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[rito]

Hello!

Since I installed Sonoma yesterday, the temperature of my Macbook Pro goes through the roof while using Mediacenter (31.0.60). The Activity Monitor shows 90% CPU usage and the fans start spinning. Usually the fans stay quiet with almost all programs - before, Sonoma Mediacenter did not bother the CPU or the fans at all. There are also problems with MC's menus - I need three or four clicks to open any menu of the program.

The high CPU usage happens only while playing music (does not matter how a FLAC files is encoded). As soon as MC sits idle, the temperature and the usage go down.

I'll attach a screenshot to show you what's going on

[blgentry]

I upgraded to Sonoma 15 minutes ago.  MC31.0.59 uses about 20 - 30% CPU on my system.  I have the spectrum displays disabled (in the area where the song name is shown).  Those consume a TON of CPU on Mac.

In TheaterView, it consumes closer to 50% CPU.  This is still not an issue on my system (M1 MacBook).

The menus are erratic.  On a secondary display the menus sometimes will not appear at all.  Right now they are working but don't respond immediately to clicks.  Sometimes a single menu seems to get stuck even when clicking the header of another menu.

It's playing music normally as far as I can tell.  I'll bet the UI issues get resolved pretty soon.

Brian.

[rito]

Disabling the spectrum displays brings me down to 50% cpu and the temperature stays down. thx for the hint!

[bob]

14.0 or 14.1 ?
I'm not seeing that behavior.

[blgentry]

Regarding the menus only working intermittently:  I'm running MacOS 14.0.

I see this behavior after switching away from MC31 (focusing on something else) and then coming back to it.  Menus sometimes take 2 clicks.  Other times they will not work at all.  The "Media Center 31" menu always works.  It's the other 6 menus that malfunction. 

Restarting MC31 makes them work again for a while.

Brian.

[bob]

I upgraded to Sonoma 15 minutes ago.  MC31.0.59 uses about 20 - 30% CPU on my system.  I have the spectrum displays disabled (in the area where the song name is shown).  Those consume a TON of CPU on Mac.

In TheaterView, it consumes closer to 50% CPU.  This is still not an issue on my system (M1 MacBook).

The menus are erratic.  On a secondary display the menus sometimes will not appear at all.  Right now they are working but don't respond immediately to clicks.  Sometimes a single menu seems to get stuck even when clicking the header of another menu.

It's playing music normally as far as I can tell.  I'll bet the UI issues get resolved pretty soon.

Brian.

On a Mac M1 12.7 compared to 14.0 I see it using more CPU on 14.0 but it's maxing at 80% of one core. If you look a the CPU history it still around 10% total.
Now I also see the spectrum analyzers using about 1/2 of that. Those have always been CPU hogs on non-windows platforms, it's related to the drawing code.
In addition, I see that there is more CPU use than I would expect during audio playback. Like quite a bit more. Even on older intel MacOS versions. Checking into that.

[bob]

On a Mac M1 12.7 compared to 14.0 I see it using more CPU on 14.0 but it's maxing at 80% of one core. If you look a the CPU history it still around 10% total.
Now I also see the spectrum analyzers using about 1/2 of that. Those have always been CPU hogs on non-windows platforms, it's related to the drawing code.
In addition, I see that there is more CPU use than I would expect during audio playback. Like quite a bit more. Even on older intel MacOS versions. Checking into that.

It seems to me that most of the CPU (with the spectrum analyzer turned off) is coming from the updating of the progress bar. If you hit pause that seems to drop the use dramatically.
I'm going to make a couple of tweaks to that and make a beta build.

[blgentry]

It seems to me that most of the CPU (with the spectrum analyzer turned off) is coming from the updating of the progress bar. If you hit pause that seems to drop the use dramatically.
I'm going to make a couple of tweaks to that and make a beta build.

Mmmmm code optimization!  Sounds fun.  Kinda.  Best of luck Mr. Bob. 

Brian.

[blgentry]

Just installed 31.0.65 (beta) for testing.
CPU stats:

Stopped:  0.1%
Playing without Spectrum Analyzers:  10 - 12 %
Playing WITH Spectrum Analyzers:  40 - 43%
Playing in Theater View with automatic slideshow from internet:  35 - 48%
Stopped in Theater View:  35 - 48%

I think this is lower CPU consumption with spectrum turned off.  About the same in Theater View.  I have to stop Theater View when I take my laptop off of main power because it consumes so much CPU that it chews the battery, even when supposedly in low power or sleep mode.  This is not a problem; I have adapted to it.  Just giving a data point in case you are interested.

Brian.

[rito]

Version 31.0.65 is better! Playing a FLAC file needs about 30% CPU - with spectrum analyzers enabled it goes up to about 60% (minus 20 or 30% compared to version .60)

[EnglishTiger]

rito & blgentry it looks like the Architecture of your Laptops is having some detrimental impact on the CPU usage because I am consistently getting lower results on my M1 Mac-Mini.
I've even found some MC Configurations that consistently use less than 10% of the CPU - https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137111.0.htm

[blgentry]

rito & blgentry it looks like the Architecture of your Laptops is having some detrimental impact on the CPU usage because I am consistently getting lower results on my M1 Mac-Mini.

My laptop that I tested on is an M1 MacBook Pro.  If you haven't run a test recently, you should.

Note about my testing:  I do NOT look at total CPU utilization.  I look at CPU used by the MediaCenter process, as listed in the big window in Activity Monitor.

The total CPU used by all programs on the entire system, as reported at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window, will be much smaller because it takes into account all 8 CPUs and averages everything.  My numbers are the real CPU consumed by MediaCenter.  I'm attaching a screen shot showing MC31.0.065 playing in standard view without spectrum analyzer.

Thanks,
Brian.

[EnglishTiger]

blgentry

The images were taken between 04:18 am and 06:00 am UK Time today - Thursday 05th October. The 1st,  3rd and 5th images are screenshots of the Mac Activity Monitor and show that the numbers I quoted were the CPU and GPU values for MC31. In both reports the values were those the Mac Activity Monitor was showing for MC31, the only time I mentioned any values that appear  at the bottom of it's window was to mention that on a couple of occasions I spotted that "User" was using less of the CPU than "System" something that amused me since MC31 wasn't the only app/task included in the figures for "User".

Those reports were compiled by summarising the data I had collected from over 3 hours of continuous testing on both days.

[bob]

I think there is something off when running with Ventura. I'm still working on narrowing the field.
On Catalina on my 2014 Macbook pro retina CPU usage is quite low with the 30.0.65 beta.
Using about 2/3rd's of the screen 5.0% playing without spectrum analyzer. 11% playing with spectrum analyzer.

On my M1 mini with Monterey 4k monitor about 2/3rds of the screen 6-9% playing without the spectrum analyzer 16-20% playing with the spectrum analyzer.
This seems reasonable compared to the 2014 Macbook Pro since it's using a lot more pixels.

On the same  M1 mini as above with a fresh install of Ventura, around 5% playing without the spectrum analyzer and 22% with.

On an identical M1 mini with Sonoma 4k monitor about 2/3rds of the screen 16-19% playing without the spectrum analyzer around 50% playing with the spectrum analyzer.

None of these are using DSP which of course would add to the CPU usage.
I need to try to test with intel vs arm and with Sonoma too.

Edit: corrected the entries and added one.

The bottom line is that something is going on with Sonoma which makes it use a lot more cpu with MC.

[blgentry]

The images were taken between 04:18 am and 06:00 am UK Time today - Thursday 05th October. The 1st,  3rd and 5th images are screenshots of the Mac Activity Monitor and show that the numbers I quoted were the CPU and GPU values for MC31.

It sounds like you understand the difference.  Thank you for clarifying that.  There are no screen shots attached to your post, but that's ok because I believe your numbers and I now understand that you are quoting the same source as I am.

I'm using Sonoma; what OS are you using?  I ask because of Bob's statements about the OS making a difference in his testing.

Take care,
Brian.

[JimH]

Brian,
Take a look here:  https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,137111.msg950634.html#msg950634

[rito]

I am sure it is a problem with Sonoma. Hours I before upgraded, everything was "normal" with MC. The high CPU usage and the funky menus started after the upgrade.

On the other hand - as long as I can listen to the new remixes of XTC's The Big Express and there's no smoke rising from the Macbook, I do not mind too much 

[EnglishTiger]

Like blgentry I bit the bullet and Installed the 14.1.2 Beta 2 on both the Mini and MacBook Air with some different consequences.

On the Mini the MenuBar is still being cranky, but no where near as bad as blgentry encountered. I still have to click on an empty space on the MenuBar before clicking on a Menu Name.
But on the MacBook Air the MenuBar is behaving itself, I only have to click once on a Menu Name to get the DropDown Menu to appear

After tacking MC out of miser mode on both PC's, by going back to having both Spectrum Analysers and a 2nd line in the PlayerBar Display Panel that was being updated every second, along with making the tree visible plus a TrackInfo Plugin above the Track List in Playing Now the CPU (Core) usage was around the 30% area. But who cares, two other processes mds and mds-stores every time they moved up closer to the top of the Mac Activity Monitor window were using over 100% of the CPU (Core) - one of them even exceeded 160%.

Since the numbers for MC only apply to the core(s) it is using and not the whole CPU when, unless Sonama is lying, a track with a Duration of 20:02 only used the CPU for just under 7 minutes. Oh and while that track was playing, except when mds and mds-stores were over stressing the CPU, the idle time for the CPU was between 80% and 95%.

I can't help wondering if Apple designating Sonoma as OS14 and not OS13 has backfired on them because the darn thing sure is being "unlucky for some" in differing ways. 

[bob]

Anyone who is having the menu bar issues on Sonoma can you help try to narrow this down some?
I have a single 4k monitor. It's running in scaled mode, 2560x1440. I do NOT see ANY issues with the menu bar.
I'm only running MC and the activity monitor for testing.

What are you all running?
How many monitors?
What resolution?
What other programs are running?

If you duplicate my conditions, do you still see issues??

Thanks

[robow]

I have found what is causing thus issue. Switch tool  bar to always display i.e. turn auto hide off and it works fine

I am also having the same issue I cannot access the menu bar. I am running a Me dis 31 on a Mac Mini Intel and have recently upgrade to Sonora
 when this problem arose.
I have tried everything even re loading Medea 31 still does not work. I think this is one for JRiver techies Please help!!!

Anyone who is having the menu bar issues on Sonoma can you help try to narrow this down some?
I have a single 4k monitor. It's running in scaled mode, 2560x1440. I do NOT see ANY issues with the menu bar.
I'm only running MC and the activity monitor for testing.

What are you all running?
How many monitors?
What resolution?
What other programs are running?

If you duplicate my conditions, do you still see issues??

Thanks

[bob]

I am also having the same issue I cannot access the menu bar. I am running a Me dis 31 on a Mac Mini Intel and have recently upgrade to Sonora
 when this problem arose.
I have tried everything even re loading Medea 31 still does not work. I think this is one for JRiver techies Please help!!!

Would you answer the questions in my previous post please?

[blgentry]

What are you all running?
How many monitors?
What resolution?

M1 MacBook Pro 13".
Laptop display, and 2 external monitors running via a DisplayLink hub.
External Displays:  1680 x 1050, Laptop Display: 1280 x 800

The menu problem becomes worse after the laptop has been put to sleep by disconnecting it from the hub and closing the lid, then resuming some time later.

However, on a fresh launch, the "inconsistent menu" behavior is immediately evident.

1.  Click on a menu:  It pops up
2.  Click the next menu over:  It will highlight the menu title, but the menu will not pop.
3.  Click that same (failed) menu again and it pops.
4.  Repeat

I do not think this happened on Ventura, but I can't be completely sure.  I'm definitely sure that the menus always worked. Now they completely stop working at some point.

I've duplicated this behavior on the laptop monitor and on one of the external monitors.  I did not test the second external.

If you would like logs, I can collect one during a menu "fail to pop" event.  Collecting during "no menus at all" will be harder, but I might be able to do it.

Thanks,
Brian.

[blgentry]

If you duplicate my conditions, do you still see issues??

I unplugged my dock so I was only using the laptop display.  I still have the inconsistent menu behavior.  I.E. must click twice on most menus.  I switched the resolution to something insanely high.  2560 by 1600.  I got the same menu behavior.

What other programs are running?

The only thing I can that that might be relevant:

* DisplayLink Manager (required for my dock to run the monitors.
* Alfred

* I have RDM installed, but it is not running.  I use the command line version to switch resolutions, but I do not leave it running in the top menu.
https://macmenubar.com/rdm/

Brian.

[bob]

I unplugged my dock so I was only using the laptop display.  I still have the inconsistent menu behavior.  I.E. must click twice on most menus.  I switched the resolution to something insanely high.  2560 by 1600.  I got the same menu behavior.

The only thing I can that that might be relevant:

* DisplayLink Manager (required for my dock to run the monitors.
* Alfred

* I have RDM installed, but it is not running.  I use the command line version to switch resolutions, but I do not leave it running in the top menu.
https://macmenubar.com/rdm/

Brian.

Took a quick look at the DisplayLink manager. Seems related enough to cause issues. Easy to install/remove?

[blgentry]

Took a quick look at the DisplayLink manager. Seems related enough to cause issues. Easy to install/remove?

If I have to choose between MC31 being weird with menus and removing and reinstalling DLM, I'll just keep MC31 being a little bit broken.
DLM allows my external monitors work.  It includes a system extension.  Removing and reinstalling is possible, but time consuming and potentially painful.

My home system does not use DLM but I'm reluctant to upgrade it to Sonoma. 

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Take care,
Brian.

[AGAWA]

checked MC28, 30 and 31 , Sonoma M1, nothing fancy, just one monitor.
Worked well  under Ventura.
Problems with menu bar in all of MC versions.

On first click on any of  menu items it's OK.
Any subsequent click on menu bar  does not open menus; menu item is only highlighted, second click reverts it to normal, and only third click opens menu.

At first I was surprised but got used, but I see discussion now.

[bob]

checked MC28, 30 and 31 , Sonoma M1, nothing fancy, just one monitor.
Worked well  under Ventura.
Problems with menu bar in all of MC versions.

On first click on any of  menu items it's OK.
Any subsequent click on menu bar  does not open menus; menu item is only highlighted, second click reverts it to normal, and only third click opens menu.

At first I was surprised but got used, but I see discussion now.

I see it now, it's like it loses focus.

[robow]

I have found what is causing thus issue. Switch tool  bar to always display i.e. turn auto hide off and it works fine

I have found what is causing thus issue. Switch tool  bar to always display i.e. turn auto hide off and it works fine

I am also having the same issue I cannot access the menu bar. I am running a Me dis 31 on a Mac Mini Intel and have recently upgrade to Sonora
 when this problem arose.
I have tried everything even re loading Medea 31 still does not work. I think this is one for JRiver techies Please help!!!

[EnglishTiger]

bob - I've got a 1920x1280 Samsung C24F390 connected via the HDMI port on the Mac Mini.

When I 1st click on a Word on the Mac Toolbar hijacked Menu, i.e. "File" the 1st click does nothing, the 2nd click places a grey shadow around the word, the 3rd Click removes the grey shadow and opens the Menu; regardless of whether or not I click on an "empty"  part of the Mac Toolbar.
And the above happens if the Mac Toolbar is set to "Auto Hide" or "Always Display"

Another variant of the Menu's odd behaviour, If I open the "File Menu" but don't select anything and then click on "Edit" the File Menu remains open, if I then click on "View" the File Menu closes and the "View Menu" opens.

[bob]

This should be fixed in build 31.0.78.
Works for me. Please give it a try.