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Even after everything has synced, com.apple.Notes.datastore and Notes.app itself have been using large amounts of CPU time (anywhere from 40% - 100%) continuously as long as Notes is open. Notes also tends to beachball for 10 seconds or so every time I start to type. I keep hoping the processes will calm down, but it's been days and that hasn't happened yet.
Any ideas what it's doing? How to stop it?
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.13
It still shouldn't be doing that. I have about 1200 notes (including lots of graphics), and even turning off my iCloud Notes and turning it back on it takes about 5 minutes to sync, and I do get the 20-130% CPU usage, but the vast majority of that time it's on the low 30%-end for me.
Now my Notes would show the syncing/busy icon on the app window itself, is that what you mean? Or do you mean your mouse cursor is literally changing to a busy mouse/beach ball? Mine does not beach ball even for a second, so I think there is a hard drive/file system/file issue going on with yours.
Here is what I would do:
If you still get beach balls at all, or if this takes over 30 minutes there's definitely something else going on, but hopefully that won't be the case and this will in fact clear things up for you.
It still shouldn't be doing that. I have about 1200 notes (including lots of graphics), and even turning off my iCloud Notes and turning it back on it takes about 5 minutes to sync, and I do get the 20-130% CPU usage, but the vast majority of that time it's on the low 30%-end for me.
Now my Notes would show the syncing/busy icon on the app window itself, is that what you mean? Or do you mean your mouse cursor is literally changing to a busy mouse/beach ball? Mine does not beach ball even for a second, so I think there is a hard drive/file system/file issue going on with yours.
Here is what I would do:
If you still get beach balls at all, or if this takes over 30 minutes there's definitely something else going on, but hopefully that won't be the case and this will in fact clear things up for you.
Try booting in Safe Boot Mode (holding down SHIFT on power-on) and see if doing it there clears it up.
If the problem persists, try turning off your iCloud Notes, and see if your Notes app functions OK, then Quit notes and turn back on iCloud notes. (you would do this under System Preferences > iCloud. Then open your Notes app again.
Safe mode didn't help. I've done the turn notes off/turn back on before, and yes once all the notes are gone, CPU use goes down. But as soon as it syncs the data, it ramps up again. I have over 4000 notes. I don't know if that's part of the problem.
Going to try this, but I have Notes data in two places:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes, as you say, but also in ~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes
Think I should remove files from both places?
I hesitate to say this is fixed (because I'm sure as soon as I say it's good it won't be) but as of right now, this seems to have done the trick. It did not take 5 minutes, more like 2+ hours to pull down all the data. But it definitely reached a point where CPU went to 0. What I did notice was that as soon as I clicked on Notes to bring it to the front and selected something, that triggered another round of high CPU use but after a few minutes it died down.
Fingers crossed! I'm going to monitor it for a while, and if it truly is working as expected I'll mark this solved. Thanks for your help!
Sadly this didn't work. It's back to the constant CPU load. Looks like it is updating the sqlite database over and over. No idea what's going on there. Wondering if maybe going to Mojave is the answer. My work Mac, which does run Mojave, doesn't have this problem.
Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode?
To find out if it's system wide or user specific, try this...
Open System Preferences>Users & Groups, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.
Does it work in the new account?
Ok, I'm going to say this ended up fixing it. It has definitely calmed down (a month later!) Notes still goes bonkers when I bring it to the foreground, but it generally quiets down after a couple of minutes. I did replace the hard drive with an SSD and that made a huge difference in performance, even if it's still hammering the CPU.
I still think it's really weird that the sqlite database is so much smaller on the High Sierra Mac, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I definitely would, just back them both up separately first.
Awesome! Finger's crossed my friend.
Constant CPU usage with Notes
