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Is there some way to find out, what in Emacs is causing spurious cpu usage?

Since a few days I notice Emacs retaining high CPU usage despite not being used actively, having no subprocesses, and not being in blocking state. M-: (all-threads) is empty, except for (current-thread). I also wasn't able to reproduce the issue across sessions.

I am using Emacs on Windows 10, so many unix tools will not be applicable.

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    Setting debug-on-quit and hitting C-g when Emacs is maxing CPU might give a hint. Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 3:06
  • @npostavs – Sadly no. Whatever is using the CPU is doing it in a non-blocking manner. No hickups, that would indicate a time-window for pressing <kbd>C-g</kbd>. The only reason I noticed, was because the fan was spinning more than usual. Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 16:38
  • You can keep an eye on the Task Manager tray icon which would show when CPU usage is up. Commented Feb 27, 2019 at 16:54
  • @npostavs I have encountered the issue again today. toggle-debug-on-quit and C-g don't trigger the debugger. And since the CPU usage has incrased, it remains constantly at "11%" (one of 8 cores). Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 19:13
  • "toggle-debug-on-quit and C-g don't trigger the debugger" - not at all? Are you didn't toggle debug-on-quit off by accident? Commented Mar 1, 2019 at 20:15

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@npostavs' last comment should give you enough hints to solve the problem. The built-in profiler can tell which function is causing the high CPU usage.

Here are simple steps to get started:

  1. M-x profiler-start RET
  2. select 'cpu'
  3. wait for a few seconds
  4. M-x profiler-report RET
  5. modify emacs e.g. by disabling the conflicting mode
  6. M-x profiler-stop RET
  7. repeat to continue testing

More details in the Profiling Emacs manual page.

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