I’ve encountered a slightly weird macOS downside and I am questioning if anybody else has seen this within the wild, or has any concepts on easy methods to mitigate it. I have been a Mac admin for a really very long time, and I’ve by no means earlier than seen something fairly like this.
The Downside: Very merely, on sure random web sites, the helper/render agent of EVERY internet browser instantly goes loopy, reaching and indefinitely remaining at 100% CPU or larger.
When First Noticed: Roughly January 2024
What I’ve Tried:
- Clear browser profiles (this contains no looking information, no extensions, and so forth.)
- Totally Uninstall/reinstall browsers (besides Safari, after all)
- Completely different browsers (I’ve tried Safari, Edge, Courageous, Chrome and Firefox)
- Completely different macOS variations (I’ve reproduced this on macOS 11 [intel], macOS 12 [M2], macOS 14 [M2])
- Completely different person accounts (I even created a brand new one simply to see what would occur, and there was no distinction within the habits)
- Completely different machines (I’ve used an M2 MacBook Air, M2 Professional Mac Mini and 2019 16-inch MacBook Professional)
- Secure Boot (This one shocked me, however even in Secure Boot with solely important macOS processes working, the habits remains to be precisely the identical)
- Clear macOS installs
- The entire commonplace issues not listed above which may be discovered on each weblog (disable {hardware} acceleration, change random setting X, Y or Z, and so forth.)
You’ll suppose that all the above would have led to at the very least some completely different mixture of outcomes, however actually nothing modified. For example, the M2 Professional Mac Mini is a model new machine and it does this straight out the field. Based mostly on these variables and outcomes, I can solely conclude that that is one thing inside macOS itself. It’s clearly not remoted to a specific browser, browning profile, person account, machine or OS.
We all know that Edge, Courageous and Chrome are basically utilizing the identical Chromium engine, and thus have comparable backend processes. It could due to this fact be logical to imagine that if there’s some form of Chromium-based reactivity someplace inside macOS, they’d all show comparable habits. But, we see the identical habits on precisely the identical web sites with Firefox and Safari, two browsers with completely completely different engines and codebases. It might be one thing about how the working system handles these rendering processes, however what might that be and the way might it’s corrected?
I’ve hooked up screenshots of the runaway render processes in Edge, Firefox, Courageous and Safari.
Has anybody else noticed this? Please let me know in case you have any concepts or there’s one thing I have not considered.
Thanks to your assist!
