High CPU spikes with few tabs and no extensions after update

alsowoo · December 14, 2020, 6:00pm

Description of the issue: CPU usage spikes randomly until Brave starts freezing and Windows becomes unstable. Only began occurring after most recent update to Brave and occurs in the current Beta version as well.
How can this issue be reproduced?

Open browser and open a few tabs. After about 7 CPU usage spikes.

Expected result: Prior to update of 1.18.70 twenty or thirty tabs with extensions caused no problems.

Brave Version( check About Brave):
Version 1.18.70 Chromium: 87.0.4280.101 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Additional Information: Prior to updating to the most recent version, I routinely had 20+ tabs and used about 8 extensions. For the sake of troubleshooting when this problem started, I’ve disabled all extensions and closed all tabs in the session I was using. After having no luck with the issue, I installed the most recent Beta version (Version 1.19.54) and experienced the same thing. It usually takes a few minutes for it to occur and then I have to close Brave. I’ve checked the task manager within Brave when this happens and have attached screenshots of it, the process is usually “Extension: Brave” or “Browser”.

alsowoo · January 6, 2021, 6:14am

I think this may possibly be related specifically to Twitter when using Brave. After seeing it mentioned in another thread here (Brave 1.18.75 and RAM issue) I decided to check whether my issues were isolated to just twitter and they do seem to be. I’ve read other threads and seen suggestions to disable hardware acceleration as well as use a “testing profile” that’s brand new with no extensions installed which I did. I logged into twitter and opened up the first 15 or so posts on my timeline into tabs and almost immediately after doing so my PC became unstable from the spike in PC usage to the point I had to close Brave through the task manager. I also tried doing the same thing in Chrome and took screenshots of the in-app task manager as well as the Windows task manager to compare. The CPU usage shown in Chrome is after the tabs have loaded and nothing is really happening and was normal PC usage with Brave up until recently, too, Brave just doesn’t really settle now and instead freezes until my PC crashes.

If this doesn’t get any traction I’ll try starting a new thread that’s specific to problems with Twitter.