High CPU Usage on macOS Catalina.... This is very annoying!

Hi,

I have concluded that, in my case, this behaviour is caused by some incompatibility with Kaspersky Internet Security, which is causing permanent 100% CPU usage for OneDrive.app.

I sent traces to Kaspersky support some weeks ago and I'm awaiting for a conclusion on their investigation.

As a temporary solution, the only workaround I found was to quit or kill Kaspersky Internet Security; OneDrive CPU% immediately goes to 0% after that and works consistently with low CPU usage.

I tried to disable some KIS options and add OneDrive app and microsoft servers into the Trusted Zone, but that had no effect.

Thus, problem is not solved so far. I observe similar behaviour with Skype for Business, with high CPU usage when running simultaneously with KIS.

I have exactly the same issue. 

Since I depend on OneDrive for Mac, I am urgently looking for a solution. Does anyone have an idea if MS is working on this bug? Any ideas for a workaround or alternate solutions (sync-clients)?

I've also noticed that there is a different behaviour when comparing the execution of same version of OneDrive, for the same account, using Big Sur (CPU issue) and High Sierra (no CPU issue).

I used dtrace to get the system calls performed by OneDrive and the infinite loop is only verified in Big Sur, with more than 3.000 calls per second to workq_kernreturn. The 100% CPU issue is result of this infinite loop:

sudo dtruss -p <OneDrive PID> -o

...

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2)  = 0 -2

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2)  = 0 -2

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2)  = 0 -2

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2)  = 0 -2

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2)  = 0 -2

     0 workq_kernreturn(0x100, 0x70000D1FCB80, 0x2) = 0 -2

...

/* workq_kernreturn commands */

#define WQOPS_THREAD_RETURN        0x04 /* parks the thread back into the kernel */

#define WQOPS_QUEUE_NEWSPISUPP     0x10 /* this is to check for newer SPI support */

#define WQOPS_QUEUE_REQTHREADS     0x20 /* request number of threads of a prio */

#define WQOPS_QUEUE_REQTHREADS2    0x30 /* request a number of threads in a given priority bucket */

#define WQOPS_THREAD_KEVENT_RETURN 0x40 /* parks the thread after delivering the passed kevent array */

#define WQOPS_SET_EVENT_MANAGER_PRIORITY 0x80 /* max() in the provided priority in the the priority of the event manager */

#define WQOPS_THREAD_WORKLOOP_RETURN 0x100 /* parks the thread after delivering the passed kevent array */

#define WQOPS_SHOULD_NARROW 0x200 /* checks whether we should narrow our concurrency */

You have summed up the issue and outcome precisely and I appreciate that. This has been my experience.

As other users already mentioned, this issue is still occurring on macOS Big Sur.

I've tested 3 different accounts and behaviour is exactly the same: OneDrive runs normally at launch but, as soon as a file is modified and all files are in sync, exactly 60 seconds later, CPU rises from 0% to 100%. The only way to make it drop to 0% again is to change/sync a new file; however, 60 seconds later, CPU rises again to 100% and stays like that endlessly.

Looks like there is a looping process after those 60 seconds, awaiting for file changes, consuming all the CPU and battery.

I've searched in other forums and I couldn't find any resolution or workaround for this issue, since no suggestion worked for me (reinstall application, turn Finder extension off, disable/enable files on-demand, fix permissions, etc.).

Until this problem is solved, OneDrive for Mac is completely useless.