#1023829 liferea: "WebKitWebProces" consumes up to 20% CPU while Liferea is minimized in the task bar

Package:
liferea
Source:
liferea
Description:
feed/news/podcast client with plugin support
Submitter:
Christian Henz
Date:
2026-10-18 12:35:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1023829#5
Date:
2022-11-10 20:43:11 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I frequently notice that a WebKitWebProces spawned by Liferea is consuming CPU
(up to 20%) even when the Liferea UI is closed (only task bar icon visible).
This seems to happen after Liferea has been running for a couple of hours.
#1023829#10
Date:
2022-11-10 21:08:49 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Christian,

Thanks for reporting issues you encounter.

This is a bit limited information to go on. For what it's worth, I don't
reproduce this (albeit on bookworm). I've never noticed high CPU
consumption this way, but I'll keep an eye out.

It would be good if you could figure out under which conditions this
happens (and under which conditions it doesn't). E.g. what feed are you
having open, do you view videos in the internal browser, etc. Do your
feeds have JavaScript and do you have that enabled?

Paul
#1023829#17
Date:
2022-11-16 09:14:49 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Paul,

So "frequently" may have been a bit exaggerated. I had definitely
noticed this at least three times over the two weeks prior to me filing
the report.

However, *since* filing the report I have been monitoring this closer,
and have not been able to see it reproduced since then (at least not for
any prolonged amount of time, i.e. longer than a couple of seconds -
previously, the significant CPU consumption would seem to last
indefinitely).

There *was* a webkit2gtk upgrade during this time, but I have not
investigated if that could have made any difference.

 > It would be good if you could figure out under which conditions this
 > happens (and under which conditions it doesn't). E.g. what feed are you
 > having open, do you view videos in the internal browser, etc. Do your
 > feeds have JavaScript and do you have that enabled?

I'll keep monitoring the situation, but I also think this may not be
reproducible after all.

For the record, JavaScript had been turned off the entire time.


Thanks!
Christian
#1023829#22
Date:
2026-10-18 09:15:42 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Christian,

Given that you haven't reported back in 4 years, shall we close this report?

Paul
#1023829#27
Date:
2026-10-18 10:22:42 UTC
From:
To:
I have not noticed this problem in recent years. (Although I am on a
substantially faster machine now, so maybe it is just not as noticable.)

The report can be closed, as far as I am concerned.


Greetings,

Christian
#1023829#32
Date:
2026-10-18 12:32:49 UTC
From:
To:
Hi

Thanks, doing so now.

Paul