**coreaudiod** process is using my battery on idle

[tombrus]

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Steps to reproduce

1. start Talk Desktop on Mac (I am using M4 Max, Tahoe 26.5.1)
2. have a audio+video conversation (not sure if this is strictly needed)
3. close the conversation and leave the app idle
4. coreaudiod process will keep eating battery (around 10%) while no audio is used
5. restarting the app will fix it

Expected behaviour

When no audio is processed by the app I expect no battery drain by an audio process.

Actual behaviour

After an audio connection has been made, the daemon will keep active and consume cycles/power/battery.

[ShGKme]

@tombrus Please provide the diagnosis report as was described in the bug report template. You can find it on new issue creation.

[tombrus]

Sorry, I could not find a 'Copy Report' button in the about box and Command+Option+C does not change the clipboard and the console in the dev tools only shows one line: "Using locale "nl" for language "en"", not really informative I thought.

I am lost here...

[ShGKme]

Could you share a screenshot with the About window, or, at least, the Nextcloud Talk version?

[tombrus]

Of course I can:

[tombrus]

ah, I just noticed there is a newer version (2.2.0). I installed it and will re-test this issue tomorrow.

[tombrus]

Ok, I created a monitoring script (see below). Running it proves that the daemon is consuming cycles at idle.

This is the measurement log:

=== system ===
date:   2026-07-08 12:34:52 +0200
model:  Mac16,5
macos:  26.5.1 (build 25F80)
talk:   2.2.0


=== phase 1: baseline - Nextcloud Talk running, no call made ===
coreaudiod pid: 423   Nextcloud Talk pids: 98950 98951 98952 98954 
12:35:25  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:35:30  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:35:35  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:35:40  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:35:45  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:35:50  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
average over 30s: 0.0 %

audio clients (coreaudiod-owned assertions in pmset -g assertions):
(none - coreaudiod is not serving any audio client)


=== phase 2: post-call - call ended, Nextcloud Talk idle ===
coreaudiod pid: 423   Nextcloud Talk pids: 98950 98951 98952 98954 99612 99613 
12:41:03  coreaudiod cpu:   6.4 %
12:41:08  coreaudiod cpu:   6.6 %
12:41:13  coreaudiod cpu:   5.6 %
12:41:18  coreaudiod cpu:   5.8 %
12:41:23  coreaudiod cpu:   5.8 %
12:41:28  coreaudiod cpu:   5.6 %
average over 30s: 6.0 %

audio clients (coreaudiod-owned assertions in pmset -g assertions):
   pid 423(coreaudiod): [0x0002c90b000190ea] 00:00:35 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "com.apple.audio.BuiltInSpeakerDevice.context.preventuseridlesleep"  
	Created for PID: 99612. 
	Resources: audio-out BuiltInSpeakerDevice 
   pid 423(coreaudiod): [0x0002c83900018904] 00:04:04 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "com.apple.audio.AVVCAggregateDevice-883-282475249.context.preventuseridlesleep"  
	Created for PID: 883. 
	Resources: audio-in audio-out BuiltInSpeakerDevice 
client pid 883 = /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSpeech.framework/corespeechd
client pid 99612 = /Applications/Nextcloud Talk.app/Contents/Frameworks/Nextcloud Talk Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Nextcl


=== phase 3: after quitting Nextcloud Talk ===
coreaudiod pid: 423   Nextcloud Talk pids: 
12:43:07  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:43:12  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:43:17  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:43:22  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:43:27  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
12:43:32  coreaudiod cpu:   0.0 %
average over 30s: 0.0 %

audio clients (coreaudiod-owned assertions in pmset -g assertions):
(none - coreaudiod is not serving any audio client)

=== summary ===
phase                                         avg cpu%
1. baseline (Talk running, no call made)           0.0
2. post-call idle (call ended, app idle)           6.0
3. after quitting Talk                             0.0

Reading: if phase 2 shows sustained coreaudiod cpu while phases 1 and 3
are near 0, and the phase 2 client list shows a Nextcloud Talk process,
then Nextcloud Talk keeps an audio IO context open after the call ends,
which is what keeps coreaudiod burning cycles.

This is the script (thanks Claude!)

#!/bin/bash
# coreaudiod-proof.sh
#
# Evidence gatherer for nextcloud/talk-desktop#1796:
# "coreaudiod process is using my battery on idle"
#
# Measures coreaudiod CPU usage (exact, from ps cputime deltas, not the
# decaying %cpu average) in three phases:
#   1. baseline   - Nextcloud Talk running, no call made yet
#   2. post-call  - a call was made and ended, app is idle
#   3. after-quit - Nextcloud Talk quit
# and in each phase lists which processes hold an audio context open,
# via the power assertions coreaudiod creates on behalf of its clients
# ("Created for PID: ..." in pmset -g assertions).
#
# Run:  ./coreaudiod-proof.sh | tee coreaudiod-proof.txt
# No root needed.

set -euo pipefail

SAMPLE_SECS=${SAMPLE_SECS:-30}
TICK=${TICK:-5}
APP_NAME="Nextcloud Talk"
APP_PLIST="/Applications/Nextcloud Talk.app/Contents/Info.plist"

AVG=""

header() {
    echo
    echo "=== $1 ==="
}

sysinfo() {
    header "system"
    echo "date:   $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z')"
    echo "model:  $(sysctl -n hw.model)"
    echo "macos:  $(sw_vers -productVersion) (build $(sw_vers -buildVersion))"
    echo "talk:   $(defaults read "$APP_PLIST" CFBundleShortVersionString 2>/dev/null || echo 'not found')"
}

coreaudiod_pid() {
    pgrep -x coreaudiod | head -1
}

talk_pids() {
    pgrep -f "$APP_NAME" | tr '\n' ' ' || true
}

# ps cputime for a pid (MM:SS.ss or HH:MM:SS) -> seconds
cputime_s() {
    ps -p "$1" -o cputime= | awk -F: '
        NF == 2 { print $1 * 60 + $2 }
        NF == 3 { print $1 * 3600 + $2 * 60 + $3 }'
}

# coreaudiod-owned power assertions: raw lines + resolved client processes
audio_clients() {
    local assertions pids pid
    assertions=$(pmset -g assertions)
    echo "$assertions" | awk '
        /^   pid [0-9]+\(coreaudiod\):/ { inca = 1; print; next }
        /^   pid /                      { inca = 0 }
        inca && /Created for PID:|Resources:/ { print }'
    pids=$(echo "$assertions" | awk '
        /^   pid [0-9]+\(coreaudiod\):/ { inca = 1; next }
        /^   pid /                      { inca = 0 }
        inca && /Created for PID:/ { gsub(/[^0-9]/, ""); print }' | sort -u)
    if [ -z "$pids" ]; then
        echo "(none - coreaudiod is not serving any audio client)"
        return
    fi
    for pid in $pids; do
        echo "client pid $pid = $(ps -p "$pid" -o command= 2>/dev/null | cut -c1-100 || echo '(exited)')"
    done
}

sample_phase() {
    local label=$1
    local capid t0 t1 prev now pct i ticks
    capid=$(coreaudiod_pid)
    header "$label"
    echo "coreaudiod pid: $capid   $APP_NAME pids: $(talk_pids)"
    ticks=$((SAMPLE_SECS / TICK))
    t0=$(cputime_s "$capid")
    prev=$t0
    i=0
    while [ "$i" -lt "$ticks" ]; do
        sleep "$TICK"
        now=$(cputime_s "$capid")
        pct=$(echo "$now $prev $TICK" | awk '{ printf "%5.1f", ($1 - $2) / $3 * 100 }')
        echo "$(date +%H:%M:%S)  coreaudiod cpu: $pct %"
        prev=$now
        i=$((i + 1))
    done
    t1=$(cputime_s "$capid")
    AVG=$(echo "$t1 $t0 $SAMPLE_SECS" | awk '{ printf "%.1f", ($1 - $2) / $3 * 100 }')
    echo "average over ${SAMPLE_SECS}s: $AVG %"
    echo
    echo "audio clients (coreaudiod-owned assertions in pmset -g assertions):"
    audio_clients
}

prompt() {
    echo
    read -r -p ">>> $1
>>> Press Enter to start sampling... " _
}

main() {
    local base post gone
    sysinfo
    prompt "Phase 1 (baseline): make sure $APP_NAME is freshly started and NO call has been made yet."
    sample_phase "phase 1: baseline - $APP_NAME running, no call made"
    base=$AVG
    prompt "Phase 2 (post-call): start an audio+video call in $APP_NAME, talk a few seconds, HANG UP, then leave the app idle."
    sample_phase "phase 2: post-call - call ended, $APP_NAME idle"
    post=$AVG
    prompt "Phase 3 (after quit): quit $APP_NAME completely (Cmd+Q)."
    sample_phase "phase 3: after quitting $APP_NAME"
    gone=$AVG

    header "summary"
    printf "%-45s %8s\n" "phase" "avg cpu%"
    printf "%-45s %8s\n" "1. baseline (Talk running, no call made)" "$base"
    printf "%-45s %8s\n" "2. post-call idle (call ended, app idle)" "$post"
    printf "%-45s %8s\n" "3. after quitting Talk" "$gone"
    echo
    echo "Reading: if phase 2 shows sustained coreaudiod cpu while phases 1 and 3"
    echo "are near 0, and the phase 2 client list shows a $APP_NAME process,"
    echo "then $APP_NAME keeps an audio IO context open after the call ends,"
    echo "which is what keeps coreaudiod burning cycles."
}

main "$@"

[GiovanniSlabs]

Still reproducible on 2.2.4 (current release), on different hardware and a newer macOS than the original report — so this isn't specific to the original reporter's setup.

Environment

• MacBook Pro, Apple M5 (Mac17,2)
• macOS 26.5.2 (25F84)
• Nextcloud Talk desktop 2.2.4

Observed

Same assertion as in the original report, held while the app sat idle with no call in progress:

pid 408(coreaudiod): [0x0000f0ff000184a1] 00:25:26 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep
  named: "com.apple.audio.BuiltInSpeakerDevice.context.preventuseridlesleep"
  Created for PID: 50788.
  Resources: BuiltInSpeakerDevice

PID 50788 was Nextcloud Talk Helper. At that point coreaudiod had accumulated 36:39 of CPU time, making it the second-heaviest process on the system by cumulative CPU after WindowServer.

One detail worth adding

This isn't only CPU burn. The assertion is PreventUserIdleSystemSleep, so for as long as it's held the Mac cannot enter idle sleep at all. On a laptop that's arguably a bigger cost than the CPU cycles, and it may be worth reflecting in the issue title.

Possible leads in this repo

Flagging these as leads, not as a diagnosis — the call audio path itself lives in spreed, so the root cause may well be there rather than here:

• src/callbox/renderer/CallboxApp.vue:36 calls playRingtone() and discards the return value, even though playRingtone() documents it as "function to stop ringing" (src/callbox/renderer/callbox.utils.ts:19). The looping html5: true ringtone is then only ever torn down by the window closing.
• src/talk/renderer/notifications/notifications.store.js → playSound() constructs a new Howl per notification and never unloads it. unload() doesn't appear anywhere under src/.

Happy to run any specific measurement on 2.2.4 if it would help narrow this down.

[tombrus]

Thanks for the repro and the addition @GiovanniSlabs .

Your addition is very relevant and actualy cripples the app: you better quit and restart it after every call.

@ShGKme, I noticed this issue still has the "needs info" label, but that still dates from weeks ago, any more info needed?

[tombrus]

knock-knock anybody home? @ShGKme?