Google Chrome Helper for “GPU Process” constantly shown as non responsive in OS X 10.9

Question

I upgraded to OS X 10.9 yesterday, and since then, one Google Chrome Helper is constantly red in Activity Monitor. I checked the PID (375) in Google Chrome's own task manager, and it is GPU Process. I don't think it is used often, but I also fail to see why it is constantly non-responsive.

Does anyone else experience the same thing? Is this a problem of GPU handling of the new OS? Maybe there are some GPU-accelerated websites/videos (I mean video player) out there so I can test whether there is a problem? Thanks.

By the way, my machine is a MacBook Pro 13'' mid-2012 non-Retina.

Answer 1

This bug is fixed on Oct 31, 2013 (#89 thakis@chromium.org)

and the fix will reach the stable channel eventually.

This is an issue with how Activity Monitor determines responsiveness – these processes are running perfectly fine.

(We changed chrome to work around that Activity Monitor issue, and the fix will reach you eventually, depending on which channel you use, how far we merge this, etc.)

Answer 2

I've been experiencing the same issue for about a month, except it predates Mavericks (10.9) when I was still using Mountain Lion (10.8.4 and 10.8.5 specifically).

I've found the only way I can remedy the issue is to force quit the unresponsive Google Chrome Helper and all other associated processes (all "Google Chrome ..." named items) except for Google Chrome itself (the one with the icon). That will crash most, if not all, browser plugins, but it will make Chrome useable for a decent amount of time if you keep down on your number of open tabs.

It's not fantastic by any means, but my other remedy is going back to using Firefox for the time being and keeping my fingers crossed Google is working on a fix for this issue.

MacBook Pro 6,2 (15-inch Mid-2010)
2.53GHz Intel i5
4GB RAM
128GB SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD/500GB Toshiba HDD
OS X 10.9 "Mavericks"

Answer 3

I had a very simpiler problem - particularly on gmail searches. This is what made a difference for me.

From https://discussions.apple.com/message/23823784#23823784

go to Chrome > preferences > settings > show advanced settings > content settings (under privacy) Then click the 'click to play' button under the Plugins section.

Stops troublesome plugins being activiated unless needed, although it's an extra click using things like youtube.