[UPDATE]Workaround (for now, that seems to solve the performance issue for me; my machine is a 2015 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM).
System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display: enable “Reduce transparency”.
This is a solution that is generally used (independently of TotalSpaces) when the WindowServer process takes too much CPU resources.
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PERFORMANCE. There is quite strange behavior. If I interact relatively a lot in a short time with the application (e.g. navigate between spaces, choose a space in the grid…), the overall performance of the computer decreases progressively and the GUIs of all applications (menus…) respond with a latency time. And the WindowServer process starts to consume a lot of CPU and the machine’s fans start up.
The situation returns to normal:
progressively when I no longer interact with TotalSpaces or only a little,
immediately if I interact with the preferences panel (either by opening it if it was closed, or by changing a setting).
A hypothesis : maybe it is related to the management (by macOS) of the wallpapers by space (even if I deactivated these wallpapers in the TotalSpaces grid).
In OSX 11.01, when I boot up and TotalSpaces tries to load, I get an error of “developer tools access needs to take control.” I have narrowed the error message to TotalSpaces2. Is anyone else getting this error? Is there any fix?
@teh_fink In my case, the setting to “Lo res” or to “Hi res” or to “None” does not change the performance problem with WindowServer. I really need to enable “Reduce transparency” in my system. I haven’t found any other more elegant solution.
I too had some severe UI lag / slowness with Total Spaces running and the workaround of enabling “Reduce transparency” did improve things quite a bit. Still a bit perplexed (Shakes fist at Apple) as to why this workaround is really needed as my hardware config should be more than powerful enough:
2018 MacBook Pro 15"
CPU: 6c i9 @ 2.9GHz
RAM: 32GB
SSD: 1TB
eGPU: AMD RX580 + Mantiz Venus (2 x 4Ks @ 60hz connected to this GPU)
I confirm the behavior on my configuration as well. Someone who hasn’t upgraded to Big Sur (which is still on Mojave or Catalina) should tell us if this behavior occurred before Big Sur.
[UPDATE] Tested on a VM with Mojave: no issue like the one described in the article!
Is TotalSpaces going to be updated to work with Big Sur? Or, is it going to be obsolete? I didn’t see anything on the blog or elsewhere to indicate what the status is going to be
I am running into an odd problem in Big Sur-- while I have 4-by-4 in Mojave with dual dual displays in each (desired setup), I can’t find an option to have multiple displays per space in Big Sur. Instead I see a 4*4 on each monitor (not too bad), but then when I unplug I get a 30-some screen grid like the following:
We don’t have a fix for this (developer tools dialog) at the moment. This is a new dialog that the system shows because we needed to use a different technique to hook into the system in Big Sur.
It is certainly problematic because it shows on every reboot, and can interrupt normal login until you give permission if you have TotalSpaces2 set to start on login.
As TotalSpaces2 nears end of life (because of this kind of added security protections, and no Applie Silicon support) we are working on a replacement, but I don’t have any betas yet - will post in the forum when I do.
I am having a problem with Big Sur on an M1. TotalSpaces shows my laptop display as “unknown” and I am not able to add/remove or switch desktops with TS. This is a completely fresh install with no Time Machine backup and nothing else has been installed. I literally opened this Laptop up from Apple and installed TS first to verify it would work since it is my most important app. The TS app is in my Applications folder and I have SIP completely disabled. Please help.
I had this issue also (not able to add desktops, says I already have 16, when in reality I had 1). I originally had the app in my User > Applications folder. I read through this thread, and someone earlier mentioned that putting the app in Macintosh HD > Applications folder fixed the problem. I moved the app to that folder, and the issue was immediately fixed. (Might require you quitting TotalSpaces and restarting).
I have used Totalspaces2 for ages. I try to run it on Big Sur and it just won’t add Windows. I see lots o reports about this. I don’t know if this is compatible.
I’m having this issue - just upgraded to Big Sur today. Tried uninstall and reinstall, the whole bit. The app is in the “main” Applications folder (not the Applications folder within my user folder).
Has anyone figured out how to get it working again?
