GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 644436
High CPU usage after some time
Last modified: 2012-05-21 06:56:37 UTC
Created attachment 183093 [details] perf report When I use gnome-shell in gnome3, after some usage the CPU usage of gnome-shell increases and it is above 50% (sometimes near 90%). Even if I close all applications and start new ones, the CPU usage doesn't drop. I'm forced to log out and log-in again to be able to work normally.
Recently, the behavior has been changed slightly. If I don't do anything in my desktop, gnome-shell consumes around 20-40% and working is slow, but as soon as I start moving a window the CPU usage reaches a value higher than 70%. If I reset gnome-shell, it's CPU usage drops down to around 10% when I move windows, and less than 5% when idle.
I'm getting convinced that the current high CPU usage is due to running a Java application which has a tray icon (and java tray icons appear as a very small window among windows instead of being in the bottom tray). The icon is not visible first, but after resetting Gnome-shell (to reduce its CPU usage), the tray icon is still among windows but at least the icon is visible. And it seems that as while as I have not started another Java application with tray icons (which won't appear correctly), CPU usage is normal. I'm not sure about this, but it is probable.
The relation of high CPU usage when using Java applications with tray icon is also confirmed bug #648773
most likely the trayicon is spamming gnome-shell with property notifications or size changes for some reason, like in bug 613398?
I'm not qualified to decide about that, but it is probable since when the icon is not visible this problem happens and after restarting gnome shell where the icon is visible (but unfortunately still among windows rather than being in the tray) this problem doesn't happen.
Apparently fixed in Gnome-shell 3.2.1