Excessive CPU Usage on M3 Mac

I have been noticing an unacceptable CPU usage on Cursor across multiple macs. The task that is responsible for lint or file sync or somehow watching the file system using ripgrep (rgArm) consumes every available CPU core on my machine jumping to over a 1000% CPU usage.

Ultimately I end up having to kill or renice or forcibly find the following task in the Cursor.app file and removing execution rights because it simply uses too much CPU power.

Contents/Resources/app/node_modules.asar.unpacked/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rgArm

Sadly, doing this, limits file search, TS server completion, es-lint and many other capapbilities in the IDE that rely on indexing of the file system. It’s fine to have some processes in the background but it will literally cut hours out of usability on a M3 16" MBP and reduce my ability to do anything else computationally heavy.

This is unacceptable and is making me seek other IDEs/editors after finally finding a happy home here. Please help.

2 Likes

Yup - this problem has basically made Cursor unusable for me too.

Hey @gabrieljbaker,

Check this topic:

That’s helpful @deanrie thanks! But I sort of rely on the eslint extension, as does everyone on my team. Any other ideas?

Nope, you can disable extensions one by one.

I have a dream where I can both lint my code and use cursor at the same time (heh)

Could you post a screenshot from the Process Explorer under command palette

@tmm1

Sorry I’m asking for the Process Explorer feature inside cursor

I have the same problem all the time. Cursor process is always on 180% CPU on my Mac (M2).
Here is the screenshot of the Cursor process explorer:
(The extension 2 process is always between 160 to 220)

This problem still persists and can be consistently reproduced when using the CMD + SHIFT + F shortcut to search across files.

The issue can’t be reproduced on VS Code 1.92.1 (Universal).

I am using a MacBook Pro M2 Max with macOS Sequoia Version 15.0 (24A335).

Cursor Information:

Cursor Version: 0.42.2
VSCode Version: 1.93.1
Commit: c499aee5f16e67815c7dc795ff338dc8ab3e07f0
Date: 2024-10-12T05:39:54.471Z
Electron: 30.4.0
Chromium: 124.0.6367.243
Node.js: 20.15.1
V8: 12.4.254.20-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.0.0

It seems that many people have already talked about this issue. The members of the Cursor team keep asking users to recheck extensions or even delete certain ones like ESLint. ESLint is a very important extension that almost all teams are using, and it works perfectly fine on VS Code. This is quite confusing. It’s likely that many users will consider switching to another platform because of this issue.

By the way, this also happens in VSCode, and you can see these complaints on GitHub. We don’t recommend disabling your extensions. Instead, try to find the cause of the issue, as it might not even be the ESLint extension. First, check the logs and Process Explorer to identify the problem.

I’ve been facing a lot of crashes with cursor that I never faced with VSCode.

This crash is the most common and it’s super frustrating:

:x: Extension host terminated unexpectedly

Then I get other frequent issues like, not being able to save the changes because the cursor process becomes unresponsive and uses 100% of the CPU.

Version: 0.42.5
VSCode Version: 1.93.1
Commit: 001668006cc714afd397f4ef0d52862f5a095530
Date: 2024-11-14T00:33:36.512Z
Electron: 30.4.0
Chromium: 124.0.6367.243
Node.js: 20.15.1
V8: 12.4.254.20-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.1.0

Extensions installed

❯ cursor --list-extensions
akamud.vscode-theme-onedark
anysphere.pyright
austenc.tailwind-docs
benjaminbenais.copilot-theme
bradlc.vscode-tailwindcss
cipchk.cssrem
codezombiech.gitignore
csstools.postcss
dart-code.dart-code
dart-code.flutter
davidanson.vscode-markdownlint
dbaeumer.vscode-eslint
dsznajder.es7-react-js-snippets
eamodio.gitlens
esbenp.prettier-vscode
fabiospampinato.vscode-open-in-github
firsttris.vscode-jest-runner
formulahendry.auto-rename-tag
foxundermoon.shell-format
github.vscode-github-actions
graphql.vscode-graphql
graphql.vscode-graphql-syntax
janisdd.vscode-edit-csv
mechatroner.rainbow-csv
mikestead.dotenv
misq.toggleformatonsave
monosans.djlint
ms-azuretools.vscode-docker
ms-python.autopep8
ms-python.black-formatter
ms-python.debugpy
ms-python.flake8
ms-python.python
ms-python.vscode-pylance
ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers
ms-vscode.cpptools
ms-vscode.cpptools-extension-pack
ms-vscode.cpptools-themes
naumovs.color-highlight
oderwat.indent-rainbow
pkief.material-icon-theme
prisma.prisma
redhat.vscode-yaml
robbowen.synthwave-vscode
streetsidesoftware.code-spell-checker
styled-components.vscode-styled-components
t-akasaki.git-skip-worktree-manager
tamasfe.even-better-toml
techer.open-in-browser
tomoki1207.pdf
viktorqvarfordt.vscode-pitch-black-theme
vscode-icons-team.vscode-icons
vsls-contrib.codetour
wayou.vscode-todo-highlight
wix.vscode-import-cost
wmaurer.change-case
yoavbls.pretty-ts-errors

I’ve been using VSCode for years and this never happened. I recently migrated to Cursor and facing these critical issues that keep interpreting me a lot through out the day.