Numbers - chewing up 98% CPU - when doing nothing.

[pavinder]

I'm on a 2011 MacBook Air running Yosemite (10.10.2).

Whenever I use Numbers (09), the machine grinds to a halt, and Activity Monitor shows that Numbers is using anywhere between 94-99% CPU.

This is even when I'm doing nothing at all in Numbers. Just trying to select a cell, for example I may wait 30 seconds or so. And this is on a simple spreadsheet with no real complexity.

What can I possibly check to troubleshoot this? Quitting, powering on and off, etc. have no effect. I also tried disconnecting from the internet, in case it was some issue about trying to connect. Again, no improvement.

Is there a log file which might show something?

The problem (I think) began with Mavericks. I hoped the recent Yosemite upgrade would resolve it, but if anything it's worse.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[chscag]

The latest version for Numbers is 3.5.2 and is designed to work with Yosemite. You're using an older version which should work. Are you sure there isn't some other background process going on when you open Numbers? Check your Activity Monitor app very closely when you have Numbers open.

 

[pavinder]

I'm still using Numbers 09 due to the the removal of many key features in more recent versions.

It works absolutely fine on my other Macs (iMac, MacBook Pro), just slow on the AIr.

It's Numbers which is hogging the CPU, as shown by Activity Monitor, but when you say "background process", do you mean that when I open Numbers, perhaps some other process is also opening simultaneously, and that is somehow making Numbers hog CPU?

 

[chscag]

It's Numbers which is hogging the CPU, as shown by Activity Monitor, but when you say "background process", do you mean that when I open Numbers, perhaps some other process is also opening simultaneously, and that is somehow making Numbers hog CPU?

Yes, it's possible another background process is running alongside Numbers causing the problem. Why don't you open your Activity Monitor when Numbers is hogging the CPU and provide us with a screen shot of the monitor? Another possibility is that some part of Numbers has become corrupt. But let's take a look at your Activity Monitor (CPU) and maybe we can see something that you missed.

 

[IWT]

Hi pavinder

My comments are intended as a general observation are not to be taken as any form of criticism.

When a software problem occurs in a Mac running "OS X.something", there is frequently an assumption that upgrading the OS to "OS X.something + 1" will solve the issue. More often it persists at best, or gets worse.

Chscag will correct me if I'm wrong in my comment—he has vastly more experience.

I believe that your Numbers problem is software-related and independent of the OS in your case. As the man said, a corrupted Numbers app seems likely. If so, I'm guessing that you might need to replace it with the latest version unless 09 is still available?

Ian

 

[pavinder]

Thanks, chscag and IWT for your generous comments and suggestions.

I looked at my Activity monitor and the list of processes running is 6 pages long even when Numbers is the only app I've chosen to launch. I assume nearly all these things (with names which mean nothing to me) are background processes.

Rather than try to identify any unwanted processes that may be running, I'm going to first try as IWT suggests, and uninstall/reinstall Numbers, in the hope that that may solve things. I'll do that over the weekend and report back.

Thanks again

 

[pigoo3]

I looked at my Activity monitor and the list of processes running is 6 pages long even when Numbers is the only app I've chosen to launch. I assume nearly all these things (with names which mean nothing to me) are background processes.

You should restart/reboot the computer…then check Activity Monitor BEFORE opening any apps to see what's using all the CPU resources.

It's possible the problem has nothing to do with "Numbers".

- Nick

 

[pavinder]

You should restart/reboot the computer…then check Activity Monitor BEFORE opening any apps to see what's using all the CPU resources.

It's possible the problem has nothing to do with "Numbers".

- Nick

Yes, this was immediately after a reboot. No other apps running, except for Dragthing, Little Snitch and a few menu bar items set to launch at login.

All these things have been on the machine alongside Numbers for ages though (since Lion), and Numbers has been running fine until the more recent system updates.

 

[pigoo3]

Yes, this was immediately after a reboot. No other apps running, except for Dragthing, Little Snitch and a few menu bar items set to launch at login.

Your earlier post said this:

I looked at my Activity monitor and the list of processes running is 6 pages long even when Numbers is the only app I've chosen to launch.

Notice that part that says…"…even when Numbers is the only app I've chosen to launch"

That means Numbers was running. That's why I suggested booting without any other apps running. If you've already done this…great. It just wasn't clear in the earlier post.

- Nick

 

[pigoo3]

Yes, this was immediately after a reboot. No other apps running, except for Dragthing, Little Snitch and a few menu bar items set to launch at login.

If you REALLY want to troubleshoot this…I wouldn't have anything running other than OS X related items. One thing you want to determine is…is the problem a software thing or a hardware thing.

To absolutely eliminate it being a software thing…you could boot the computer from an external device with a fresh install of the Mac OS (and the Mac OS only). Then you see of you still have the 98% CPU issue. If the problem goes away when doing this…then there's a software issue on the computers internal storage.

If the issue remains…then it could be hardware issue. I previously had a MacBook Pro that had a bad fan…and this caused extreme CPU use. So what I'm saying is. High CPU %'s can be software related and/or hardware related.

- Nick

 

[chscag]

@pavinder:

Good advice from Nick. (Little Snitch especially has been known to suck up CPU cycles.)