Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
Reinout78
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:08 pm

Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Reinout78 » Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:16 am

Hi,

I work with Ableton 10.1.43 on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), OS High Sierra, processor 2,9 GHz Intel Core i9, Ram: 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Graphics Card Radeon Pro 560X 4096 MB,Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB, Audio interface PlayAudio12.

So I've been using Ableton to perform live for years, and haven't had any noticeable issues. I use multiple vst's with effects, while running about 5 tracks. But since a couple of weeks I get sudden cpu spikes, really short, but enough to offset the click (not the native Ableton click, I use an audio track with a click on it). It runs smoothly, never going over 30% max and for no apparent reason, and never twice in the same spot in the set, it jumps to 100% and back. Everything glitches really briefly, but Ableton doesn't crash or stop entirely. It just goes on like before. But it puts me and the band in a really difficult spot to keep playing (because everything has shifted a little). I have another show tomorrow, and I know I probably won't get an answer in time, but I would really appreciate any advice anyone could give me. Oh, I do end every process ins the task manager that I think doesn't need to run, and I've added the line "-MaxFpsMac=30" to the options.txt. But nothing seems to help.

Thanks!

Reinout

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5275
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by [jur] » Fri Jul 08, 2022 11:07 am

Reinout78 wrote:
Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:16 am
But since a couple of weeks
Hey Reinout,
First question is: what did change in your setup a couple weeks ago? Updated OS? New plugin(s)? New controller(s)? etc...
Ableton Forum Moderator

Reinout78
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:08 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Reinout78 » Fri Jul 08, 2022 1:09 pm

Wel that’s just it…I didn’t change anything. I’m very careful not to change anything on something that works because I know how fragile digital stability can be :)

DunedinDragon
Posts: 104
Joined: Thu Jul 22, 2021 5:46 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by DunedinDragon » Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:07 pm

The question in my mind is whether or not you computer is reserved exclusively for performance. I do much the same as you and I get pretty consistent results in terms of CPU processing. However my laptop has nothing on it other than the specific stuff I need for performing and is only used for performance so I well assured there's nothing that's going to crop up from other residual artifacts from other programs.

That being said, I have rarely run into some glitches that were caused by processing latency in my PlayAudio 12 either with MIDI commands or audio outputs. But that's pretty rare and is usually fixed by simply rebooting it.

Tarekith
Posts: 19065
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Tarekith » Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:04 pm

Is the venue really hot? Lots of bass vibrations that are maybe causing issues with your laptop?

Those are two things I've seen cause unexpected issues for people playing live.
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

Reinout78
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:08 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Reinout78 » Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:10 pm

DunedinDragon wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:07 pm
The question in my mind is whether or not you computer is reserved exclusively for performance. I do much the same as you and I get pretty consistent results in terms of CPU processing. However my laptop has nothing on it other than the specific stuff I need for performing and is only used for performance so I well assured there's nothing that's going to crop up from other residual artifacts from other programs.

That being said, I have rarely run into some glitches that were caused by processing latency in my PlayAudio 12 either with MIDI commands or audio outputs. But that's pretty rare and is usually fixed by simply rebooting it.
That’s probably a very good idea. I use my laptop for 3D-animation and all of the Adobes as well…so there might be something going on there. But on the other hand, I’ve been playing my set at home while watching the task manager and there don’t seem to be any unnecessary processes taking up cpu power. The problem is that the spikes are so unpredictable that I haven’t seen that happening in the task manager yet… The show last Saturday went flawlessly by the way, but I was sweating buckets out of fear for the glitch…and that’s no way to live :)

Reinout78
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:08 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Reinout78 » Wed Jul 13, 2022 7:13 pm

Tarekith wrote:
Wed Jul 13, 2022 4:04 pm
Is the venue really hot? Lots of bass vibrations that are maybe causing issues with your laptop?

Those are two things I've seen cause unexpected issues for people playing live.
Actually I’ve only had the glitches during rehearsals and at home, not during a live show (yet…fingers crossed).
Otherwise those could be valid causes indeed.

nicolasvr
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2017 5:22 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by nicolasvr » Sun Dec 11, 2022 2:30 pm

Hey,

I have this very same problem since doing a clean install of Ableton on a new MSI Pulse laptop running Windows 11 Home with good specs.
(12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900H 2.90 GHz -16GB RAM)

Followed all the optimization settings etc. and still it occurs. Only using for production at home in a normal environment.
I use the same audio interface (Apollo Twin) than i did on my previous laptop with the same version of Ableton, and i didn't had this CPU-spikes.

I did some tests and even in a session with only 1 synth VST running, the spikes appeared. And just like the OP mentioned, my CPU is running normal between 5-10% of CPU and then it suddenly spikes between 80-130% and you hear the glitch.

Any ideas beside the before-mentioned presumptions? Running version 11.2.5 of Ableton

greets,
Nicolas

Séraphineeeee
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:09 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Séraphineeeee » Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:11 pm

Exactly the same problem with the same configuration ( Asus Zephyrus M16, i9-12900H, 2.50 GHz, 16GB )...

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5275
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by [jur] » Tue Jan 03, 2023 2:05 am

Séraphineeeee wrote:
Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:11 pm
Exactly the same problem with the same configuration ( Asus Zephyrus M16, i9-12900H, 2.50 GHz, 16GB )...
Is it happening too if using only native Live devices?
Ableton Forum Moderator

eazybubz
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2023 8:11 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by eazybubz » Mon Jan 16, 2023 8:15 pm

I am having this issue as well. Live 11.
I have gone through every setting I can think of in windows 11 and nothing will fix it.
I am beyond frustrated and just starting to think this is on abletons side. I can only have 1 midi instrument going and my cpu usage is all over the place. I have a very decent cpu and gpu lots of ram.
This may sound extreme but the small glitches and crackles when my cpu usage indicator randomly spikes makes it generally impossible for me to create. Any suggestions welcomed..

telepathy51
Posts: 211
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:28 pm
Location: Louisville, KY
Contact:

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by telepathy51 » Thu Jan 26, 2023 8:10 pm

I am having the same issues as well. I am using pretty powerful PC that i built. Everything is great with the exception of the random CPU spikes. It will happen when I am only using two tracks and no 3rd party plug ins. It’s so annoying. I’ve been using Ableton since version 5 and have never ran into this much frustration.

There’s a lot of folks who are posting similar descriptions and it doesn’t seem that Ableton is listening.

Very frustrating.
Ryzen 7, MSI B550 Tomahawk.
Ableton 11 Suite
Multiple basses.

Durkha
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2023 10:58 pm

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Durkha » Thu Nov 02, 2023 11:20 pm

I started to have a similar problem a few weeks ago. Possibly coincided with installing the new Mac OS or maybe there was an Ableton update (I had it set to automatic updates for both). I am using a Mac mini M1 and Live 11.3.13. These same projects were running fine with Ableton and the same set of hardware and plugins until a few weeks ago. So Ableton was running fine for around 9 months, now it's very much not fine!

Any and all projects will be steady anywhere between 30-50% CPU depending on the size of the project, and then at random points (and quite regularly) a get a sudden CPU spike that can go to 1000% or more on the 'current' CPU meter. At that point audio glitches and stutters. I changed no settings in Ableton for sample size/rate etc prior to this happening.

When trying to get to the bottom of it I had noticed in Activity Monitor (Mac task manager) there were spikes in CPU for Ableton and Norton at roughly the time Ableton was having issues. So I uninstalled and completely removed all traces of Norton, but same issue with Ableton continued. Could it mean that there is something in the way Ableton is interacting with memory/OS that is causing an error and overloading of the CPU (and was triggering Norton because it was suspicious about Ableton heavy use on CPU/memory)? Im not seeking any other process spike in CPU usage in activity monitor alongside Ableton anymore. Im not a developer or anything like that so wouldn't know how to diagnose it further but might be of interest to someone more technically minded.

I am really frustrated as Ableton is now unusable! So did anyone find a fix? That would be a life saver as im really now at a loss what I should do next. If no fix, alternatively can anyone point me to a step-by-step process that I can follow to sort this and identify the problem?

Tarekith
Posts: 19065
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Ableton Forum Administrator
Contact:

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Tarekith » Thu Nov 02, 2023 11:38 pm

Your best bet is probably going to be contacting support so they can walk you through steps to troubleshoot:

Support
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
https://tarekith.com

Calagan
Posts: 268
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:44 am

Re: Sudden, very short, very random cpu spikes

Post by Calagan » Tue Nov 28, 2023 5:27 pm

I started to have some similar issues (random CPU spikes on some sessions).
Two things happen recently : I started to work on a new live show with very low buffer settings and I've been forced recently to update my MBP M1 pro to Sonoma (I'm saying "forced", because my MBP was bricked after an OS update - from 12.7 to 12.7.1, a known bug - and the only way to recover my data was to upgrade to Sonoma).

I had similar issues in the past, and they went somehow...

I'm thinking it could be some incompatibility somewhere, but my main suspect now is some internet process.
In the past (on a macbook pro mid-2012 running Live 9), I had similar issues only when offline, and it was iCloud trying to pass some data to internet but not being able to do so because of no wifi. I needed to turn off iCloud completly and then it was ok.

I never used iCloud again because of this. Now I noticed that after my update to Sonoma some general settings changed, so I will need to tweak and/or check all that...

I don't know if the OP (@Reinout78) did find a fix, but :
- if yes, please tell us
- if no, maybe check the apps you've got on your machine that could try to connect to internet. It seems strange that you've got only issues at home (when maybe you are connected to internet) and not on stage (where you are most probably offline).

Post Reply