CPU at 100% at idle - tracker-miner

General Help
1

Fresh install of Zorin / Lenovo T480s.. CPU runs at 100% while idling and the fan sounds like the laptop is going to take off. Have disabled searching in Gnome extensions.

Screenshot from 2026-02-26 12-15-08
Screenshot from 2026-02-26 12-15-081584×347 74.5 KB

The screenshot shows this has something to do with the tracker-miner. Have searched around but haven't found any conclusive fix. Any suggestions welcome

OS: Zorin OS 18 x86_64
Host: 20L7S01000 ThinkPad T480s
Kernel: 6.17.0-14-generic
Uptime: 6 mins
Packages: 1885 (dpkg), 22 (flatpak), 8 (snap)
Shell: bash 5.2.21
Resolution: 1920x1080
DE: GNOME 46.0
WM: Mutter
WM Theme: ZorinBrown-Dark
Theme: ZorinBrown-Dark [GTK2/3]
Icons: ZorinBrown-Dark [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: Intel i5-8250U (8) @ 3.400GHz
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 620
Memory: 2144MiB / 7697MiB

2

When I remember right this runs from Time to Time and look for new Files. That is for making the Search in Nautilus quicker as far as I understand it.

3

This should not struggle with the tracker-miner... I would suspect that the process is hanging on something.

You can disable tracker-miner if need be.
But first, when it is spinning like crazy, open a terminal and run

tracker3 status

Let's see if we can identify the jam.

4

Thanks for your reply. Running gives the following plus 104 lines showing just about every directory on my documents. I'd rather not paste those here. Let me know what other information you need. Thanks again

stephen@stephen-ThinkPad-T480s:~$ tracker3 status
Currently indexed: 7872 files, 719 folders
Remaining space on database partition: 221.7 GB (88.55%)
All data miners are idle, indexing complete
98 recorded failures

5

Was the CPU usage at 100% at this time?

6

Yes it was. Or 98% or 99% and so on. Nothing below 98%

7

So, one core of the CPU was very high, near or hitting 100%...
Next time it happens, can you run

top -b -n1 | head -20

And relay those results here?
Let's see if we can narrow down exactly what process is hanging the CPU.

1 Like
8

Thanks again. Here is the output from top -b -n1 | head -20

stephen@stephen-ThinkPad-T480s:~$ top -b -n1 | head -20
top - 09:58:34 up 3 min, 1 user, load average: 1.88, 1.07, 0.43
Tasks: 315 total, 1 running, 314 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1.1 us, 1.1 sy, 13.0 ni, 84.8 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
MiB Mem : 7697.0 total, 3266.2 free, 2643.8 used, 2514.3 buff/cache
MiB Swap: 2048.0 total, 2048.0 free, 0.0 used. 5053.2 avail Mem

PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND

2417 stephen 39 19 816152 46680 19896 S 110.0 0.6 2:02.13 tracker+
5085 stephen 20 0 14504 5596 3444 R 10.0 0.1 0:00.01 top
1 root 20 0 22792 14024 9452 S 0.0 0.2 0:02.47 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 pool_wo+
4 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
6 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
7 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
8 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
9 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 kworker+
10 root 0 -20 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker+
11 root 20 0 0 0 0 I 0.0 0.0 0:00.09 kworker+
stephen@stephen-ThinkPad-T480s:~$

10

BTW here are the first few lines of the 120 or so generated by the command 'tracker3 status':

…aching/Cardiff/Tax/Letters/TAX9697A.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…eaching/Cardiff/Tax/Letters/TAX9697.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…eaching/Cardiff/Tax/Letters/TAX9293.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…n and tags/Questions and statements.doc Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…eaching/Exercises/Pronouns/Pronouns.doc Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…uments/teaching/Course/EXAM/Cooking.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…hing/Course/EXAM/Drugs in Singapore.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…
…n/Documents/teaching/Course/EXAM/TV.DOC Could not get any metadata for uri:'fi…

11

This shows your CPU total at 16% use, with One Core (Out of eight cores) at 100% (Ok, it shows at 110%, but that little overage is due to hyperthreading), so if seeing only that one core, it might appear to be at CPU 100%.
It is actually at 16%, with one core managing the process.
The Ni value shows it as in a happy place, so it is not stressing the core.

1 Like
12

Thanks. So what might I do about the fan whining like it's trying to break free of the machine and the overheating?

13

You could try it with Zorin Lite. Zorin 18 Lite has not been released yet but Zorin 17 Lite is still supported until 2027.

1 Like
14

You can kill the tracker-miner:

tracker3 daemon --terminate

You might install fancontrol to see about the fans - is it overheating, too?
If overheating, I would recommend checking what your clocking is - Some suppliers will overclock stock they sell.
Mine was over clocked to 4.8Ghz.
I lowered it to 3.8GHz and not only did that solve overheating - it improved performance.

1 Like
15

Thanks for your helpful suggestions everyone. That fixed it.

16

What did help you?

17

Can you mark the post that helped you by clicking :white_check_mark:Solution under it.
Note: you may have to click on "..." to reveal that option under the post itself.

18

Done. Thanks

1 Like