Unusable system slowness on OS X 12.0.1

[pseudometric]

I've been using Karabiner-Elements for a couple of years, to do one thing: swap keyboard modifiers (left option and alt) in a single application. It worked flawlessly until recently, when it began causing horrible slowness across input to all programs. Within a few hours of system startup, intermittent slowness in keyboard input starts, e.g. the cursor will stop flashing, or flash very slowly and irregularly, while keystrokes are delayed for several seconds or more. Then attempts to switch between applications slow down. Eventually the whole system is effectively unusable and I have to reboot. Removing Karabiner solves the problem; re-enabling it brings the problem back. I'm using the latest version, 14.3.0. I found bug reports about something very similar, but they were from a few years ago and it was claimed to be solved.

[k4roshi]

It appears the same thing happens to me (macOS 12.0.1, M1 Macbook pro). Killing karabiner elements and reopening solves the issue without having to reboot. To me it appears it happens only after waking up the computer after sleep.

[pseudometric]

@k4roshi — Thanks; good to know that it’s not just me. My system is a 2019 Mac Pro (12-core Xeon).

[pseudometric]

I forgot to mention another symptom: occasionally it will behave as if a pressed key remains held down, inserting many copies of that letter.

[sungkang]

I've been seeing issues as well. Restarting it definitely solves the issue temporarily. I thought it was something to do with it running on an Apple Silicon machine, but looks like it's not. It's probably some memory leak.

[maciejkalis]

I am using MacBook Pro 2019 (Intel i9, 32GB of RAM) and testing Karabiner-Elements since yesterday only for swapping right command and option keys between each other. Didn't found any issues so far.

[PigMan9080]

I have a similar issue, except the problem is with icloud downloads. The network performance is significantly impacted. If i turn off KE it will download at full speed again. macOS v12.1

[k4roshi]

I've had the issue appear again and took some screenshots. It happened when i connected an external monitor, keyboard and mouse through a USB-C dongle.

[bfollington]

I've also started experiencing this recently on my M1 on 12.0.1 (Karabiner-Elements v14.3.0). I can't tell what triggers it but the Karabiner-NotificationWindow process appears to be the cause on my machine. After a short time running it will consume 100% CPU on one core like it's stuck in an infinite loop?

Killing only this process and letting it automatically restart fixes the issue for me temporarily, but it returns later. I am also using peripherals through a USB-C dock which may be related.

Further context: my remappings are Caps Lock -> Escape and Ctrl + HJKL for arrow keys.

[claytono]

I have two M1 Macbook Pros (14" and 16") and both have this issue. I did not have this problem on the previous x86 MBP I had before this. My scenario is the same as @bfollington where Karabiner-NotificationWindow chews up a lot of CPU and also drives window server utilization up. Killing the process leads to my login session being killed. The work around is to go into the Karabiner settings and tell it to restart itself. Everything on the system freezes for a few seconds, then goes back to normal

I'm running Karabiner v14.3.0 and Monterey 12.2.

[ElteHupkes]

After using Elements for a few weeks without issue I recently encountered this problem on a 16" M1 Macbook Pro. The only thing I did that was out of the ordinary was connect a pair of Bluetooth headphones, so I suspect it might be related to that.

[martinjuhasz]

I'm expierencing this problem on an intel machine from 2017. as soon as i plug in the usb-c dock the process starts eating cpu. this doesnt happen always when i connect the dock.

[DieterHolvoet]

Having the same issue on my MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021, Apple M1 Pro) running macOS Monterey 12.1.

[krodak]

Same issue on MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021, Apple M1) running macOS Monterey 12.1

[matkovsky]

Same issue here.

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021, M1 Pro), Monterey 12.1 (21C52)

[DeastinY]

same here, 13" MBA M1 12.1

[jfoy]

Possibly caused by #2780

[daveseah]

To add a datapoint:

I have been having trouble on my M1 Macbook Pro as well on Monterey. If I connected more than one external keyboard, I would experience:

• Intermittent severe keyboard lag, where keys would be buffered for several seconds and then the last few keys would be registered. This would occur every 5-10 seconds until I rebooted the computer.
• When running certain apps (Adobe Creative Cloud Updater, Affinity Designer) the mouse cursor would intermittent rehome to the bottom left corner of the screen and stick there for several seconds before being able to move again.

Since removing Karabiner Elements, I haven't had these problems. At first I thought it was a bluetooth issue and thought it was related to this thread on Apple discussions until I tried plugging in a WIRED keyboard and the same issue happened.

I'm now using the built-in modifier key remapping in system prefs to swap keys and disable caps lock. I tried reinstalling Karabiner Elements again to just disable the HOME DEL PGUP PGDN END keys on a new keyboard by assigning them to vk_null, but the issue returned.

[seagle0128]

Same here on macOS 12.5. 4+GB memory is occupied.