Visual Studio always uses significant energy

[thewhitetulip]

• VSCode Version: Code 1.7.1 (02611b4, 2016-11-03T13:46:00.226Z)
• OS Version: Darwin x64 16.1.0
• Extensions:

Extension	Author	Version
beautify	HookyQR	0.5.4
swift	Kasik96	0.0.2
python	donjayamanne	0.5.2
vscode-lua	gccfeli	0.1.2
CSSfmt	ilich8086	0.0.3
Go	lukehoban	0.6.51
HTMLHint	mkaufman	0.0.3
prettify-json	mohsen1	0.0.3

---

Steps to Reproduce:

Open any file and do some changes, open the terminal or write Go code, vscode always consumes too much energy. This is the reason I have to use some light weight editor like Geany or vi. I'd love it if vscode uses less energy than what it does now.

[strrchr]

I encounter the similar problem.
Are there tips or options to reduce cpu usage?

[thewhitetulip]

I started using vibecause despite the fact that this is an amazing text editor, it eats up my battery within 2-3hrs of usage. using vi, my battery stays four times upto 8hrs!

[kieferrm]

//cc @egamma

[egamma]

Open any file and do some changes, open the terminal or write Go code

The Go extension isn't shy to spawn new processes, e.g., on hover, which can result in increased energy consumption.

@thewhitetulip can you confirm that you only saw this problem when disabling the Go extension in the Extensions viewlet.

Assigning to @ramya-rao-a for further investigation in the Go extension. I'll add the caused by extension label for now.

[thewhitetulip]

@egamma Well, I use Code only for Go programming :-) So I can't say for sure. But I will confirm by writing a python project using VScode too

[thewhitetulip]

@egamma I am sorry for the delay, yes, writing Go code marks VSCode as using high energy, tested thrice writing JS and writing Go, JS has no issues, Go has issues.

Also, thought you might want to know:

Code Helper eats 11% CPU for every single edit of any file (Go or not)
Code itself takes 1.4% CPU and 43MB when it is in background (it is updating to the new version, and has 1 open JS file)

92+28+26+59+23 MB is the system memory Code Helper eats even if it is idle (there are that many instances of the service) contrast that with iTerm, I had 10 tabs and a server running, still iTerm takes .4% CPU 43MB Memory

Do let me know if you need more information.

[egamma]

@thewhitetulip thanks for following up, I move the issue to the Go Issue repository for further investigation.

[egamma]

This issue was moved to microsoft/vscode-go#698

[thewhitetulip]

I am now editing a markdown book and VSCode is taking significant energy, I do not think it is because of the Go extension. @egamma @ramya-rao-a I just have the welcome screen on, not even a single document opened. I just updated every extension and the Go plugin's dependencies.

[egamma]

Reopening the issue

@thewhitetulip do you still observe the high energy consumption when you disable the extensions? To disable an extension pls see this doc

[thewhitetulip]

@egamma I disabled all extensions permanently, I have my mac connected to wifi and Vscode is "using significant energy"

CPU consumed varies between 9% to 12% without extensions of any kind, with split window, one of markdown and another of a 100line python program
Energy impact is 12!!

5 processes costing me 240MB RAM @ramya-rao-a

[ramya-rao-a]

@bpasero thoughts?

[bpasero]

Maybe worth checking if a process is running with high CPU in that setup.

To find out more about this issue, we need to get at the process that is causing the high load. VS Code creates multiple processes, each with different tasks. Depending on your OS you can get at the full command line of the process and paste it here. On Mac, the Activity Monitor allows to find the PID of the process and from a terminal ps aux | grep <pid> reveals its arguments.

On Windows a tool like Process Explorer helps:

Once you have the information please update this issue with it. Thanks!

[thewhitetulip]

I will do that, I would just like to know that am I the only one who is getting "significant energy usage"? I mean is there an issue with my mac(some weird local thing)?

[egamma]

@thewhitetulip we had some energy issues in the past, but most of them are closed by now.

[thewhitetulip]

@egamma Yes, it takes somewhat CPU
wow, Code takes way less power on the Mac you are using, I am editing a markdown tutorial I am writing related to Python without any extension and this is the screenshot,

[bpasero]

@thewhitetulip is there a constant 21.7% hit on the process or only when you type?

[chuckdries]

After reading through that other issue thread, running code with code --disable-extensions worked.

Now the thing is how to figure out which one(s) are the culprit.

It seems like this problem of runaway extensions is a common enough issue, perhaps a faq or documentation entry is in order. Maybe even a tool in vscode to tell which extensions are misbehaving?

[ramya-rao-a]

@chuckdries You mentioned

"I've disabled every plugin and still my VSCode spins my fans all the way up.."

as well as

"running code with code --disable-extensions worked"

If both statements are true, then disabling extensions manually and running code with --disable-extensions are giving you 2 separate results. Can you confirm?

[chuckdries]

Indeed I did, though I did notice that the runaway background processes stayed open after I quit VScode, I had to manually kill them. Perhaps they accounted for my initial assessment of disabling extensions not working.

[simonhaenisch]

I'm having issues with this as well on a Mid-2010 MacBook Pro (which can switch between Intel HD Graphics and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M).

I launched code from the command line via

code --disable-extensions --disable-gpu

and it doesn't use much energy when in idle (jumping between 0.0 and 0.1), but in the activity monitor it still says that it requires the high performance GPU:

What exactly is the --disable-gpu flag supposed to do? The help text says:

Disable GPU hardware acceleration.

I know that Electron is based on Chromium and I'm quite sure that will already enable the high performance GPU on my Macbook (at least Chrome always needs it). Just might be helpful to have an info about what exactly that flag does, as I was expecting it to prevent using the high perf GPU for me.

Edit: Other Electron Apps like Slack, Atom and Whatsapp also need the high perf GPU.

[ramya-rao-a]

cc @bpasero @jrieken

[vscodebot]

This issue has been closed automatically because it needs more information and has not had recent activity. Please refer to our guidelines for filing issues. Thank you for your contributions.

[thewhitetulip]

@ramya-rao-a how did the bot close it? 😮

[ramya-rao-a]

The bot closes issues with the label "needs-more-info" if there has been no additional info provided in the past 7 days.

I just went through the whole thread and here is the summary:

• This issue is no longer restricted to Go
• @thewhitetulip is yet to respond to Visual Studio always uses significant energy #16963 (comment)
• @chuckdries doesn't see the issue with extensions disabled
• @simonhaenisch has a question on the --disable-gpu flag. @bpasero Can you respond to this?

[thewhitetulip]

@ramya-rao-a Someone else posted a profile of their VSCode that is why I did not! Give me some time, I'll comment it as soon as I can.

[cvburgess]

VSCode has been wrecking my macbook for the last two weeks or so... it can drain the battery in 2-3 hours on a new MBP. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know!

[ramya-rao-a]

@cvburgess Please log a new issue. Read through Performance Issues to see what you can share with us to help with your problem

[bonovski]

Well, vscode is unusable on battery because of code helper cpu usage even after vscode is fully closed. Multiple code helpers can still stay running after that and eat away your battery with high cpu usage.

The problem seems to be extension quality and integration into vscode or lack of.

Every time an extension crashes (and you mostly don't know since there is absolutely no message or alert, you just notice that something doesn't work) code helpers go crazy.

It's back to atom for me. Although it's slower it works without any annoying problems for me and my needs.

[smxsm]

Yep, I can confirm that VSCode really sucks out the battery ... :( I have quite some extensions installed, so it'll be hard to find out which ones cause the major problems... what can we do?
There are also lots of nested CodeHelper Threads running, and you can see the high energy usage even compared to Chrome and Docker:

[ramya-rao-a]

@smxsm Read through Performance Issues to see what you can share with us to help with your problem

[smxsm]

Hi @ramya-rao-a thanks for the performance debugging info - since I saw some indications in my status bar that the PHPCS extension was constantly checking files and I also saw in my process list that a LiveShare process was consuming lots of CPU I have disabled both extensions yesterday and now I am down from 80-90% battery usage for VSCode to approx. 20% :) I see if I can do some profiling later for the PHPCS extension.

[bpasero]

I am closing this issue and ask to file individual issues to act on. Thanks for understanding.