Code Helper process by VS Code eating my cpu

Question

I've been using VS Code on MacOs for a long time without any issues.

But rencently i noticed my machine's fan turned on all the time and when looking on Activity Monitor, the process 'Code Helper' is always using a lot of cpu and only stops when i close VS Code.

Currenlty i'm on this VS Code version :

Version: 1.74.1 (Universal)
Commit: 1ad8d514439d5077d2b0b7ee64d2ce82a9308e5a
Date: 2022-12-14T10:33:40.793Z (5 days ago)
Electron: 19.1.8
Chromium: 102.0.5005.167
Node.js: 16.14.2
V8: 10.2.154.15-electron.0
OS: Darwin x64 22.1.0
Sandboxed: No

When i open Vs Code no error message is shown.

Any ideas ?

Outguard

Take a look at this post. – Vanderhoek

Answer 1

I disabled all extensions installed and the problem is gone. So i enabled one by one until i found the culprit. In my case the problem was the extension "Settings sync". I will leave it disabled for a while until a new update is out.

Outguard

There's a helper tool called Extension Bisect (similar to concept of git bisect) to help with this sort of checking code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2021/02/16/extension-bisect – Obara

For me it was the "Markdown Preview Enhanced" extension, since my old Macbook Pro 2012, I thought it was the age of my old battery. Now I'm on a new Macbook Pro 2023, and the battery suddenly started go down quickly after a while, that's why I knew something was wrong. And with 5M downloads, I feel sorry for those other dev who don't know about it yet. – Donation

Answer 2

I had the same problem and tried everything written in the community, but none of them worked for me. After some trying I found out what the problem was.

I had an unsaved (opened as a new tab but not saved) tab in VsCode, which was a problem for me. Closing these tabs and restarting vsCode fixed it.

Tarver

I experienced something similar using VS Code to dump bigger data lumps into a new empty tab for examining. Microsofts Intellisense plugin seemed to go nuts on this probably trying to analyse whatever from the content of the tab. – Lexicostatistics

Answer 3

I had the same issue and disabling or uninstalling extensions didn't help. The easiest solution is installing an older version (in my case I installed January 2024). And so far it's working fine.

Akee