Google Project Zero website causes high Brave CPU usage

[DesertBear]

Description

When visiting the Google Project Zero website, it causes high Brave CPU usage (in both Brave Stable and Nightly).

The issue occurs on a clean Brave install, with default browser settings and no third-party extensions installed.

Closing the browser window does not make the CPU usage return to normal – Brave needs to be forcibly closed from the Windows Task Manager.

In Edge and Chrome, the CPU usage is normal.

In a Brave "Private Window", the CPU usage is normal.

Steps to Reproduce

1) Open Brave.

2) Go to the below link:

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2023/03/multiple-internet-to-baseband-remote-rce.html

3) Observe the CPU usage in Windows Task Manager. (High)

4) Close Brave.

5) Observe the CPU usage in Windows Task Manager. (Still high)

6) Close Brave (End Task) via the Windows Task Manager.

7) Observe the CPU usage in Windows Task Manager. (Back to normal)

Actual result:

The Brave CPU usage is too high (around 50%).

Screenshots:

Brave Stable – before opening Project Zero link (OK):

Brave Stable – after opening Project Zero link (Not OK):

Brave Nightly – after opening Project Zero link (Not OK):

Chrome – after opening Project Zero link (OK):

Edge – after opening Project Zero link (OK):

Expected result:

The Brave CPU usage should be normal (<5%).

Screenshot:

Brave Stable (in Private Window) – after opening Project Zero link (OK):

Reproduces how often:

Easily reproduced

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave:    1.49.120 Chromium: 111.0.5563.64 (Official Build) (64-bit) 
Revision: c710e93d5b63b7095afe8c2c17df34408078439d-refs/branch-heads/5563@{#995}
OS:       Windows 10 Version 22H2 (Build 19045.2728)

Brave:    1.51.39 Chromium: 111.0.5563.64 (Official Build) nightly (64-bit) 
Revision: c710e93d5b63b7095afe8c2c17df34408078439d-refs/branch-heads/5563@{#995}
OS:       Windows 10 Version 2004 (Build 19041.2728)

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Not tried
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? Yes

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields? No
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards? No
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome? No

[DesertBear]

Adding Process Explorer screenshot showing Brave hanging on chrome.dll!ChromeMain+0x5c1c0

[valynor]

I can confirm this bug on my Mac Studio / Ventura 13.2.1 / 1.49.120 Chromium: 111.0.5563.64 (Official Build) (arm64)

High CPU load on 2 performance cores (200% usage in the main "Brave Browser" thread) after visiting the above mentioned website. Does not stop after closing the website. Does not happen in a private window.

Only reloading (CMD+R) ALL open tabs or closing/restarting Brave seems to fix it.

[EBoiSha]

I can confirm too. No idea what is happening but when opening Project Zero my MacBook CPU goes loco;

Edit: So, now after around 15-20 minutes the CPU usage went down and is normal, at 3% something.

[valynor]

This is STILL not fixed in 1.50.114 Chromium: 112.0.5615.49 (Official Build) (arm64) :-//

Simply visiting https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/ causes the bug, too. Come on guys, it's not like that is some esoteric website that noone ever surfs to ...

[hl2guide]

Brave or Chromium still has memory leak issues after visiting some sites.

Brave seems to not be active on GitHub regarding this ☹️

e.g. #27924

[jiripospisil]

Can somebody from Brave please look into this? It's very easy to reproduce even on the latest version (1.50.119 Chromium: 112.0.5615.121) and affects other sites too.

/cc @arthuredelstein @tmancey @DJAndries @cypt4

[jiripospisil]

Still reproduces immediately on 1.51.110 Chromium: 113.0.5672.77 (Official Build) (x86_64).

[valynor]

I'd make a rather unfriendly comment on this but at this point it seems obvious that the devs are not reading this anyway.

[TheFakeBot1]

Hi. I have the same problem with my website made with blogger ( www.fanrivista.it ). So, first I thought that there might be some problem with some plug-in, or with somebody using my website for cryptomining, but I am not sure about that. Then I just typed on Google < "brave" "cpu" "blogspot" > and I found this thread. So I assume thate it might be related with Blogger and I opened a few blogs randomly from Brave: also opening this one " massimopuliani.blogspot.com " CPU goes high. What do you think? Thank you for your attention

[jiripospisil]

Still reproduces immediately on 1.52.122 Chromium: 114.0.5735.110 (Official Build) (x86_64). The complete lack of care from the Brave team is quite disappointing.

[arthuredelstein]

I was able to narrow down the offending code to two link elements:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />

Each of the two above link elements consumes one core on my Mac laptop.

Demo at https://arthuredelstein.net/demos/29125_demo.html.

[fallaciousreasoning]

Would you mind checking if this still happens in Brave Beta? (with version 1.53.82 or higher)

[petemill]

This should be fixed with brave/brave-core#17923 which merged on April 26 and is currently in beta. It will hit release with 1.53, but we'll look to uplift to the next 1.52 release now that we see there's a large impact.

[jiripospisil]

Looks good on 1.53.85 Chromium: 114.0.5735.110 (Official Build) beta (x86_64). Thank you!

[kjozwiak]

Looks good on 1.53.85 Chromium: 114.0.5735.110 (Official Build) beta (x86_64). Thank you!

Closing and moving into 1.53.x as the above was fixed via brave/brave-core#17923. We also got a confirmation from @jiripospisil that the above has been fixed/is working via 1.53.x. brave/brave-core#17923 will also be uplifted into 1.52.x via brave/brave-core#18805 so we can release the above via the next 1.52.x maintenance release.

[kjozwiak]

The above requires 1.52.125 or higher for 1.52.x verification 👍

[GeetaSarvadnya]

Verification PASSED on

Brave | 1.52.125 Chromium: 114.0.5735.110 (Official Build) (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 1c828682b85bbc70230a48f5e345489ec447373e-refs/branch-heads/5735_90@{#13}
OS | Windows 10 Version 22H2 (Build 19045.2965)

Test Case #1 - #29511

#29511 was verified via #29511 (comment)

Test Case #2 - #29125

Using the STR/Cases outlined via #29125 (comment), ensured that the CPU usage wasn't spiking when loading https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2023/03/multiple-internet-to-baseband-remote-rce.html as per the following:

Example	Example