High CPU usage even when not using DevHome

[vnicolici]

Dev Home version

0.1601.561.0

Windows build number

10.0.22631.4037

Other software

OS Build Version: 10.0.22631.4037.amd64fre.ni_release.220506-1250 .NET Version: .NET 8.0.6

Steps to reproduce the bug

Using Windows, suddenly I saw this thing "CoreWidgetProvider" in Task Manager labeled with "Very High Power Usage", and not dropping.

Expected result

Not having an app that I don't even use constantly using CPU on my machine for no reason, even when I didn't start it.

Actual result

The app used CPU on my machine for no apparent reason and started running in background by itself for some reason. Also the process name was quite confusing, at first I thought the Windows task bar widgets were the issue. You should probably rename "CoreWidgetProvider" to "DevHomeWidgets" or something like that.

Included System Information

CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900KF Physical Memory: 63.82GB (41.31GB free) Processor Architecture: x64

Included Extensions Information

Extensions: Microsoft.Windows.DevHome_0.1601.561.0_x648wekyb3d8bbwe (Core Widget Extension) Microsoft.Windows.DevHome_0.1601.561.0_x648wekyb3d8bbwe (Hyper-V Extension) Microsoft.Windows.DevHome_0.1601.561.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe (Windows Subsystem for Linux Extension)

Widget Service: MicrosoftWindows.Client.WebExperience_524.18500.10.0_x64__cw5n1h2txyewy

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Closed similar issues:

• Uses a lot of CPU while not doing anything (#3183), similarity score: 0.88
• Excessive CPU usage while program's idle or closed (#3257), similarity score: 0.86
• Using CPU for no reason (#2499), similarity score: 0.86
• Absurd CPU usage percentage (#3001), similarity score: 0.76

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[vnicolici]

One thing I did recently was to disable the taskbar widgets, not sure if there are any interactions between those and DevHome, but maybe that's what triggered the problem.

[krschau]

Duplicate of #716

[krschau]

Actually, I'm undoing duplicating this to #716 and going to change what the issue is a little bit to be more specific. I do want to call your attention to #3411, which should help a lot -- before, if you closed Dev Home the CoreWidget process would still run. Now, in version 0.1701, it should close.

If you have a core widget pinned to the Windows Widget Board, the way that system works is it will start the process sometimes. However, it shouldn't be doing much work and shouldn't be an issue taking up resources.

The issue I do want to track here separately from 716 is that if you have a core widget pinned to the Windows board, and a core widget pinned to Dev Home, when the Windows board brings up the process, the widget pinned to Dev Home will do work. That shouldn't happen.

[vnicolici]

Had enough today, and I uninstalled it. It was using around 20% of my 13900K CPU and a lot of RAM while my computer was idle.

After uninstalling it it looks like this:

Not sure exactly what it was doing and why, as I didn't use it for weeks, but it wasn't just using significant amounts of CPU itself, but it was also increasing CPU usage for the WMI Provider process and MS Defender.

[vnicolici]

After uninstalling Dev Home, I accessed the Windows Widgets a bit later, and I got a notification, "widget unpinned". So I guess that's what was triggering it, some of Dev Home widgets were pinned there.