor and so you can't tell where the cursor is.
After more than 30 minutes, click on the title bar of Zotero and you find that the cursor is in the search box. I click somewhere else, like one of my collections. The cursor is no longer in the search box.
I then click on other applications to send Zotero to the background again. Zotero goes back to 3.6–3.9%.
That's today. Yesterday, I certainly saw Zotero staying at ~0%. I have no idea why that doesn't happen today. Zotero has stayed at ~4% for several hours.
I have the Zotero PDF viewer activated, the CPU usage depends on how many tab I open but basically it oscillates between 20% and 40% CPU
Edit to answer the first post: the CPU usage jump after opening the first PDF in Zotero
(@ryofurue is using 5.0.96.2, which doesn't have the PDF reader.)
After opening a first PDF it jumps at 25 % average and stays like that, If I open more it can go up to 35 % average.
After closing the PDFs the CPU usage is reduced but do not come back to 2 %. it stays at around 15 %.
I tried fullscreen or minimising to see if it could change anything but nothing is helping
Admittedly I do have the Mac mini (M1) connected non-natively to an old Apple 27in monitor (via USB-c and DVI - UBS-c adaptor) and an external G-Technology drive (connected directly to USB 3 port on Mac Mini) that often sleeps on idle and slows the OS considerably too when engaging.
I don't have any logs but as a quick check just looked at the activity monitor with a few apps open (not inc Zotero) and nothing much happening. Highest energy impact 2.1 (DropBox syncing I think). I opened Zotero and waited for the energy impact to settle after its initial boot and it settled at around 25 to 30... this is with me doing nothing in the app.
@ponyma, @ryofurue, @tomdm_chem, @Andrew_74, @mgoodson