What OS and you on? And could you give specifics of you machine.

Arch Linux

Linux dntb 3.0-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 30 08:53:25 CEST 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6600 @ 2.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

My cpu monitor is usually flat, but with chrome tabs flashing there is a noticeable difference ... and in my power consumption - processor wake ups 

Compiled 16.0.906.0 (Developer Build 105052) Archlinux ... Problem persists

Can we please get an option to disable these flashing notifications? Besides the CPU usage issues, I find it very distracting.

I see a CPU usage spike when a tab starts flashing on Ubuntu 11.10, Chrome 15.0.874.54, that does not drop until I've focused and subsequently unfocused the flashing tab. Chrome uses up to 30% CPU during the flashing, and Compiz CPU usage spikes to 60%. But as I said, even forgetting the CPU issue, I would love an option to turn this off.

It's happening to me, both in chrome beta (15.0.874.102 beta) and in Chromium (15.0.865.0 (Developer Build 98568 Linux)) on Ubuntu 11.10 (Unity3D with compiz). After "acknowing" the tab cpu usage decrease by 30/40% 

On 17.0.927.0 (Developer Build 108267) Archlinux
The situation is slightly better, don't know when and what changed but the usage dropped to a few % of cpu. Still noticeable if the cpu is idling. 

Really would appreciate the option to turn the flashing off - trough any means, command line option or some hidden setting somewhere.

 Issue 98005  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 65529  has been merged into this issue.

With 17.0.963.6 dev, the GMail tab flashing takes 90% CPU and makes Chrome unusable.  On Ubuntu Lucid.

On my very slow netbook on linuxx, unattended flashing tabs take up 99% CPU, and if left long enough (haven't figured out exactly how long) result in the browser becoming totally unresponsive requiring that it be killed and restarted.

I have a similar CPU issue but not sure if it's the same "flashing tab" problem -- on Ubuntu 11.10 if I open Chrome with two home pages set and one of them requires auth (http basic), the tab remains with a 'loading' animation until I tab over it to click the 'Login' button. However, if I ignore the tab, Compiz uses 50% of my CPU. Clicking 'Login' clears the loading animation and my CPU immediately drops to near-0%.

i don't care about cpu usage... it's non issue for me...but it's extremely annoying and almost shocking there's no option to turn it off...or perhaps a black list of sites you don't want the tabs to flash with

I am running Ubuntu 12.04 64bit, and Chrome 18.0.1025.162.  What I find is that when the tabs want to flash, it causes compiz process to hit 50% cpu, closing Google Chrome makes compiz process drop to 10% CPU.

I have exactly the same problem. That you get 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% depends only in the number of cores (or core-threads) of your processor. 

Compiz takes a lot of CPU when tabs are shinning (notifications).

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 64 bits and Chrome 18.0.1025.162 too.

I have this problem as well using ubuntu 12.04 and chromium 18. This issue is likely a duplicate, http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=98200

I have this problem as well using ubuntu 12.04 and chromium 20.

 Issue 130608  has been merged into this issue.

same issue here on ubuntu 12.10

This issue is still present as I write this. I am experiencing on average a CPU load of 20%  to 35% when a tab is flashing.

Chromium Version 25.0.1364.160 Ubuntu 13.04

CPU utilization jumps from 3% to 40% on the chrome process whenever my pinned tabs are blinking.  Using Ubuntu 12.04.1 and Chrome 27.0.1453.110.  Workaround is to select each of the blinking tabs.  But, what a pain--sucked up my battery the other day.

The problem with clicking on each flashing tab is that you'll have to keep doing it each time the tab starts flashing again.  Until this problem gets fixed, the only real workaround is to unpin all tabs that may flash.

I don't know why the developer just don't add the possibility to disable blinking in chrome://flags/ .

 I don't think this takes much time, maybe I'm wrong ... 
... but for sure it is faster that edit the code by myself and recompile chrome ( that you know is a pain in the ass to be compiled )

I"m still having this problem with your top of the line chromebook pixel.  PLEASE FIX.

Having the same problem on: 
Version 28.0.1500.71 Ubuntu 13.04 (28.0.1500.71-0ubuntu1.13.04.1)

I am switching back to Firefox untill this is fixed.

I am in the same boat, and I don't think this issue is anywhere on the priority list. It was reported with v15 dev builds and has continued for more than 2 years without its status changing from 'Unconfirmed'. Even though so many people have reported it and it's so easy to reproduce.

Good luck with Firefox, don't hold your breath on having this fixed to return to Chrome/Chromium.

The issue disappeared for me after a while, but I don't remember when it was. Since then I switched to Arch Linux with xfce. So it might be supporting libraries for you.

Still having this issue with a chromebook pixel. Just pin a tab, wait for it to alert and watch the CPU go nuts. 

This just started happening for me as well.

This occurs with any animation on a tab.  Easy to notice when the tab is flashing, but you can also see the issue when a website is loading and you see the loading circle spin in the tab.  CPU goes to 90% using the windows manager process.

Elementary OS Luna.

For me, in a short test, the CPU load doesn't seem to jump up extraordinarily when several tabs are loading and have the spinning circle animation on them, but the flashing of pinned tab does consume 17-20% of CPU *constantly*! As soon as I switch to the tab to make it stop flashing, compiz CPU usage drops down to 0-2%. I'm experiencing this on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon running Ubuntu 13.04, see this bug report on Launchpad for more debug info: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/1242207

However I am NOT experiencing this issue on an older PC (don't have the specs at hand) running Ubuntu 12.04. I'm confused, which component is actually causing the issue?

pinned gmail tab causes non-stop high cpu use when animation is running to indicate new email. Ubuntu 13.10 with Unity on Sony Vaio VGN-FW290.

This happens on ChromeOS 34.0.1847.76 beta as well.

Same problem with Ubuntu 14.04/Unity and stable Chrome 34...

Chrome 35 stable (presumably with the move away from GTK+ with the change to the new UI) has fixed this for me on 14.04 running on top of Intel-based CPU/GPU hardware...

I just updated to Chrome 35 on Ubuntu 14.04 and it actually INTRODUCED this problem for me. CPU usage is high when there is a tab flashing and it goes to 100% when screen is locked. It seems like there's no frame rate limiting when screen is locked. Please fix. My laptop runs very hot whenever my screen is locked while Chrome is running.

I still have this on Ubuntu 14.04, latest stable chrome

Dmitry Pashkevich

 Issue 388285  has been merged into this issue.

I can confirm this on Ubuntu 14.04 using an Ivy Bridge integrated GPU.

This is literally still killing Chrome perf:
Version 38.0.2114.2 dev (64-bit) on 14.04.  Chrome take 100+% of CPU and all of its tabs slow to a halt.  We're getting close to a 3-year anniversary for this bug.  Please contact me if you need help debugging it.

Adding a couple people who have worked on the tab strip - they may know who this bug should go to.  Consuming 100% CPU to flash pinned tabs seems insane to me - sorry this bug has languished so long, we definitely need to find someone to look into this.  I'm trying to reproduce it now.

See here for how to report more easily actionable performance bugs: http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/trace-event-profiling-tool/recording-tracing-runs

Huzzah, progress!

I can reproduce a more minor version of this on Pixel (chrome 39.0.2144.2), eg. by having google calendar pinned and creating a calendar notification.

Browser process CPU usage goes from around 5% to 15% when there is a pulsating tab.  Trace at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9JF7Oi4NUhPOXdNSzg3MnVfbFE/edit?usp=sharing.  We're spending ~2ms of CPU time each frame in LayerTreeHost::updateLayers (mostly painting Views) - that seems like an aweful lot for such a tiny effect.  I agree we need to either fix this effect to be efficient or disable it.

sky@ can you please help route this bug?

Glen came up with the current effect, which requires constant throbbing. Maybe we should go with badging, which would not require a continuous flash. I'll ping Alex for his input.

Even if we do want throbbing (which does look nice IMHO), surely we can implement such a tiny effect in well below 2ms of CPU time on a decent machine like a chromebook pixel, right?

Still, being power efficient when idle is probably more important than looking awesome - so I agree it may not be worth to cost to be creating ANY frames here.  Or maybe we badge and throb (more efficiently) for a few minutes, then stop the throbbing and rely only on the badge.

I've been monitoring this issue with interest for a couple of years now. Seeing some activity is kinda exciting :)

If it's worth anything, I think an efficient throbbing effect that falls back to a badge after a few minutes sounds like an excellent idea.

I am also happy to finally see this issue getting attention.

In my opinion, a tab notification should never take 20 to 40 % CPU load even if temporary.

Maybe have the tab simply go straight to a different brightness?
Or maybe use a less expensive animation than a brighten/fade if that is possible? Maybe have the icon in the tab bounce, rotate or change hue?
Maybe change the shape of the tab? Add a notch or bump?

For the record, I'm still experiencing the issue.

I use a Lenovo X1 Carbon (not the 2014 version) with Ubuntu 14.04 (stock
graphics drivers), and I see roughly 12-17% CPU when there's a tab flashing.
When I switch to it to make it stop flashing, the CPU usage goes down to
3-6% (never lower!). I checked both htop and Chrome's internal task manager
and observed roughly the same numbers.

I too still see about 20% cpu usage. The same system as three years ago. Although since switching to feedly, which does not flash, this bug hasn't been much of a problem as of late.

Arch Linux 64bit
36.0.1985.125 (Developer Build 283153) 

Hm, feedly still flashes for me... I have it pinned if that matters

Dmitry Pashkevich

We understand the problem here enough that we don't need additional comments. I'm restricting adding comments.

Moving all non essential bugs to the next Milestone.

This issue is Pri-1 but has already been moved once, therefore lowering to Pri-2 and moving to next milesone.

This issue has already been moved once and is lower than Priority 1,therefore removing mstone.

Issue 495200 has been merged into this issue.

sky@ What is the status of this bug?

I was surprised at seeing that Chrome was using 25% of each core, and then I found that the print preview in an inactive tab was responsible for this.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open Chrome.
2. Open another tab.
3. Press Ctrl + P to open print preview.
4. Switch to a different tab.
5. Open the task manager of Chrome.

Result:
- In my current profile (where I discovered the problem, after using Chrome for a few days with several open tabs and extensions): The browser process uses 17-20% CPU, the GPU process 40-46%, and the print preview tab itself 2-3%!
- In a new profile: The browser and GPU process both use 13-17 %CPU, and the tab containing the print preview also 2-3%.

If I use --disable-gpu, then of course there is no GPU process, but I still observe the 13-17 %CPU usage in the browser process.

This waste of CPU cycles was observed in Chrome 45 on both Linux and Windows.
Mac doesn't have this problem, but its tab does not glow when there is a print preview in it.

Any chance this was addressed by https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=473898#c23 ?

Indeed. This is no longer relevant because of 473898.