I have been learning python using VScode. I've noticed recently that as soon as I start VScode my CPUs get maxed out and my whole computer is sluggish. When I run the activity monitor I see as many as 5 rg processes running and up to 4 'Code Helper' processes. These processes use up to 125% of CPUs. When I quit VScode, the Activity Monitor still reports a lot of cpu percentage for 'Code Helper', and continues reporting that for over 20 minutes after I quit VScode. Does anyone have any idea why VScode is using so much cpu time? I'm using the latest VScode on my iMac running High Sierra 10.13.5 and VScode version 1.24.1
MacOS – Visual studio Code maxs out the CPUs even when its just open
macosvisual-studio-code
Related Solutions
The first thing you might want to do is restart it. That will probably fix the problems.
Other things you might want to check:
- Do you have enough free disk space?
- How much RAM do you have? Are you running any memory intensive application (or many)? I.e. you might have photoshop sitting idle, but ten 80mb RAW files open… that uses RAM, not CPU (as long as you’re not processing them in any way).
- Are you running any sort of Virtualization software (VMware, Parallels, VirtualBox?) If yes, are they running a Virtual Machine?
- Is your computer Paging too much to disk? (See activity Monitor, memory: Page ins vs. Page outs). A lot of Pageouts is bad (compared to Ins). That means your box is lacking physical RAM memory and must write to the (slow) HDD to save the memory pieces. This is one of the #1 causes for slowdowns. note: some page outs are ok, the system uses the swap no matter how much ram you have.
- You already mention it, but sort by CPU Usage in All Processes (Activity Monitor) and make sure no process goes crazy every now and then.
Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.App) and execute:
ls -lh /var/vm
The output will consist of one (or more) swapfile0, 1, 2… and next to them you’ll see the size. Small sizes are ok (a few hundred Megabytes). If that swapfile is huge, then you have an Insufficient RAM problem. You need more RAM or less programs at the same time.
Here’s my output: (I have 12 GB of RAM, so that’s a lot to spare)
In the end, restart your computer and monitor those values throughout the day(s).
Testing seems to show that the culprit is Intel's Turbo Boost technology, which disables processor cores on the fly without telling the OS. Since they aren't running the CPU idle process, activity monitor doesn't account for them, and it appears that the machine is under 50% idle when the reality is that it's near 100% idle.
At the moment it doesn't appear as though this can be easily disabled or controlled under OS X: How can I disable CPU throttling and CPU disabling?
Turbo boost is built into many Core i7 and i5 processors, and some of the latest Core i3 processors. You will have to check your processor version against intel's list of Turbo Boost capable processors to find out if yours has it. If you don't have sandy bridge, you probably don't have turbo boost.
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Best Answer
High CPU is caused most probably by some VS Code extensions. Try running VS Code with all extensions disabled and check if You still experience such CPU. From my experience the Import Cost extension can cause quite high CPU load..
If the CPU is allright with extensions disabled try enabling it one-by-one (work a little bit between enabling every next one) and try to locate which extension is a real CPU eater.
Here is a very good article about troubleshooting performance issues with VS Code: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/Performance-Issues
Good luck!