Evernote Helper CPU Usage (10.2.4 build 1949)

[Dave Dix 15]

Is anyone else out there experiencing extremely high CPU usage from the Evernote Helper process?

My laptop fan is constantly spinning up and when I looked at system activity I see the "% CPU" sitting at 99% and peaking at 150%

I exited Evernote and then restarted it and the problem goes away for a period then comes back.

Is it possible to quit the Evernote Helper without quitting Evernote?

[PinkElephant 8,088]

No experience with this. A word about CPU usage: 100% means 1 core of the CPU is at full load. This is why it can go beyond 100%. If you have a 6-core, it can go up to 600%, for example.

100% for the helper is much too much - you could probably shoot a man to the moon with that much computing power.

Maybe try an un- / reinstall ?

[Albertoramos 0]

I'm experiencing the same, since I installed the new version recently. I might try that uninstall/reinstall to see if it improves.

Version is 10.2.4.

[stocky2605 401]

kill the process using the activity monitor - does it help?

[ESalmon98 1]

I am also having this issue.  When the application is minimized, the CPU will go back down.  But if the application is up, even if it's behind other windows, it will start spinning up the CPU.

Evernote version info:

v 10.2.4 build 458360 public
Editor: v111.0.14414
Service: v1.21.2
© 2019 - 2020 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

[Vstk 33]

I experience the same thing, both on MacOS and Windows.  It makes my computers hot and noisy.

[Peter Olins 66]

I, too, got "laptop burn" with earlier version. Evernote Helper (Renderer) process routinely used 100% CPU.

The problem persisted after updating to V 10.3.6.

(Legacy version still has has overall superior performance and features.) 

[mac OS 10.15.7, EN 10.3.6]

Edited November 11, 2020 by Peter Olins
change of performance

[DTLow 5,736]

On 11/5/2020 at 1:17 AM, Dave Dix said:

Is anyone else out there experiencing extremely high CPU usage from the Evernote Helper process?

CPU is ok
Memory is a problem   

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Depends on how much you have ... especially when viewed with Apples budget pricing in mind 🤣

[danio72 105]

On 11/5/2020 at 9:17 AM, Dave Dix said:

Is anyone else out there experiencing extremely high CPU usage from the Evernote Helper process?

My laptop fan is constantly spinning up and when I looked at system activity I see the "% CPU" sitting at 99% and peaking at 150%

I exited Evernote and then restarted it and the problem goes away for a period then comes back.

Is it possible to quit the Evernote Helper without quitting Evernote?

Yes; very often.  It's reported in Beta and continues through the release versions.  It seems to affect macOS only and not Windows from my experience.  It also seems to begin when the Helper uses up to 100%, as soon as that happens it never seems to 'quiet' down again.  If you minimise the CPU use drops away but maximise the window and it's back instantly.  If you close the app and relaunch, it's relatively quiet until the next time 100% CPU is hit, then, you are back to square one.

Evernote is currently, by a country mile, the most CPU hungry app on my device, even my Windows 10 VM only takes 30% and that in itself has several open apps running

I am absolutely convinced this is the reason why many people are saying performance I slow, especially if their hardware is low spec

[Lance11235813 1]

I just upgraded to new version 10.3.7, the issue still persisted. The Evernote Helper process taking huge amount of CPU resource periodically.

Note, I'm using MacOS Catalina with version 10.15.7 and 6-Core.   

This is really make my laptop super hot and noisy !!! 

Does anyone ever reported to Evernote team? They really should take look at this issue seriously. 

[Peter Olins 66]

On 11/5/2020 at 2:17 AM, Dave Dix said:

Is anyone else out there experiencing extremely high CPU usage from the Evernote Helper process?

EN helper (EN v10.3.6) was furiously reading and writing to disk (many GB), and using 100% of a CPU, slowing down other mac processes.

I "solved" this by deleting all the EN caches using App Cleaner. I now have a sedate EN using 10-20% of CPU—and my laptop lap-burn is healing nicely ;~)

 (Caveat: I have no idea if this would be effective or safe for others).

 

(mac OS 10.15.7
macbook: EN 10.3.6
database: 30,000+ notes, with 2700 pdf attachments)

[JK_WA 0]

I had this problem as well on v10.3.7.   The following steps fixed it for me (for now)

• Quit Evernote
• Delete the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/Cache/
• Restart Evernote

 

[Ashoke 1]

Hitting the same issue: extremely sluggish performance. high cpu usage in foreground. additionally, AppleSpell is using a ton of CPU as well. Prior to updating, never experienced a performance issue. 

v 10.4.4 build 2096 public
Editor: v112.1.14477
Service: v1.23.6
© 2019 - 2020 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

[mikkmakk88 1]

I'm having the same issue. Even just having the window open makes makes my computer get crazy hot and loud.

[RichW 26]

Same problem here for Evernote Helper -  127% CPU, 1.51GB of memory (ridiculous).  

I'm on Evernote for Mac 10.5.7 on a 2020 Macbook pro w/ 64GB of memory.

 

[chudneywallace 3]

I had this problem of Evernote Helper (Renderer) using >100% CPU constantly, and it was demolishing my battery.

It seems to have gone away after i did this: (1) Completely removed Evernote using AppCleaner (2) Rebooted (3) Revoked access for my Mac from my Evernote account page (4) Downloaded Evernote from their website, and NOT from the App Store (5) Installed, logged in and left it to download my entire set of notes without interruption (by disabling sleep).  This took a few hours.

Now the process barely uses any CPU.  Hope that works for someone!

 

 

 

 

[ChrisK9EQ 0]

Just a note that I am also having problems with the Evernote Helper consuming a lot of CPU resources. It typically sits at #4 in the list of most energy intensive apps - which is important when running on battery. I'd personally like to just get rid of it. Any idea why they can't make that an option in the preferences?

After the computer being booted 4 days ago, the Evernote Helper has consumed one hour and 41 minutes of CPU time. Argh!

I guess I'll just have to keep Evernote closed unless I really need it. Add Evernote to the list of programs you don't want running when on battery.

[danio72 105]

v10.6.9 seems to have alot of optimisations in this area.  I have had the release installed 1-day now and Helper use is currently 2.5% CPU.  It does increase when there is work to do, as you would expect, but then drops back to minimal.

In addition the RAM use by the application appears optimised.  This, along with additional speed improvements in the interface with navigation and note loading

[PinkElephant 8,088]

About CPU usage: One must remember that in MacOS the value is measured per core. So if you run a 4 core machine, 2.5% is in fact less than 1% of total CPU capacity, on an octacore it is below 0.5%.

Would be a good step  forward if the CPU usage gets back to a normal level again.

[AiRev 0]

It's ridiculous. Came here for high CPU usage (sending app to background worked, thanks!) and found memory footprint problem.

 

The reason for that is electron - new evernote is not just an app, but a chrome browser rendering html+js evernote app inside it's window. Electron is known to be a great resource hog, but very cheap in production. The native app was much better.

Starting to look for alternatives. Electron is no-go for me.

"On MacOS it even contains a userland USB driver for xbox360 controllers. (I know its there because I wrote it. Sorry.)" (c) Joseph Gentle http://josephg.com
 

 

[Randy Geyer 0]

Re-Installed 10.8.5 this morning.  It's midnight now.  With a single window open in the foreground, completely idle, Evernote Helper is hovering between 43 - 60% of a core.  It's consistently at the top of the %CPU list.  If I open 2-3 notes, it'll consume 100% or more CPU.  Between Evernote Helper(s) and Evernote, it's consuming ~2GB of RAM.  Performance is horrendous, especially given there's no Evernote UI activity whatsoever.  Between this and every other update causing notes to render blank, I think I'm done with EN after 15+ years.  I've been a loyal paid user, but this is just unacceptable.  These performance issues have been ongoing for months, some going back to 2019.

@AiRev It's not Electron, VSCode and Chrome Helpers (Renderers) consume 0-1% CPU when their UIs are idle (open but no activity).  This is an EN problem with whatever they're doing in their UI code.  Unbelievable!

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Known issue, fix pending.

Workaround: Close (cmd-q) and reopen the app from time to time.

[ArjenC 124]

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Known issue, fix pending.

Workaround: Close (cmd-q) and reopen the app from time to time.

This issue is because (cannot prove it) it is necessary (for now) to make Evernote perform. You can do some testing and see when memory/cpu is extensively used. 
The workaround works, only for a short time. Do some searching and the numbers go to the roof. 

The workaround is a typical one-shot solution from supportdesk manuals: Did you reset your device? No, please do.. I know this works in 90+% of the time, managed a supportdesk myself, but every time I read this advice I smile... 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

It may be necessary to open these instances to perform tasks for the user.

Not closing them when they did whatever they did (and are no longer needed) for me is a bug.

And a workaround is exactly that, not a solution, and not a replacement for a solution. It may just make the solution less urgent, depending on the quality of the workaround. This one is an easy one, but will still interrupt the users workflow.

[ArjenC 124]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

And a workaround is exactly that, not a solution, and not a replacement for a solution. It may just make the solution less urgent, depending on the quality of the workaround. This one is an easy one, but will still interrupt the users workflow.

100% agree with you, but beware... extensive (and in my opinion useless) usage of the system isn't without costs. Your hardware will produce extra heat, if memory consumption is this high harddisks need to work harder. At the end your hardware will age faster.

Take a look with some resource management tools... the difference is significant.. V10 is resource heavy.. 

Example: Application idle, after  +/-10 minutes of start application... nothing else... V10 has 3x more I/O to SSD disk, why? It doesn't have to do anything... it is not in use.. only running. Has 10x more memory consumption, has 5x more cpu consumption... doing nothing.... 

This is not a bug, this is by design.. 

Numbers get more significant when application is in full use

[PinkElephant 8,088]

The discussion about how many resources a program should use to do its job is pointless. An app nested into a framework will never be as efficient as one programmed natively. I remember when critical programs were coded in assembler, to run it with minimal overhead directly on the CPU, using the CPUs own instruction set. Long gone, although regarding resources this is the most efficient way to run any code. Modern software concepts have other advantages, and making EN platform independent is a value in itself - faster fixes, more features, better release management.

If one can bake an egg on the CPU depends as much on the processor design as on the workload - my Intel Mac is heating up within seconds, whenever it decides to push up processor clock speed. If this was the measure, we would all be running on ARM already.

IMHO the bug is not the resources consumption, it is the blocking of resources after the task was executed.

[ArjenC 124]

I agree with you that is is upon the dev's to decide what is needed (memory, cpu etc) to do the job... IMHO the bug (or by design) takes way too much resources for capturing text/images/files... even in idle, background operations: doing nothing, it consumes more resource than photoshop in full workflow, or even playing games.. Framework vs native code, I don't even want to compare them, the choice was made... fine with me and from management perspective a logical choice.

And just as Evernote has choices so do we.
My observation, based on some basic tools, is that Evernote drains to many resources and this results in other bugs as well. Sync issues, dubblication of notes, missing data while webclipping. It can al be related to a device is critical resource shortage.

As we speak, memory Evernote (was running, not used today): 1.5GB, CPU 8% for doing absolutely nothing. .. and working with PhotoShop 572MB, CPU 0.2 %.
I don't judge but find this strange behaviour...

[Randy Geyer 0]

Other apps that use the same framework do not suffer from these issues.  Check out VSCode.  None of these issues.  It's not the framework.  It's the inefficient use of the framework.

[Mark Brough 4]

Me too.

• Only happens with long notes.
• Crazy CPU tends to begin when I click in a note to edit it. Although sometimes just displaying the note is sufficient.
• Continues with Evernote minimised.
• Stops when I click outside a note to cease editing.
• Doesn't stop when I click in a different, shorter note, to cease editing in the long note.

Windows 10, 8GB RAM.

[kaksiir 4]

@Shane D.  Evernote for Android is useless for me since all images are unable to render.

Could you please help us with this issue. Thanks.

 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

The best way to reach EN is through a support ticket.

The forum is user to user, and the forum admin is not a walking support instance.

[ciskowitz 4]

This issue just occurred on my M1 MacBook after the upgrade to 10.12.6-mac-mas-public (458557). Spinning beach ball constantly while using Evernote. Close and reopen app seems to have resolved. For now.
 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

This is not new from 10.12. Actually it was reported pretty early with v10, both for Windows and Mac.

The only solution at the moment seems to be to really close the client (ctrl / cmd -q), instead of just hiding it by closing the window.

You could help in getting this stopped at the root by issuing a support ticket when it happens, with the activity log. I think there are processes in the EN „shell“ that should have been terminated after doing their job, but continue to run and consume resources. Probably needs some good old analysis and code changes to catch them.

[ebuda 2]

I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing this.    My computer is burning up whenever I use evernote.   I checked the CPU and it's hogging memory and CPU. 

[Dave Green 209]

Updating my similar experience, often I can lower the idle cpu usage of Evernote by minimizing the main window and looking at extra windows. 

[Vinicius2021 0]

On 5/25/2021 at 11:45 PM, Dave Green said:

Updating my similar experience, often I can lower the idle cpu usage of Evernote by minimizing the main window and looking at extra windows. 

Same thing here. It's a shame, because I loved so much the new ctrl + q feature but I can't use it with the main window closed.

[EvernoteUser818 8]

On 2/23/2021 at 12:36 AM, PinkElephant said:

Known issue, fix pending.

Workaround: Close (cmd-q) and reopen the app from time to time.

Still seems a problem for me. Do you know where this issue is tracked so I can check for udpates? Or do you work for Evernote? 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Who works for EN has a "Staff" badge. Answer to your question ?

With practically every release performance improvements are mentioned in the release notes. If they continue like this, within the next releases any work done in EN will already finish before you think about doing it. Fast enough ?

Seriously only EN engineers probably know what tweaks they do to speed things up. I doubt they will tell ...

[saintjohnny 6]

I found a fix for me: When I use my slow computer with only 4 cores, I notice when high CPU usage goes up because my fan gets loud when I'm inside my massive note with lots of spelling errors (mostly false positive tech lingo stuff), but if I go to tools, preferences, and uncheck "check spelling while typing" my CPU usage goes from around 35% while I'm inside the note, to almost no usage, so for me I feel the issue is that evernote is in some kind of spell checking loop that my slower machine can't keep up too easily?

[Eric Schutte 13]

Hello Saintjohnny,

That seems to be the answer !!!!!

Thankx

[Mark Brough 4]

On 7/13/2021 at 9:29 PM, saintjohnny said:

I feel the issue is that evernote is in some kind of spell checking loop that my slower machine can't keep up too easily?

I too have developed, over many months, a suspicion that the problem is due to spell check.

It really is pathetic that Evernote have never investigated this problem and posted a helpful response to us. Evernote is really quite a simple database application, and in no way needs to consume as much CPU resources as this.

[Eric Schutte 13]

Hello Mark,

But there is more, there is a also limit to 50 notes you an process at once. Yesterday I made an error and entered some 3000 files, to get rid of them I had to install Evernote Legacy, it took me 1 minute.

I now decided to use both; Legacy and Evernote 10 for the tasks. That is of great use to me.

So on my windows PC Legacy PLUS Evernote 10 and on my iPhone and iPad the new Evernote app with the option for tasks.

Best of both worlds !

Greetings Eric

[EvernoteUser818 8]

Here is the workaround I've been using, only for when evernote is in the background. Works for my use case. 

 

 

[Eric Schutte 13]

Hello EvernoteUser818,

I use evernote on a Windows computer, cmd+H seems a IOS command.

But the solution you give, do not change the window, seems logical when looking at the CPU usage, but not practical. I switch window quite often.

So only working in Evernote is not an option.

For now I'm happy with both versions of Evernote side by side.

Greetings Eric

[Walder 33]

Same troubles ((((

[Mark Brough 4]

For me, Eric Schutte's workaround has worked. (Disable spell checking.)

Sounds as though there are several problems in this software which each cause similar symptoms.

[Eric Schutte 13]

Hello Mark,

Credits for the solution go to Saintjohnny!! In the Netherlands we say "ere wie ere toekomt".

Evernote is consuming a lot of memory and CPU. Also on the iPad, there is a lot of room for improvement.

But ....... I'm very happy with the new tasks. I quit Sorted3, was very happy with it but Evernote gives me a lot more possibilities.

I hope the developers get inspired some more to make Evernote even better.

Greetings Eric

[TazUK 9]

I'm running Evernote 10.21.5 on macOS. When I launch Evernote I see 7 processes related to Evernote!

• Evernote
• Evernote Helper
• Evernote Helper (GPU)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)

Why so many?

I'm a VERY basic user of EN. I just have a few notes and I just type stuff into them. Occasionally I'll paste a URL into my notes. That's as complex as my use of EN is. Is there a way to disable some of the fancy capability of EN and save CPU resources?

[EvernoteUser818 8]

8 minutes ago, TazUK said:

I'm running Evernote 10.21.5 on macOS. When I launch Evernote I see 7 processes related to Evernote!

• Evernote
• Evernote Helper
• Evernote Helper (GPU)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)
• Evernote Helper (Renderer)

Why so many?

I'm a VERY basic user of EN. I just have a few notes and I just type stuff into them. Occasionally I'll paste a URL into my notes. That's as complex as my use of EN is. Is there a way to disable some of the fancy capability of EN and save CPU resources?

This is normal for an Electron based app. Compare with Chrome, Slack, etc... This is not the main reason for high CPU usage. It's the utilization of 1 or 2 of these processes, not the number of processes. 

edit, to save CPU/power, see my recommendation above and the other one to try turning off spell checking

[PinkElephant 8,088]

The number of processes is quite normal. If it seems a process got stuck (no activity, high on CPU or memory), the best solution is to quit the app (cmd-Q) and restart it. Usually it returns to a more stable situation then.

The other tip already listed above is to disable the spell checker.

In general the new app does not like long notes. It is advisable to split long notes into smaller ones. You can create a note with a table of content (TOC), and link the notes together to be able to navigate easily.

[Mark Brough 4]

26 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

...

The other tip already listed above is to disable the spell checker.

...

As a further insult from Evernote ...  even though I have disabled the spell checker, and even though "Preferences/Check spelling when typing" remains unticked, Evernote still checks spelling as I type on some notes, not others. So naff! For these notes, CPU activity remains high. Ticking and then re-unticking "Preferences/Check spelling when typing" fixes this problem. (I have not yet discovered how long it fixes it for. Until close/reopen?)

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Bugs are not an insult, they are a malfunction. It is like telling the weather is not to your liking - it will rain anyhow, and believe it or not the clouds are not conspiring to do so to ruin your day. 

When it happens next time issue a support ticket, attach your activity log - that is they way how things get improved.

[Mark Brough 4]

1 minute ago, PinkElephant said:

...

When it happens next time issue a support ticket, attach your activity log - that is they way how things get improved.

Of course things do not get improved like that. That is a totally naive suggestion. I have wasted time on several occasions carefully reporting things to Evernote, in the spirit of cooperation, only to be insulted by thoughtless advice and questions from staff who have not bothered to consider my problem report. I find this lack of respect for cooperative customers to be insulting.

As evidence - this very issue - a significant issue which should not happen in 2021, with software which has just been rewritten using modern technology  - it has been extant for a year, with no helpful response from Evernote whtsoever.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Are you posting here to get anything improved, or just to tell everybody the results of a deep thinking exercise about the nature of bugs in software ? Posting here just has the effect of impressing (more or less so, just to mention it) other cooperative users coming to the forum.

My observation is that to get something fixed, you need to go through support (or maybe apply for work with EN, no experience with that option though). It is quite easy to get annoyed by support staff asking a lot of questions, I have answered my share of them as well. But it is the way to go if you want to get rid of something that is not working properly.

The idea bugs would be introduced to insult you is amusing … sheds a whole new perspective to think when I encounter a bug it may be collateral damage of a unknown dev deciding to get your adrenaline pumping. So at least they didn’t mean ME when coding the bug 😇

[octern 2]

Just +1ing that I had this exact problem; quitting didn't help at all but turning off spellcheck did.

It didn't fix the problem where short, text-only notes that I use every day take 15 seconds or more to load, though.

 

[Walder 33]

turning off spellcheck didn't help to me (((

[Mark Brough 4]

1 hour ago, Walder said:

turning off spellcheck didn't help to me (((

Did you confirm that unticking "Preferences/Check spelling when typing" successfully disabled spell checking?

[Walder 33]

4 minutes ago, Mark Brough said:

Did you confirm that unticking "Preferences/Check spelling when typing" successfully disabled spell checking?

Wrong words don't have red dots underline. Before had.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

The usual procedure at the moment to fix problems is this (Windows version):

1. Go to File > Sign Out [name] from the menu bar.
2. Select the "Remove my Evernote data from this device" option, then click Sign out.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Sign back in to Evernote

It rebuilds the local database. Some problems are caused by a hidden problem there.

[Sergio Picorelli 2]

None of workaround works for me.  I will apreciate Evernote team to work and fix it otherwise we will must migrate to a new solution. It is impossible to work on my notebook with Evernote running on this new framework version..

[FreddoBee 1]

Hi All -

This morning my Mac crashed twice after the fan spun up a lot and the log stated:
Process name corresponding to current thread: Evernote Helper (Renderer)

I'll keep an eye on this too now... Running Evernote 10.22.3 on macOS 11.6 (20G165)

All the best - Fred 

 

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Did you issue a support ticket yet ?

Even if the CPU goes up, this should not (never) cause a kernel panic, leading to a shutdown. If it does, we are not talking about CPU usage, we are talking about a critical bug.

BTW the CPU percentage is counted per core. It depends on how many cores your CPU is sporting to say if 97% is a lot. If you have a Mac with only 2 cores, it is a lot - if you have an 8 core CPU it does not mean much.