Network Management

High CPU usage in SolarWinds Platform products after recent upgrade

This article will describe some reasons for high CPU utilization after upgrading to the latest version.

First published date

11/1/2018 5:07 PM

Last published date

7/11/2025 5:34 PM

Overview

High CPU utilization in SolarWinds Platform products can cause the following issues:

  • The SolarWinds Platform Web Console is unresponsive.
  • Alerts are slow.
  • There are gaps in polling data.

This article describes some of the reasons high CPU utilization can occur.

Note: If your issue is not covered, please contact SolarWinds Support.

 

Product section

Orion Platform

Resolution

Determining which processes are consuming the most CPU

First, determine which processes are consuming the most CPU. Usually, this is the Job Engine Workers, but it could also be any number of other processes (such as Service Host Local System).

If the Job Engine Workers are causing the issue you will need to determine which plugin jobs they are running.

  1. Open Task Manager.
  2. Go to the Details tab and add the "Command Line" column.
  3. Sort the Details tab by CPU and find the top offender(s). The Command Line will show you the plugin name.


 

Application dependency polling

If you upgraded SAM recently, ADM or application dependency polling is enabled across all nodes by default.

This installs the agent required for this feature on nodes, and this can cause high CPU usage if there are agent deployment failures. Connection issues with ADM plugins can also cause high CPU usage.

You can disable ADM globally using this article if you think that might be the cause of the issue: Manage polling settings.

*You'll see "nping" processes eating the CPU in Task Manager on the box.

Service Host Local System

If you noticed Service Host Local System using high CPU, stop the service and reboot the server.

General

Ensure that the minimum hardware requirements are met. Move nodes to an additional polling engine or disable excess polling jobs.