Big CPU usage

[tuckerconnelly]

Describe the bug

CPU usage spikes pretty hard and remains high for a while. Actual CPU usage in containers is low.

To Reproduce

No response

Expected behavior

No response

Diagnostic report (REQUIRED)

OrbStack info:
Version: 2.2.1
Commit: 0e182b501fcd9e05b99ffb363fce03610390c400 (v2.2.1)

System info:
macOS: 14.8.4 (23J319)
CPU: amd64, 16 cores
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz
Model: MacBookPro16,1
Memory: 64 GiB

Full report: https://orbstack.dev/_admin/diag/orbstack-diagreport_2026-07-26T23-38-11.945047Z.zip

Screenshots and additional context (optional)

No response

[andreimotin]

the host-busy-containers-idle pattern is classically filesystem events rather than compute: a container watching a big bind mount (node_modules, build dirs) amplifies every host file event through virtiofs, and the cost lands on the mac side, which matches what you're seeing. two ways to narrow it fast: check which process is actually spinning in activity monitor (vmgr is the vm side, OrbStack Helper is networking) and run sample 10 on it, that output attached here is usually what gets these fixed. and pausing containers one at a time until the spike drops fingers the culprit in a couple of minutes, it's almost always the one with a file watcher on a mounted dir.

dev line: i build a mac app that watches containers and system pressure on always-on machines and sends diagnosed fixes to your phone. free beta: https://youtu.be/bx_OhpNysiM