Screen saver freezes mac + very high CPU usage
I'm on a late 2015 iMac with 10.14.6 (Mojave)/16GB Ram/3.1Ghz i5 and never had any problems with my screen saver (linked to an active corner) but now it slogs down my iMac: Starting the screen saver or even opening the screen saver menu freezes my mac for like 30-40 seconds.
I cleared the iMac cache and reset the NVRAM but no change - then I observed the activity monitor and it shows that any time the system is loading the screen saver, the application "ilife slideshow" jumps to 140% CPU usage and remains afterwards at 20%. It also uses 4.75GB virtual memory.
I'm not using any screen saver plugins or 3rd party software or any fancy options, just the classic screen saver with a default picture. I haven't made any changes to my my machine recently besides the latest security update from mid-July 2020.
Does anybody know the reason for this odd behavior and a solution?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14
