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webintosh · Feb 5, 2004, 06:13 PM

Does anyone else have a problem with iChat AV absolutely hogging their CPU? Even when idle (no chats or open windows), I'm seeing usage as high as 90% constantly. Grinds everything, especially the one Classic app I have to use for work.

Tried the new beta of 2.1 and nothing's changed. Tried thrashing preferences. No luck.

PowerBook G4/867/DVI, 1GB RAM

Any ideas?

chabig · Feb 5, 2004, 07:15 PM

I have it running right now on a 12" Powerbook 867 under Panther 10.3.2. I have one text chat open, but it's idle. My CPU activity for iChat Beta is 0%.

Chris

melman101 · Feb 5, 2004, 07:20 PM

This happens when the person you are talking to has an animated icon. If you open up a text conversation with them it grabs hold and doesn't let go until you restart ichat, even if you close the conversation. To fix this problem in the meanwhile, select the user in your buddy list and go to Buddies | Get Info and replace their icon with a static one. I have not filed a bug report but if someone wants to, thats definitely the case. it's been there since ichat 1.0.

Mel

jfischetti · Feb 5, 2004, 10:10 PM

If their icon is animated, you can't see that in iChat... how do you know?

melman101 · Feb 7, 2004, 01:58 PM

Open your activity monitor, and check which persons you are talking to. when you open a new text conversation, and it jumps up to 90% you can bet he has an animated icon.

Mel

b00tang · Feb 7, 2004, 09:12 PM

i am having the same problem, i had been meaning to reformat my hard drive and put a fresh install of 10.3.2 on my computer so since this was bugging me enough I did just that...
and you know what? it didn't work.
still when i talk to people ichat will get crazy out of hand in its processor usage (above 80% according to top).
The thing is it does this even when i am talking to only one person... and i know that person doesn't have an animated icon.
so i don't see how that could be causing it... and it never did this before... its only a recent occurrenc.

what about you others having this problem? has it been doing this for a long long time or is it recent too?
any ideas what you might have installed that could be causing it?
i'm at an utter loss
-Paul

Saddam H. · Feb 8, 2004, 02:08 AM

Originally posted by melman101:
Open your activity monitor, and check which persons you are talking to. when you open a new text conversation, and it jumps up to 90% you can bet he has an animated icon.

Mel

that's unfortunate. I had been having slow performance from safari 1.2 on these boards, and so I turned off the gif animation. Lo and behold, typing doesn't lag anymore.

looks like apple has some issues with animated icons in these two apps.

Salsa · Feb 8, 2004, 01:33 PM

Originally posted by Saddam H.:
that's unfortunate. I had been having slow performance from safari 1.2 on these boards, and so I turned off the gif animation. Lo and behold, typing doesn't lag anymore.

looks like apple has some issues with animated icons in these two apps.

I've been frustrated with those terrible slowdowns in Safari sometimes too. I didn't think to turn of the animated gifs, but I guess I might have to.

Muchas gracias por el consejo, amigo.

b00tang · Feb 12, 2004, 03:06 AM

well i hate to give in, but since no one seems to have an answer, how are the other AIM clones? i like my ichat but i guess if there are other good ones (especially ones that have away messages listed in the buddy list) then i would consider switching till ichat is fixed for me

melman101 · Feb 12, 2004, 01:14 PM

try changing his icon to something you know is not animated, and then quit ichat and retry it. Let me know how that goes.

Mel

b00tang · Feb 18, 2004, 02:38 AM

I have tried that though... and I know her icon isn't animated in the first place (seriously, i have stood before her computer and checked before)
and yet still for some reason the processor usage just climbs and climbs...
so confusing...
I just want my sweet looking ichat to work without having to be restarted every few minutes

Holigen · Feb 18, 2004, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by Saddamn H.:
I had been having slow performance from safari 1.2 on these boards, and so I turned off the gif animation. Lo and behold, typing doesn't lag anymore.

You know, I should try that, I dont know what animated gifs that Safari uses, but when typing, my computer seems to lag sometimes... Oh wait, its the smilies. That makes sense, thanks for that tidbit.

Salsa · Feb 18, 2004, 09:07 AM

I looked at the preferences in Safari, but I couldn't find anything there that looked like it would turn of the animation. How did you do it? Thanks,

Neil