SourceTree 3.1.2 100% CPU usage on Mac

[emil.lewandowski]

This has been posted a few times times, since Dec 2017, and the first Question (link) has been closed and I don't know why, so I'm attempting to ask this again, to see if there's an update.

I am getting constant 100% CPU usage when running Sourcetree 3.1.2 on Mac OS Mojave 10.14.4

Any ideas as to why?

Thanks! 

Here's a photo of the sample of my Sourcetree process. It seems to be increasing the load around the '_drawContentAtRow' instruction... Not sure.

[sam.arbid · Accepted solution]

Vote here if you come after 2020 and still have the same issue.
same issue for YEARS!
Unbelievable Atlassian. 👎🏼

[nebrekab]

I switched to GitKraken as I gave up hope...

[fshamim]

really unfortunate.

[Dave Hale]

I've actually grown to love the soothing white noise of my CPU fan coming on.  Sure it will drain some of the useful life out of my computer due to wear and tear, but that's nothing compared to the blissful peacefulness I get from the calming whir of the CPU fan.  So zen!  Please don't fix it!

[Steve Pascoe]

I find it balances out the tinnitus in my ears so all i hear is negative whitespace.

[jasonwai]

I was forced to use Sourcetree for a project the last 8 months, seriously, it cause performance degradation of my Macbook pro (high cpu usage), literally killed my battery (battery drain) (I have to replace the battery), cause overheating and potentially also cause the damage of my speaker (overheat?).

Atlassian, Why would a piece of software full load the CPU in the background? At least tell users why, and allow users to disable the features! (p.s. I have disabled all the "refresh when files change" features, still...)

[Achim Köllner]

I ususally use Tower but for one project I need to use source tree as power is not good at displaying multiple tags in the glog.

Watching this discusson since 4 years now. It's a shame.

[Eric Askari]

I just realised this, My mac pro's fan wasn't for Docker or IDE or Chrome, it was for sourcetree 👀

[Peter Ebraert]

+1 here with the newest and most expensive MACBOOK PRO 2020.

[Luboslav Horanic]

We have 2021 and I still have to kill SourceTree on my Macbook pro 2020 many times per day because of huge cpu utilisation...

[Matthew]

Questions for all you peeps.  I stopped using SourceSuck about a year and a half ago, but just stay on this thread to watch this epic fail persist with giggles of semi-disbelief.

So my question: Why is anyone still using Source Tree voluntarily?  The app has been abandoned and just hurts your computer.  There are better options, and better free ones too. Like @jasonwai - you said you were "forced" to use it?  Even if this were a team environment, GIT is application agnostic.  No comprendo ;) 

Genuinely curious here.  Thanks!

[wadesign]

Hi Matthew,

And I think, we all are curious about what's the alternative? Are there any other apps working with bitbucket for Mac?

If there is a good alternative, i'll change today!

[Matthew]

Any GIT tool can read in a GIT repository.  Doesn't matter if it's bitbucket-oriented.  When you clone a new repository, just use the bitbucket URL in whatever tool you have.

I use GitHub Desktop, just to have a simple visual.  You can use command line.  There's some ever better paid tools - some people here have mentioned their favorites.  Or just google best GIT tools to see what the latest verdict is...

[Luboslav Horanic]

To your question "why?" Matthew: Because this tool has another good features beside this annoying one, especially if you must use bitbucket for your projects and it improve your productivity with bitbucket. And yes, I use command line git for simple commands, but there are many cases where visual is a must to be productive...

[jasonwai]

@Matthew I was being a little bit exaggerated because I was very pissed. What I mean is I was on a tight schedule on a project, so I had no time to search for alternatives, so I kept using SourceTree without being too aware of it slowly killing my macbook and its battery. Until one day I find myself using a computer with constantly screaming fan, throttled cpu and swollen battery, and SourceTree is the one to blame.

Now I am using Smartgit, some VS code git plugins and git command. I still use SourceTree sometimes, but I have to close it as soon as I finish using it.

[Ralph Callaway]

i really like a lot of the source tree GUIs, the interactive rebase is nice, i like the layout. i customized a lot of actions that were really nice. the search features and graph view work well. it's a measure of how annoying this bug is that i abandoned it

these days, i get by with the vs code git integrations plus git graph and git lens. they do pretty well, and have some features that are pretty sweet (like the ability to step through revisions in the file itself), and i've gotten much better with the command line. i still miss source tree, but my cpu sure doesn't

[drawcode]

Still a problem but look at it this way, the heat from your CPU can keep you warm during the winter.

Every once in a while when I have to use Sourcetree I forget to close after a commit and the room starts getting hot. 

Thanks Atlassian for all the extra power you are consuming across the world. What is it doing mining crypto? smh.

When I use Souretree and Unity it is a tag team of CPU abuse.

I do appreciate the work that went into the tool and the tool itself. Though it does seem like a pay UI git client is the only way to make sure you don't have to worry about this, or github desktop or just old school git cli.

It must be one of those things that is so embedded that it is impossible to rip out or change and the person that wrote it is long gone.

[lou-adrien.fabre]

Haha indeed, definitely could thank Sourcetree for keeping my hands warm during these difficult winter times 

[Larry Weya]

Been having lousy battery life on my week old 16" MBP just to realise it was all Sourcetree, have had to switch back to git commands and integrated GIT on VS code.

[Bowen Fan]

Ever since I encountered this problem, I've been resorting to using Git command line out of frustration. Now after months of practice, I've become a Pro in Git commands. Therefore I would like to thank SourceTree for implementing this 100% CPU feature which enabled me to upskill in my Git proficiency. Keep up the great work guys!

[Steve Pascoe]

My guess is this is something to do with excessively checking Pipelines. The spinner is rotating out of control. Probably something small to do with the animation. With these things its always something annoyingly small thats the cause. But yes i have been experiencing this CPU issue for a number of years now, might be time to consider an alternative.

[Jeremy Tredway]

I can confirm that after removing a deprecated pipeline.yml file, the CPU usage went from 90%+ down to 0% when idle.

[Steve Pascoe]

My opinion is its almost certainly got to do with repos that have Pipelines builds associated with them. That or bitbucket repos in general.

I have two windows open now, one repo to AWS CodeCommit, the other to github and CPU is fine. If i open a bitbucket repo (that happens to be attached to Pipelines) i hear my laptop getting ready to take flight.

[Jeremy Tredway]

I can confirm that after removing a deprecated pipeline.yml file, the CPU usage went from 90%+ down to 0% when idle.

[wadesign]

Hi Jeremy, hope this will work. where to find this YML file?

[Andreas Ek]

Perhaps in your repo 😂

[Jeremy Tredway]

@wadesign  If you have a pipeline file, it should be at the root of your repository. Look for a file with the .yml extension. Keep in mind, of course, that your project may have a legitimate use/need for your pipeline file. Thus, if you're unfamiliar with it, you should contact an admin of your project who does. 

[Dave Hale]

My organization isn't using pipelines and there aren't any pipeline.yml files in any of our bitbucket repos; and yet the CPU still spikes with Sourcetree being the culprit.  Any other suggestions?

[nutmix]

I have the same issue. SourceTree uses 40-100% of CPU on the most expensive 2018  macbook pro model when source tree is idle.  It has been like this since I started using sourcetree about a year ago. The workaround for me is to open source tree, open my project, commit/push etc, then immediately quit source tree completely.  If i forget to quit ST, then I soon know it because the fans start blowing.  A quick trip to activity monitor and its source tree again. 

You certainly cant use souretree if you are on battery.

[Andreas Ek]

The life hack to this is to use cputrottle. http://www.willnolan.com/cputhrottle/cputhrottle.html

[LouAdrien]

same same for years. I want to stay with sourcetree but eventually gonna have to move on

[Charlie Jonas]

Same here.  

[Andreas Ek]

Atlassian is so unbelievable uninterested to solve this issue affecting their users.

Are there som missing bits here? Don't they understand the issue?

[Matthew D]

They've abandoned the project.  This app is dead.

[Arda]

In my case, the culprit ended up being the file diff pane in History mode. A specific set of changes to a text file has been causing SourceTree's CPU usage to skyrocket and stay that way even though everything seems to be working fine otherwise (the diff pane displays the changes correctly and SourceTree is still fully responsive). Switching to other apps doesn't make a difference; CPU usage remains very high. However, selecting other History entries or changing the diff pane's "lines of context" setting to a different value fixes the issue immediately. The CPU usage is consistently high only when the specific history entry is selected.

I've tried creating a clean repo with a single file and just 2 commits that replicate the same textual changes, and got the exact same high CPU use issue. So this is not about anything else in my original repo, but something about the type/pattern of changes that are displayed in the diff pane. The only thing that stands out about the specific textual changes is that one of the lines before the change is rather long (290 characters).

If I'm not mistaken, simply changing the pane's size fixed the issue a couple of times too, but not consistently.

This is all on a Mac with an Intel processor. I've tried viewing the same history entry on a Mac with Apple's M1 chip and also on a Windows computer, but didn't get the same high CPU usage. But obviously there are many differences between the computers, including their screen sizes.

In short, if you're experiencing high CPU usage, try viewing different history entries and/or changing the diff pane's "lines of context" setting and see if that helps.

[Tristan Richard]

This seems to be a MacOS Bug. I am having the same issue with Git Tower

[afenn]

This was supposedly fixed in 4.1.1

TBD if it fixes the battery drain issues discussed here:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Sourcetree-questions/Sourcetree-3-1-2-is-murdering-my-Macbook-battery/qaq-p/1056533

Sourcetree 4.1.1 - Minor Release [16 April 2021]

Notes

• Requires macOS 10.14 or later

Bug Fixes

• Updated embedded git version to 2.31.0 to address security issue
• SourceTree high CPU usage for Pipeline enabled repos
• Repo Window Toolbar buttons changed it's position after upgrade to Big Sur
• Some of checkboxes in Pull / Merge / Ignore popup are clipped on latest Big Sur

From the release notes:

https://product-downloads.atlassian.com/software/sourcetree/ReleaseNotes/Sourcetree_4.1.2.html#version-4.1.2

[ture.friese]

Upgrading to version 4.0.2 helped for my part. The high CPU usage is gone.

[Dirk Flachbart]

Just upgraded from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2, unfortunately didn't solve anything for me, CPU still at 100%

[wadesign]

I'm running version 4.1.0, on MacOS Catalina.

And this bug is driving me crazy. Is there any idea if, and when this issue will be resolved?

[Ralph Callaway]

it goes away as soon as you stop using source tree, i've switched to vs code's internal git tooling (along with the gitgraph and gitlens plugins)

the comment above this has links to older versions that don't have this bug (and don't support pipelines, which is fine since that seems to be the cause of the bug)

[xuanxian]

If the repo enable the pipe, The cpu will more 100%,   I download v2.6.3 from to https://sourcetreeapp.com/download-archives ,  It do not support pipe, so can work well.

Hope the information can help.

[Ralph Callaway]

happening today with v3.1.2 (216) on mac os 10.14.6

checked console and didn't see anything in the logs per https://confluence.atlassian.com/sourcetreekb/sourcetree-logfile-location-675384748.html

the repo has a pipeline, haven't adjusted any options

checked open ports and files and ran a sample, nothing i could get anything from although i have know clue what i might be looking for

[Ivan Parfenchuk]

Also seeing high CPU usage on macOS 10.15.4 (19E287), Sourcetree 4.0.1 (234). Almost always 100%. Drains MBP battery too fast.

Turning off automatic refresh on file change did not help.

[jacklin10]

This is / was still a problem for me on MacOs even on version 4.0.1.  I recently changed a few things that seem to have helped a bit that I'll share with the hope it helps someone else.

First, I had tons of repositories linked in SourceTree.  I removed the bookmarks for all the repo's I am unlikely to touch any time soon.  I have 12 in there now down from about 30.

Next I removed any setting that does any syncing or or auto refreshing.

In preferences "general" I unchecked:

"Refresh automatically when files change"
"Check default remotes for updates every [10] minutes"
"Load Gravatars for authors"

I did this yesterday, and I've been monitoring it today.
I haven't seen the usually spikes to 100+% cpu usage.  I say spike, which implies a brief time, but it sometimes it stays pegged over 100 until I close the app. 

After the changes I'm seeing spikes between 14-25% cpu while I'm using the app.

You'll need to cmd+r more often to manually refresh, but i'll take that over the cpu problem until they can get it fixed.

[Hasanta Sumudupriya]

Removing some of the bookmarked repositories helped me too. Thank you for your solution.

[bgannin]

Hi @emil.lewandowski,

That particular discussion devolved over time and was closed officially with this comment.

We're tracking the performance issue (as shown) in relation to the build status column [SRCTREE-5306]. Fixing that requires a bit of rearchitecting of the history view and is on our roadmap for a future update but I can't provide a specific timeline at the moment.

We apologize for the hassle and are keen to address it comprehensively.

Brian Ganninger
Principal Developer, Sourcetree

[emil.lewandowski]

Thanks for the update Brian, and thanks, of course, for the continued development of SourceTree, and for making it free for the public.

Looking forward to more news, in future.

[Niklas Kolster]

current beta release still has this issue

[Kuba Domaszewicz]

Can confirm

[Matthew D]

[Edit Oct 14th]

I'm done with SourceTree, unfortunately.  And here's my brief experience.

It's been like this for several years.  They've been saying it's on the roadmap for ages, and I don't think it is.

The solution by SourceTree is not to fix it, but to block user commenting because comments in the original thread have "devolved," as worded above by @bgannin.

SourceTree probably could offer a "disable expensive CPU history feature" option checkbox, as a patch while they rebuild the app, but I don't think they care to offer a patch or work-around?

I'm sure all the developers are nice people who put their hearts and soul into this product.  But that didn't save Friendster when Friendster was abandoned by its users for performance issues (failure to scale).

So for the past two weeks, I switched over and have been using GitHub Desktop (also free).  The switch took just a tiny bit to get familiar with, but I can leave it open all day with no CPU spiking at 100%!  And it does the job quite well.

There's something bittersweet about this change... almost like when I left Firefox for Chrome after a Firefox bug they wouldn't (or couldn't) resolve.  I'm a core fan of SourceTree, but the developer's seemingly blasé attitude and lack of priority for a HUGE DEAL BREAKING issue for us--over the course of not days or weeks but years--has left me disheartened.  They've forced me to abandon them.