High CPU Usage when playing videos

[ArchantosPT]

I have exactly the same problem. I search all around and a lot, i mean a LOT of people is having the same problem, what is going on with Adobe Flash Player? Every video, specially in Youtube, i just can't watch 720p videos, because the CPU reach the 100%, all is good in my PC, it's just the Adobe Flash Player that have some kind of problem, i don't know what to do or where to search anymore for a solution. This is getting frustrating.

[toxify]

yeah i'm so frustrated with this i'm almost ready to reinstall windows and see if that fixes this

[ArchantosPT]

I've already done that twice toxify. For me it didn't worked.

I tried a lot of things to get a solution but none of them worked to fixed the problem, that's why i'm here now making a move to see if someone can help me.

[toxify]

awww ok ty for that glad i didn't waste my time on a reformat then...hopefully this gets solved soon

[chris.campbell]

Are either of you finding that Flash Player eventually runs out of memory and crashes or does memory just grow higher than you expect?

I've got two systems running 720p+ twitch streams.  One is a Win 7 VM with Chrome and memory is hovering around 80mb.  The other is Win 8, using the same NVidia drivers listed earlier in the thread.  Again I'm using Chrome and the memory is about 76mb.  I'll post back in an hour or two with updated memory stats.

[chris.campbell]

My 720 streams stopped a little early, but neither machine seemed to have increased much (maybe 20mb after an hour of playback.)

I tried again with a 1080p+ stream.  On Windows 8, Chrome has been at a steady 147mb over 2 hours.  Windows 7 started at 160mb, but is now at 240mb.  I'll continue to monitor, but it seems to be jumping between 230 - 240.  Definitely not increasing at a rapid pace.

[toxify]

mine increases and keeps goin up like crazy until i close the tab i left it open for like 4 hours today i went from 45% ram usage to 85% with flashplayer open and playing....when i reloaded the tab it was fine in chrome

[chris.campbell]

Try using Process Explorer to watch watch the specific browser process.  Are there times when the numbers jump?  I noticed that when ads were displayed, my Win 7 values increased slightly.  Unless Flash Player crashes, it's also possible it just hasn't done garbage collection and would release the memory if needed.

[toxify]

mmm i dont see ads in any browser thanks to my ad blocker it filters them in the background without me knowing ...

[chris.campbell]

I'd recommend trying to disable all extensions and ad blocking utilities to see if they might be interfering.  There's something different about your system and mine that is causing issues for you that I just don't see.

[toxify]

k tryin that now i will post back in a hr or so with the results i can usually tell after that long

[toxify]

so after running with no adblockr for aout a hour and half now the memory usage has risen from 56% to 64% ...seems like my adblocker was causing the problem i think

[ArchantosPT]

My Hardware Acceleration is already enabled, and my drivers are updated.

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System Information

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Time of this report: 1/18/2013, 10:28:20

       Machine name: HATURUNA

   Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)

           Language: Portuguese (Regional Setting: Portuguese)

System Manufacturer: System manufacturer

       System Model: System Product Name

               BIOS: BIOS Date: 03/26/08 09:23:04 Ver: 08.00.12

          Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz (2 CPUs)

             Memory: 1014MB RAM

          Page File: 1064MB used, 1377MB available

        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS

    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

DX Setup Parameters: Not found

     DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

------------

DxDiag Notes

------------

  DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.

      Display Tab 1: No problems found.

        Sound Tab 1: No problems found.

          Music Tab: No problems found.

          Input Tab: No problems found.

        Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------

DirectX Debug Levels

--------------------

Direct3D:    0/4 (n/a)

DirectDraw:  0/4 (retail)

DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)

DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)

DirectPlay:  0/9 (retail)

DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)

DirectShow:  0/6 (retail)

This happens with all browsers, with extensions or without it, the video plays, the sound is good, but the video have lag because of the high CPU, the rest i have no problem with. The HTLM5 doesn't help either, the problem continues.

Could it be a problem with the processor?

[toxify]

Seems like my call on the adblocker was premature had a flash video open for up to 5 hours this morning memory usage is at 80% with that tab open...42% as soon as i reload it...

[jeromiec83223024]

The memory usage you're describing is distinct from the original CPU issue described.

We believe the memory usage issue is fixed in our daily builds, and should be available in next week's Flash Player 11.6 Beta release, which is targeted for Tuesday.

You can download the beta here: http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayerbeta

[toxify]

k i've downloaded it and i'm gonna leave a stream on for awhile will let you know thanks for helping

[chris.campbell]

@toxify - I don't have the bug number handy, but from Jeromie's statement it sounds like this will be fixed in the beta that you'll get next week (if you selected automatic updates.)

[toxify]

the beta he linked me to seems to have fixed the probelm for me left a flash video open for about 7 hours now and my ram usage is only at 44%

[toxify]

ok update to the problem it's not fixed....the longer i leave my pc on it's start's happening....was happening tonite ......was at 65% ram usage with a flash player video open for like 4 hours soon as i closed the tab and reloaded it ....ram usage went to 41%

[Guest]

In my case it's hard to reproduce as its quite random. Most of the times I can go on for days if not weeks without an issue (there are times I get this within hours but thats not as common) with addons enabled and suddenly CPU spikes up to 100% although I haven't gotten this issue on all websites that use flash. It usually happens  on a widescreen 480p stream of the service provider called Castamp with a chat next to it from the service Chatango, much like the website Twitch. Both stream and chat are Flash dependant and not affiliated with eachother.

It doesn't matter if you set firefox to time-out plugins if unresponsive for X seconds, it does not automatically terminate the flash player plugin by itself. It has to be forced via Task manager.

Would creating a full dump be of any help when it occurs?

[jeromiec83223024]

The encoding of the video itself is an important factor in whether or not we can use hardware decoding on your machine.  It may be that you're running into older videos that need to be decoded on the CPU, or it could be a bug in code that processes that particular video encoding scheme.

In order to really make any progress on that problem, we'd need a link to a specific video where you see the problem.  Next time you run into this problem, snag a link to the video and file a bug over at http://bugbase.adobe.com/.

When you see your CPU usage spike, are you also checking to see which process is pegging your CPU?  (Click Start > Run and type taskmgr, then press [Enter]. Click the CPU column to sort)

When you file the bug, it would also be useful to have information about your hardware.

- Operating system

- Browser

- Flash Player version - http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/find-version-flash-player.html

Video hardware details;

- Windows - http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html#main_For_Windows_users

- Mac - http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html#main_For_Mac_OS_users

Thanks!

[Guest]

Hi Jeromie,

That would be an issue. These services don't actually save the footage so there is no link to the footage that can be used to send towards the Adobe team.

Streams are freshly encoded as they get streamed since the streamer streams the footage over the RTMP protocol.

The streaming software used varies between xSplit and Open Broadcaster Software and the encoding scheme are often the same as another stream where the 100% CPU usage suddenly occurs.

The process that spiked up to 100% is FlashPlayerPlugin_11_5_502_146.exe.  (In 32 bit mode since the browser is 32 bit)

Currently i am using the beta FlashPlayerPlugin_11_6_602_146 (also 32 bit mode) and have yet to get 100% CPU usage.

This issue might be different from the one the topic starter has, since his is consistent high cpu usage when watching videos whereas in my case it happens under certain circumstances of which I have no idea what triggers it.

[jeromiec83223024]

To effectively troubleshoot the problem, we'd need to take a machine with a C++ debugger running our internal debug version of Flash Player, and point it to content that reproduces the problem.

Adobe provides an end-to-end toolchain for commercial video streaming applications.  Part of the associated license fees make sure that the workflow is tested extensively for quality and compatibility.  We have a whole dedicated team of people that makes sure that the video playback experience using FMS is good.  While third party alternatives may initially appear cheaper, they don't get tested, and may be impacted by bugs or new feature development that doesn't show up with Flash Media Server and our video production toolchain.

That said, we don't break things intentionally, and would be happy to invest resources in making a reasonable investigation; however, there's not much action we can take based on your report.  If you can provide us with a URL that reproduces the problem (even if it's reasonably intermittent), I can get someone to take a look at it.

If this is a time-sensitive or blocking issue for you, I'd highly recommed that you check out Adobe Flash Media server to see if it better meets your needs. 

We offer free trials for evaluation here:

http://www.adobe.com/in/products/adobe-media-server-family.html

[toxify]

So i completely redid my pc had nothing but windows updates on their last nite left a flash video open this morning when i woke up was at 81% ram usage this is a adobe problem that i wish would get fixed

[toxify]

When is this gonna be fixed i went and bought windows 8 pro installed it on my pc with a fresh clean install same problem come on Adobe