Anyone have a fix for using Teams on Catalina

[tommiy]

Hi, I'm hoping that some one has a valid work around for using Teams on Catalina or even any Mac where the application does not draw 150% of CPU for a point to point video call. This is an absolute battery killer. Zoom works flawlessly and consumes far less CPU than teams. Using Teams is a guaranteed way of starting your fans. Microsoft have stated a number of months ago that they acknowledge the issue but their recommended solution is to disconnect any dock, change screen resolution to some thing far lower (1920 from memory) and to close all other applications prior to using a teams video call. These recommendations are here. This is seriously unusable for anyone that is trying to use a Mac and almost verges on recommendation of you need a PC to run teams.

Has anyone solved this issue already and can share how they fixed this? It would be appreciated.

And is you are a Mac user, and are using Teams, it would be appreciated if you could up vote the Microsoft User Voice issue here and also here so maybe it might get fixed I would appreciate it.

 

[tommiy]

Seems like no one uses a Mac with Teams or there simply is no workaround other than microsofts.

 

[anakin44011]

I haven't seen anything yet. I keep complaining to my IT department as we are switching everything over to the MS 365 suite...and the Mac experience remains second-class. I run one of the fastest laptops Apple makes...and the fans scream during a Teams meeting.

Seven months into a pandemic, and they still can't get this right. It really makes you wonder how Zoom pulled this off (security compromises notwithstanding).

 

[tyc0746]

Don't know if it's specifically a MacBook issue or a Catalina one, as it's doesn't use any more than 20% on my 5k iMac (after the initial 100-150% during MS Teams launch).

Does the problem go away if you detach the external 4k monitor, or change the resolution?

Although in my usage (have used MS stuff on PCs & Macs since 1990) - the PC version of MS products have always been significantly faster than on Mac...so much so that I regularly have Windows via bootcamp on my Macs just so that I can have a better MS experience.

 

[tommiy]

While idle teams consumes very little amount of cpu maybe 1-2% only when your doing video calls does it consume 150% of CPU. turning off both outgoing and incoming video and leaving just voice restores it to low single digits. As soon as you turn video on again it goes very high again. Does exactly the same without an external monitor. Completely kills my battery in a 40 minute video call. I've completely uninstalled teams seeking every single possible component on the mac and removing it and then reinstalling the latest version from microsoft. This make no difference at all to its behaviour. Next call I'm on for work I'll post the usage graphs.

 

[flyersgl]

I am so glad to see this post. I have a 2017 MBP and am on Teams all day, every day. The fan is killing me, but until I saw this post, I didn’t realize that it was only Teams and not Zoom/other platforms. I have no advice or answers, but I glad to have the perspective that my computer isn’t crap, it’s the platform!

 

[NastyNatex]

I don't have this problem everything seems to work fine.

MacBook Pro 13in Early 2015, 16gb ram , 2.9ghz dual i5

 

[tommiy]

MBP 2017 maxed out specs.

This is a 20 person Zoom Conference with video.

And this is myself in a meeting with no one else with video with teams.

Anyone notice the difference in CPU utilisation? This remains constant during the meetings while the CPU temperature sits at around 93C and the fans spin like crazy. From the links appears that Microsoft has known of this issue since December 2018 and in August 2020 say it's being worked on and potentially another 7 months to fix. That is a 3-year bug. I've taken to working without the MAC due to the issues with Catalina but would like to get back to not needing to swivel chair between a Mac and a PC. I'd have to say at present for work purposes that the PC is winning out the ability to use conferencing. Both the above was taken on the same external configuration. Teams has been uninstalled and completely reinstalled 4 times including removing all components that remain. SMC and NVRAM reset multiple times in a row. Nothing changes for Teams as it maxes out the CPU on the configuration. Its no wonder Microsoft recommends closing every other application prior to a video call on a Mac.

 

[tommiy]

After today meetings I've spent an hour deleting and removing all parts of teams and simply running meetings with myself to test the CPU load. I think I have solve part of the issue and this is 100% repeatable. Turn off the settings for "Turn on new meeting experience" in the settings. If I have a video meeting with myself with this option enabled without anyone else in the meeting Teams consumes over 100% of CPU. If this has been enabled then disabling it has no immediate impact until you completely restart teams. With this option disabled teams is using 35% cpu in the exact same meeting setup.

To remove teams i trashed it and removed the following folders.

~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams

Time will tell tomorrow but the impact is very noticeable. If you don't restart teams you will see no difference in CPU load when changing the setting.

 

[chrono1081]

I have no issues on my personal or work machine, I haven't heard any complaints from coworkers either. My personal machine is a 2019 16 inch MBP and my work machine is a 2017 inch MBP.

 

[tommiy]

Lots of complaints over at Microsoft. 1700 votes for them to fix this and a response in Aug saying they are working on it and it will take several months. I'm searching for a way to make it usable. I'm hoping that disabling the "new" features they introduced earlier this year does it.

 

[tommiy]

Validated. On my Mac enabling "Turn on New Meeting experience" results in approximately an additional 120-150% CPU load. Once turned on it appears disabling the setting has no effect and that the load is still high. Sometimes you can force quit teams after disabling it and it will start up properly without the extra load. Other times it seems to retain things. The answer is never to turn that on in the first place. I've just done a 40-minute call and teams generally consumed 60% which is the best I have seen in a long time.