DisplayLink Software - High CPU on MBA
 

Hi,

Over the last two days the CPU on my MacBook Air has ramped up and it appears to be the DisplayLinkManager process that is the cause. I am seeing on average 90% CPU being taken up throughout my working day when it is being used to run two monitors.

Reading other threads, this was apparently fixed in version 2.5, I am currently running 2.6 on Sierra 10.12.1.

Does anyone have any advice? I'll try and re-install at some point when I get a chance to see if that has any effect.

I think this is another known issue. We have a fix coming up, we are testing it now.

Will be in the next version, most likely a beta.

Regards
Carlo

Beta available?
 

Any chance we can get access to the beta to help test it?

Similar problem with MBA early 2014
 

I've similar problem since I purchased the DL adapter.

I've MBA early 2014 i7/1.7GHz on 10.12.2 + DELL D3100 w/ DL driver 3.0 b2 (just one monitor connected on the HDMI with full HD resolution)

I tried different combinations:
DL 2.2 + OSX 10.11.4,5,6
DL 2.6 + OSX 10.11.6
DL 3.0b2 + OS 10.11.6, 10.12.2

The DisplayLinkManager goes crazy every second day and uses >100-110% of the CPU, event with no windows or application running on that desktop.

Little did the DL driver updates or the Mac OS software updates.

Other colleagues experienced the same problem with slightly different configurations.

Is there gonna be any reasonable solution in the near future?

Best,
V.

Still seeing some high CPU usage
 

I have a goFanco USB 3.0 to HDMI adapter that uses a DIsplayLink DL-3500 chipset. I have tried various drivers since last summer, including the latest driver 3.0 beta 2 23 Dec 2016 on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. With the previous 2 driver versions, I was seeing VERY high CPU usage on a 2012 MBP 13" 2.93GHz i7 (averaging around 22%, spiking to 99%). This last update helped reduce the CPU usage, but I still see it pop up on my CPU monitor program throughout the day (iStats Menu). I am keenly aware of hoggy processes since going from a quad core iMac to a dual core MBP for portability, so i hope this issue can be fully addressed, soon!

Just register to report the high CPU usage issue still not solved:

• OS: MacOS High Sierra 10.13.2
• DisplayLink: v4.3 (latest)
• Device: Targus USB3 DV1K-2K compact Dock (DOCK120EUZ)
• CPU% : 100%+ (only HDMI*1 in use)
• Hardware: Intel i7 2.4Ghz + 8GB + SSD | Intel HD4000
• Active /resident processes: DisplayLinkManager + DisplayLinkUserAgent
  

I noticed the program is listed by MacOS as Unix program, i.e.
Does it mean not complied/optimized for MacOS?

Of course its not solved
 

Macbook 12"
Dell d6000 dock
MacOS Mojave 10.14
Displaylink driver: 5.0 (31)

DisplaylinkManager is constantly the highest CPU using process.

Hello from 2019. This is still a problem.

Workaround
 

I'm running Sierra 10.12.6 with DisplayLink driver 4.3.1 from 10 Oct 2018. I found that the DisplayLinkManager causes extremely high CPU% utilization. Killing the process has no effect as it auto-launches and continues to consume CPU.

I found that the workaround for this is to disconnect the dock (Dell D6000) then use Activity Monitor to kill the DisplayLinkManager and DisplayLinkUserAgent process and wait for them to respawn.

After this, reconnect the dock and it'll work as normal without high CPU usage.

High CPU usage
 

Same problem here, DisplayLinkManager using 30%+ of total CPU

Specs:
Macbook Pro 15' 2016
OSX Mojave 10.14.2 (18C54)

Hello,

I have also been experiencing this issue on my MBP. I use four monitors: the laptop panel, a monitor over HDMI, and two DVI monitors via DisplayLink. I noticed that CPU usage for this process increases noticeably when I have a video playing on one of the DisplayLink-connected monitors, but not when I have it playing on either of the others.

Thanks.

High CPU
 

Hi All - I am having the same high CPU issue using 13" 2018 MBP on Mojave 10.14.3 (18D109)

Anything that is somewhat dynamic seems to cause it, examples, Video, Uberconference. If I move the windows to the native Mac display, the issue goes away.

Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers
Rossi

Bumping this up. 2015 MacBook Air, D3100 dock, u3415w monitor (made by Dell), but the CPU usage is way up there. My computer’s getting alarmingly warm during anything graphics-heavy like video playback.

Plugging the monitor directly into the Mac via DisplayPort is substantially better, so there’s definitely a problem with the dock or the driver. Probably the driver, because I was using this dock with an XPS earlier this week with no issues.

Keeping the DisplayPort cable plugged in for now, but hopefully there’ll be a performance improvement in the future.

Same issue... DL v 5.2, DisplayLinkManager > 100% of CPU
 

This is now consistently an issue on my Macbook Air 2018 w/ 16GB RAM! Fan constantly running and performance significantly impacted. Is there a fix?

This is repeatable on my MacBook Pro 2012 using Mac Screen Sharing to VNC to another machine. If the other machine is doing frequent updates (eg like some redrawing of part of a webpage, a very common occurence), then the CPU will go insane on my Mac.

I have looked at Activity Monitor to see that, in this order, the following are consuming CPU:
a. WindowServer (insanely active)
b. DisplayLinkManager (insanely active)
c. Screen Sharing (insanely active)
d. kernel_task
e. DisplayLinkUserAgent (not very busy)

DisplayLinkManager and Screen Sharing are hogging about the same amount of CPU.

I tried running Quartz Debug to see when screen updates were occurring but this irritatingly doesn't work over DisplayLink, so I have no idea whether the Screen Sharing is refreshing its view far too often (I am using adaptive quality, not full), causing DisplayLinkManager to try and push these updates through to the WindowServer, causing a global system slow down.

I also tried running Instruments and looking at DisplayLinkManager. Nothing of note comes up in that other than some secondary thread is very very busy, but as it is not a debug build I cannot see what it is actually doing.

Your developers will be able to repeat this very easily by doing the above!!! It seems that the entire screen is being polled to be pushed out to the external DisplayLink hardware, without any form of acceleration.

Is there any fix for this? I have recently bought this DisplayLink device and am quite disappointed by the CPU hogging that is occurring.

Unfortunately their business model relies on people not knowing that the DisplayLink architecture has severe fundamental performance issues. I doubt they will fix this.

I generally fix this issue by the following.

1. Uninstall Display Link
2. Reset PRAM, SMC and then boot MAC into Safe Mode
3. Reinstall DisplayLink

That seems to fix it for myself just need to do that every 6 weeks or so.

Hope it helps.

I'm running DisplayLink version 5.2 under Mojave 10.14.6 on the 2017 13'' MacBook Pro and I'm experiencing the exact same issues under the same circumstances.

I have a 2017 4 USB-C port MAC and my work forces me to use a Dell 3100 dock. I get the same problems every single day. Thinking it was some hing else I had loaded I took the trouble on the weekend to do a complete backup and reinstall of Mojave. Nothing else installed except Mojave and Displaylink. Sure enough after about 10hrs I get 150% for DisplayLink and another 35% for window driver CPU utilisation. This happens on driver version 5.0, 5.1 and 5.1.1. I stay away fro driver 5.2 because when I use that and its not connected to a display link dock external thunderbolt monitors do not work.

So, I guess the answer is it is not just you on 14.6 that has this problem but there are a number of us that have noticed there PC go insane with displaylink drivers. I notice because I work in a quite environment and I hear the fans go off I can almost guarantee what is happening. I meant to actually save a log to send to support today when it occurred but unfortunately I also need to work. maybe tomorrow when it happens.

Short answer is not much you can do about it as it would appear its a displaylink problem and maybe only with 14.6. You can try swapping Users when it happens I found that this causes it to go away....or 2 reboots seems to fix it as well (often 1 reboot does nothing).

Best of luck don;t see this ever getting fixed....Catalina I think will be an experience an a half for Displaylink.

Definitely a DisplayLink issue. I have run my MAC for 2 days without the DisplayLink driver installed but using thunderbolt monitors without experiencing the issue. Within 10 minutes of attaching a DisplayLink dock the DisplayLink Manager goes to above 100% CPU and Windowserver >35%. Disconnecting the dock removes the DisplayLink Manager CPU use but Windowsserver remains at 35%. The only way to restore is to reboot multiple times, typically twice, for some reason once is not enough.

So reinstalling Mojave as a clean install and blowing away all my previous data has had no effect on the outcome.

No responses from DisplayLink I see....shame.

I have successfully worked for 2 days without having DisplayLink Manager going to 150% CPU resulting in WindowServer blowing up by uninstalling display link and using a friends little dock for dual displays. Seems this is more reliable than displaylink and is relatively portable. No further issues of high CPU and fans turning on so far in 2 days which simply has not happened with DisplayLink since I completely reinstalled Mojave. Seems that this is the best way to resolve given lack of response from Displaylink.

So in short, fresh clean install of Mojave and displaylink results in high CPU utilisation on Displaylink Manager and also WindowsServer. Unplugging the DisplayLink dock sees the DisplayLink Manager CPU usage go away but WindowServer remains high. You need to reboot twice to recover WindowServer for some reason. Logs sent to Displaylink. No response.

Solution: replace displaylink dock.

Sadly the issue returned.

I've trashed Mojave again and reinstalled office and a few minor other applications. Without DisplayLink installed and at 17:39:26 each day the WindowServer process goes high CPU to approximately 40% and remains there until 18:10.

I suspect that with Displaylink Drivers installed the problem is more pronounced because of the fact that I think the Drivers are trying to stay in sync with the DisplayServer. This means that the DisplayLink Drivers hit about 140-160% CPU while WindowServer hits 40%. Heats the MAC like no tomorrow.

I've been trying to get to the bottom of what is happening but appears that something sets the kernel off and it says that it is flipping the Display. The logs for this vary between occurring every 20ms to far less than.that. I've got a message over at Apple Communities but absolutely no responses at all. Its getting detailed. Last resort is back to High Sierra and surrender on Mojave to see if the problem goes away. This does not seem like a Displaylink issue but it is the obvious visible impact.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250645982

I've spent many hours at this and trying to address what the problem is.

To cut a long story short, after discussions with Apple over the fact that the DisplayServer in 10.14.6 18G95 apparently gets confused and generates large amounts of kernel DisplayBuffer Logging trying to switch between display resolutions of the same resolution (see previous link) apple suggested disabling Night Shift.

Its only been 1 day but yesterday is the first day where my MAC has not ran WindowServer at high CPU utilisation early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

At a guess here, it appears that there may be a bug in 18G95 where the OS is attempting to perform Night Shift on the external Monitor and is falling for some reason. The OS continues to try for 30 minutes from my experience. During this timeframe you can stop, reboot the MAC and the high CPU utilisation continues. If you look in the syslog (log show --debug) you can see the kernel logging messages about switching resolution and the time difference between these messages vary from sub millisecond logs to in the early teens.

With DisplayLink Drivers loaded this problem appears to be associated with Displaylink as it consumed approximately 3x the CPU than the windowServer process. I'd have a guess and say this is because of all the proposed resolution switches being attempted by the kernel.So Displaylink goes to 120-160% CPU utilisation and WindowServer goes to 35-40%.

I have my fingers crossed that the disabling of the night shift holds for the coming days. However, I'll also be feeding the outcomes back to Apple as I do use the feature and would like to see a working Catalina.

Hope that may assist others. Cross the fingers. I can say reinstalling 18G95 did not change anything in my experience.

With NightShift turned off I have had 2 days without High CPU issues on WindowServer process (and subequently the 100% CPU utilisation by DisplayLink). Seems that Apple is correct and they have broken the NightShift process on 18G95. Server me right for installing the supplementary updates.

No patch expected from Apple on Mojave. Catalina is a hope they may fix it.

Try disabling Night Shift
 

I had this problem and discovered that disabling Night Shift made it go away. Presumably there is some bug in the driver that is tickled by that, although clearly that may not be the only cause. YMMV.

I'm experiencing the same thing with the same results when you disable Night Shift on Mojave 10.14.16 and with the

5.2.1 beta 3 DL drivers installed. Disable Night Shift -> DisplayLinkManager CPU usage drops from around 100% to around 4 ~ 8%

Some colleagues have upgraded to Catalina 10.15.1 and suggest in general to wait, without focusing on DisplayLinkManager and CPU usage, just in general to wait with updating to Catalina. So that's what I'll be doing (crashed and burned before :D)

High DL CPU usage continues to be an issue
 

I'm running Catalina with DL 4.3 "GA" drivers and I continue to have issues, including very high CPU (eg DL drivers consuming 100% of one of my CPUs on a pretty constant basis), and as I just discovered, DL drivers are also causing all of my Java apps to crash.

As a result I have removed the DL adapters from my system and am using a Rube Goldberg mix of usb-c display adapters. My system is happily running at 8% CPU and my Java apps are working as well.

As far as my $200 Targus boat anchor? I hope to be able to use it (and the embedded DisplayLink hardware) again someday soon.