Constant high CPU usage with open anytype window due to sync icon indefinitely blinking

Self-Perfection · December 4, 2024, 11:36pm

What’s The Bug?

While anytype window is open (no interaction with it, no animation) on specific spaces, does not matter which object is shown, two of anytype processes constantly consume CPU time.

--type=renderer consumes about 30% of CPU core time each second
--type=gpu-process consumes about 20% of CPU core time each second

I have 5 spaces with moderate amount of content (say dozens or hundreds of objects) and the bug affects 4 of them. Does not happen with almost empty spaces.
Affected both shared and private spaces.

How To Reproduce It

I do not know (
Seems that lots of objects in space increase chances of this bug affecting the space.

Image or Video

The Expected Behavior

There should not be repaints and CPU usage while there is no interaction with anytype and there is no animation.

Additional Context

This is different and distinct from the earlier bug I have reported Bursts of CPU usage from `anytype --type=renderer` process every couple of seconds

I have attached profile recorded with developer tools.
As it show Anytype constantly performs repaints.

This does not let me keep anytype window hanging always open as this extra resource usage noticeably heats laptop.

Device

Thinkpad T495s

OS

Ubuntu 22.04, XOrg

Anytype Version

0.43.8

Network Mode

AnySync

Technical Information

OS version: linux x64 6.8.0-49-generic
App version: 0.43.8
Build number: build on 2024-11-22 22:42:01 +0000 UTC at #d8239d33731abecdf08762f35553950ae026db5e (dirty)
Library version: v0.37.4
Anytype Identity: A6hQj1AtUWnhqFDJvFwpmJHNYJyhRznqLGHXsgdnr7bzHpYe
Analytics ID: 8c1cee72-f885-45ec-b70d-2b62ecd608b7
Device ID: 12D3KooWMUZRT2RETKPXixHusjzHYDWLdjdKnvkCzg4X89emPHow

Crash Logs or Debug Files

trace-20241204t150211.zip (1.78 MB)

AnyFriends · December 5, 2024, 8:52am

This report has been added to our issue tracker and received by the Development Team.

Razor · December 5, 2024, 7:25pm

Well, hard to say anything - first of all turn on Debug → Flags → Middleware → Common events, run the app from terminal for log output and if you will notice this behavior check for both logs. I have big spaces and checked profiler in idle mode, there is nothing that behaves like this.

Self-Perfection · December 6, 2024, 1:49pm

I tried enabling Common events debug flag and watched for Anytype stdout and tail -f ~/.config/anytype/logs/main.log.

I expected to see any log messages appearing several times per second about something that might trigger repaints. But there are no massive amounts of new log messages while Anytype is idle.

Self-Perfection · December 6, 2024, 11:56pm

I observed this constant repaints behavior with extra CPU usage on another person’s laptop running Windows. Therefore this bug is not specific to GNU/Linux.

The strange thing is that we have 2 shared spaces with this person, let’s call them A and B.

Anytype constantly repaints while showing A space on my laptop, but does not use CPU on his.
With B space it’s the other way around: no repaints on my laptop but constant repaints on his.

Razor · December 7, 2024, 7:57am

Did it happen with this space before? Repaints may happen if middleware sends update events and client rerenders parts of the app. If you turn in the menu Debug -> Flags -> Middleware -> Common events and open dev tools you would see them.

Self-Perfection · December 10, 2024, 9:52pm

This question is not clear to me. I observe this CPU usage at least several days.

I suppose you are talking about messages like “Event.BlockSetText” or “Event.ObjectDetailsAmend” that appear in Developer Tools / Consonle. There are on such new messages when Anytype is idle and renderer and gpu-process consume CPU

Razor · December 14, 2024, 3:12pm

Check latest beta please, this problem should go away.

Self-Perfection · December 15, 2024, 3:53pm

I tested the version Release v0.43.38-beta · anyproto/anytype-ts · GitHub

Some spaces that were not causing constant CPU usage by gpu-process and renderer process now hogs CPU and some previously CPU hungry spaces do not hog CPU now.

I’d say overall there is no improvement.

Self-Perfection · January 10, 2025, 1:16am

I still have this issue with desktop release 0.44.
I got tired of paying attention to always closing Anytype window to prevent laptop overheating and throttling down, so I had to devise a workaround.

I ended up using XSuspender - Auto-suspend inactive X11 applications to suspended Anytype renderer process when its window is inactive. Here is my config:

$ sed -n '/Anytype/,$p' ~/.config/xsuspender.conf
[Anytype]
match_wm_name_contains = - Anytype
match_wm_class_contains = anytype
suspend_delay = 10
resume_every = 120
resume_for = 3
suspend_subtree_pattern = type=renderer
send_signals = true
only_on_battery = false

If you have an idea what else can I try to help debug and fix this please tell me.

UnwokeNetizen · January 10, 2025, 4:40am

By the way, that is a pretty clever workaround.
I’ll keep it in mind if I ever run into such an issue…

I am running Pop OS!, so very similar distro, however it is on a small low power PC with intel chip based, not a laptop. integrate video in the cpu, likely same as you.

I have 294 objects for the moment, so not as many as you, but adding every day. Unfortunately I do not see the issues you see.

Are you running a debian package install of AT, or something else like flatpak?
Also, is there a particular reason you did not upgrade to v0.44?

These are my versions:
OS version: linux x64 6.9.3-76060903-generic
App version: 0.44.0
Build number: build on 2024-12-16 16:53:50 +0000 UTC at #c04d64d52304c0fe8800032e74e49a7159abdbad (dirty)
Library version: v0.38.7

Self-Perfection · January 10, 2025, 12:09pm

I use the most recent stable *.deb package (0.44)

fat_fellow · February 7, 2025, 1:00pm

You could also provide the CPU trace when CPU usage is high if you update to the latest alpha.
Go to Debug → Export CPU trace, and wait for 30 seconds.

Self-Perfection · February 18, 2025, 3:25pm

A friend of mine reported that since a couple of days his anytype desktop installation shows the same symptoms with high CPU usage by renderer and gpu-process processes.

Here is his trace:

anytype_profile.3821866920.zip (626.8 KB)

I doubt that this trace is helpful. It looks like a trace of golang anytype part, but CPU is consumed by rendering in JS part.

fat_fellow · February 26, 2025, 10:50am

Thank you, I don’t see the problems on the go side either.

jesteria · February 28, 2025, 5:52pm

I also see this on Linux (Gnome – Pop! OS).

While it could be related to this syncing issue, that seems unlikely, since CPU usage does resolve when the window is closed, and spikes again when the window is opened.

fat_fellow · March 19, 2025, 2:04pm

It can help us, if you do the following:

File → Open directory → Logs
Remove all the stuff here
Turn on
Debug → Flags → Middleware → toggle all flags with events, Debug → Flags → Middleware → JSON logs
Start a session where you experience the heavy load, and zip all the logs in the directory from step 1 and send them to us.

Self-Perfection · March 19, 2025, 7:09pm

Here is the logs from ~/.config/anytype/logs

Archive.zip (2.5 KB)

These logs do not show any significant amount of work.

I suppose you assume that unnecessary CPU usage in anytype UI is initiated by some events sent from anytypeHelper. I believe this is a wrong assumption. I can verify it by sniffing the traffic on the port where anytypeHelper listens. There are just minor amount of TCP keepalive packages flyng over the interface during idle, no meaningful interaction.

No, just JS being JS somehow do extra unneeded work. And the clue is in tracing JS execution and checking which code and why generates repaints. Have you checked trace from Developer Tools which I have attached during the initial report?

trace-20241204t150211.zip (1.78 MB)

It probably does not contain enough info to shed the light on the issue but I believe should be a starting point anyway. Probably I should record the trace again enabling extra logging. I don’t know how to do that though.

Razor · March 19, 2025, 7:16pm

The reason maybe that anytypeHelper sends some events to client, so port where helper listens is not correct, you should listen to grpcweb port.

Self-Perfection · March 19, 2025, 8:57pm

I have collected traffic from all 4 port on which any anytype process were listening on loopback interface:

# ss -nlp|grep anytype|grep 127.0.0.1|sed 's/   \+/  /g'
tcp  LISTEN 0  4096  127.0.0.1:35749  0.0.0.0:*  users:(("anytypeHelper",pid=183456,fd=13))
tcp  LISTEN 0  4096  127.0.0.1:34211  0.0.0.0:*  users:(("anytypeHelper",pid=183456,fd=158))
tcp  LISTEN 0  4096  127.0.0.1:42505  0.0.0.0:*  users:(("anytypeHelper",pid=183456,fd=12))
tcp  LISTEN 0  4096  127.0.0.1:31009  0.0.0.0:*  users:(("anytypeHelper",pid=183456,fd=410))

And I have ensured that during interaction with anytype there is some grpc traffic. You think I have missed the proper port? Can you give me CLI command to determine from which port I need to collect traffic?