VTDecoderXPCService sucking up 25-30% of CPU

VTDecoderXPCService, WindowServer, and kernel_task together total are about 70% of a CPU. Furthermore Safari is very sluggish when this happens.

Only Finder, Activity Monitor, FaceTime and Safari are open.

Quit FaceTime, and the problem goes away. Relaunch FaceTime and the problem resumes.

I experienced intermittent choppiness in QuickTime playback because of VTDecoderXPCService sucking up to 120% (multi-thread) CPU time.

As far as I understand, the service is not required for video playback in QuickTime, as oftentimes the videos would play fine while VTDecoderXPCService was not running.

I was able to fix the issue by moving VTDecoderXPCService.xpc package out of its system folder and restarting:

sudo mv /System/Library/Frameworks/VideoToolbox.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/VTDecoderXPCService.xpc ~/
sudo shutdown -r now

--Niko

⚠note that when you disable VTDecoderXPCService some videos that needed decoding won't play.

Below are the steps i took to fix this issue:

1. When I tried to play a 1080p video file via QuickLook, it was choppy. I can see "VTDecoderXPCService" process in Activity Monitor.
2. After I disabled VTDecoderXPCService and rebooted my Mac, the video was no longer choppy. "VTDecoderXPCService" process in Activity Monitor no longer showed up.
3. However, when I tried to play a 4K video from Youtube (HTML 5, not Flash Player) the webpage freezes. When I force using Flash Player to play the 4K video the video lags. (of course, my MacBook Pro was underpowered for 4K videos)
4. I enabled VTDecoderXPCService and rebooted my Mac, and tried to play the same 1080p video file via QuickLook. It was not choppy and played just fine. Plus I didn't see "VTDecoderXPCService" process in Activity Monitor.
5. I tried playing the same 4K video from Youtube (HTML 5) and "VTDecoderXPCService" process in Activity Monitor appeared. It no longer freezes the webpage. The 4K video was choppy just as I thought because my MacBook Pro was underpowered for 4K videos.

ℹif you are unfamiliar with terminal:

try to disable VTDecoderXPCService by adding an extra extension or moving the VTDecoderXPCService file to another folder, DO NOT remove it!

and enable VTDecoderXPCService by removing the extra extension or moving that file back to the path nikok mentioned.

I have a different but application-related problem: when I select my Documents folder, I get an "Application Quit Unexpectedly" report that shows the following -

Process: VTDecoderXPCService [551]

Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/VideoToolbox.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices /VTDecoderXPCService.xpc/Contents/MacOS/VTDecoderXPCService

Identifier: VTDecoderXPCService

Version: ??? (???)

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: ??? [1]

The Documents folder closes and I can not read it.

Yes but on my imac (10.7.2), my vtdecoderservice randomly and repeatedly launches the soundtrack of a video of a CNC machine I recorded even though I'm fairly certain I deleleted that! A virus? I've run Sophos, Cleanmymac and Disk Utility (and Mackeeper until I was advised to remove that) and I've restarted with PRAM held down - none of which change this problem. The sound appears weven when there are no other progs running. I'm at a loss how to stop this. Apple: any ideas? Users: any one else had this weird thing?

I had this as well ie VTDecoderXPCService running lots of CPU while the trackpad control panel preference is open.

http://www.hutsby.net/2012/04/osx-lion-vtdecoderxpcservice-taking.html

Took me a while to realise though!

Skype can do the same (i.e. trigger VTD and keep it running at 25% CPU) if it leaves the FaceTime camera active. After a Skype session last night, I noticed my camera LED was still on, and VTD was chewing CPU cycles. Killed Skype - all gone.

This is what's happening to me too but it occurs at random times with 1-3 of the same commercials playing at the same time. I only had google search open in Firefox so I opened Activity Monitor and checked all of the program s that were running. In Activity Monitor, Firefox had a drop-down arrow so I clicked on in and it showed an item that had something to do with shock-wave. I force quit the item and the sound sent away. The other line item showing is: VTDecoderXPCService .

I am baffled as to what is going on. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Call me crazy but recently everything was sluggish and I kept seeing that, closed all but Firefox, still there. I keep "force quitting" it and it keeps coming back, so I looked at what I had up in FF and once I shut down Facebook (which was running with FB Purity) it no longer came back.
Could it seriously be FB?

The only application running is FireFox/Facebook. VTDecoderXPCService and Flash make the temp shoot up, the CPU slow to a crawl, and my blood pressure elevates. The solution MUST NOT be more memory / new computer. That's ridiculous.

I also had this issue, with up to 28% of cpu being sucked up by VTDecoderXPCService. I shut down possible problem applications one by one: Chrome, Thunderbird, iTunes, etc. with no change. Then I remembered that Full Deck Solitaire had a video background and changed it to wallpaper, and voila, VTDecoderXPCService shut down and did not come back. It also fixed some of the issues I was having with speed, so I think the hit of ~30% of the cpu was making speed issues apparent. (spinning balls, spinning circles, etc.) Even filling in the Open With program list was sometimes taking 8-10 seconds or more when clicking on a TXT file! I have not checked if this helped that issue yet.

Based on this, you might check anything that may have a video loaded/running, even in the background. With the ubiquitous videos on all web pages anymore, this might be an issue where I go back to the DOS days and Quit the browser unless I am going to use it. Caveat: I have not checked in depth to see if having the browser open brings back VTDecoderXPCService, but a quick check does not seem to be a problem.

This is on a mid 2010 MBP with 2.66 GHz i7 dual core and 8 GB ram running 10.10.5 Yosemite.

Hope it helps.

Not on Lion (I'm on El Capitan) but this was the thread that first came up.... My issue was background video content on the homepage of the website CharityWater.com using Chrome 47. For every tab of this website open, VTDecoderXPCService was using 25% of my CPU.

Same Problem solved: 30% CPU because of opening this url: http://eyeem.com/ - by closing tabs of not yet visited websites first it turn out that it was that one. no idea what is running on that page behind the curtain.

bravely running, easily breathing and never crashing soul called "the machine": macbook pro 15" early 2009 - OSX 10.10 yosemite - little tuning

Thanks for this post.. I had a similar problem but I'm still using Yosemite, was the Uber homepage large video running constantly in chrome 49, killed the tab and hey presto process gone! Was taking 30% CPU