HP Hotkey UWP Service uses too much CPU

[li51]

I've recently noticed a consistent increase in CPU usage over the past several days, and upon investigating the Task Manager, I've identified that the "HP Hotkey UWP Service" program is the culprit. To address this concern, I recommend taking a few steps. Firstly, ensure that the HP Hotkey UWP Service is updated to the latest version, as updates often include performance enhancements. Additionally, check for any background processes or tasks associated with this service that might be running excessively, and manage them through the Task Manager. Attempt to restart the HP Hotkey UWP Service to address any potential temporary issues. Moreover, it's advisable to check for driver updates for your HP laptop, as outdated or incompatible drivers can contribute to performance issues. Visit the HP support website for the latest driver downloads. If the problem persists, consider reaching out to HP support for model-specific guidance. As you proceed, remember to back up important data before making significant changes to your system. Feel free to share additional details or error messages if available, for more targeted assistance.

[JimSchuuz]

@Li51 It is unlikely that it's really the HPHotkeyUWP service.  The problem that everyone else is seeing is, in reality, the HP Audio Analytics program instead.  What you see displayed in Task Manager are the incorrectly-compiled file descriptions, as noted here:

When the program is compiled, the developer enters this information manually.  In this case, the specific developer reused the program information from the HPHotkeyUWP.exe program, even though it's really the HPAudioAnalytics.exe program instead.

There is a known issue with the 9/13/2023 version of the HPAudioAnalytics program, and disabling it is the solution for now.  All this does is collect information about HOW you listen to sound on your computer, and then it sends this info back to HP for future improvements.  It is not essential, and doesn't affect anything else in your computer, especially not the true Hotkey service.

[val12342]

same with my zbook 15 g5

[mkrjf]

Your honesty is very much appreciated - but could you remind the developer that cut / paste | hardcoding values like that is very amateur coding 😞 And maybe testing can add a test case for excessive CPU usage? just like maybe?

[TimButterworth]

Just to update - last week an HP Engineer replaced the system board on my laptop in an attempt to resolve the problem, but it made no difference. It's definitely NOT hardware related. I'll go back to HP with the ticket I have logged with them.

[JimSchuuz]

@mkrjf I do not work for HP and don't know any of their developers.  I just read through all of the posts on this thread and I see much ado about nothing.

Yes, the HPAudioAnalytics service, which displays as the HP Hotkey UWP Service, does occasionally spike the CPU when it's having a hard time reporting back to HP's telemetry servers.  Yes, that's an annoyance, and can cause problems if it continues for an extended amount of time.  But as of right now, there are 2 ways to mitigate this:

1. Stop the service and/or kill the HPAudioAnalytics.exe process, or
2. Permanently disable the service and restart your computer.

Doing either of the above causes no issues.  Again, all this service does is to collect data about what volume levels your audio is playing, whether you listen more to saved audio files or streamed audio, and whether you use the internal speakers or through an external device.  It doesn't even affect the audio on your computer... it's nothing but a data-collection service that helps HP to understand if they need to make changes on future products.

And for the record, it really doesn't matter whether the service name is "HotkeyServiceUWP" or "AudioAnalytics" because it is what it is.  They could call the service "NuclearMissileLauncher.exe" for all I care.  

[JimSchuuz]

@TimButterworth - you are correct that it is NOT hardware related.  From what I could tell, the audio analytics service spikes when it has already started to transmit the audio telemetry data back to HP's data collection servers, but then it stops getting a response.  The software shouldn't behave that way, but a lot of software does.

This is no different than when you go to visit a website and shortly after viewing some pages, the site becomes unresponsive and begins hogging resources.  Sometimes you can wait and it works again, sometimes you have to kill the tab, and sometimes you have to kill the whole browser window and start again.  But the difference is that you probably wanted something from that web page, and the audio analytics service isn't giving you anything in return.

[托卢1]

A new version of HP hotkey support uwp may be pushed in February to solve this problem. Currently, you can disable the "HP Audio Analytics Service" and modify it to start it manually.

[TimButterworth]

As someone who has supported windows devices nearly 30 years, I'm quite familiar with how they work and the myriad problems they suffer. This is not a case of a little niggle in a web plug in or embedded advert. It's a major bug in a piece of mandatory code that has a high impact on a large number of users. Given the importance of Enterprise to HP, saying "just disable the service" isn't helpful when some organisations have thousands of these devices with this problem. And many home users won't have the ability or confidence to do that. HP has dropped the ball here and they should already have a fix out in Windows Updates, even if it's just to roll back to the previous version.

[JimSchuuz]

---

@TimButterworth wrote:

As someone who has supported windows devices nearly 30 years, I'm quite familiar with how they work and the myriad problems they suffer. This is not a case of a little niggle in a web plug in or embedded advert. It's a major bug in a piece of mandatory code that has a high impact on a large number of users.

---

As someone who presently manages more than 3000 workstation and 1000 server endpoints myself, and who teaches this to university students after more than 35 years in this business, I would say that the comparison I made is valid.

---

@TimButterworth wrote:

Given the importance of Enterprise to HP, saying "just disable the service" isn't helpful when some organisations have thousands of these devices with this problem.

---

If someone has this problem on thousands of devices, then I have complete confidence that either they already figured the problem out or that HP is working directly with them and they aren't browsing this forum.  And, they have an automated system already in place through which to implement this on thousands of machines at one time.

---

@TimButterworth wrote:

And many home users won't have the ability or confidence to do that.

---

If home users are browsing a self-help forum looking for a fix, then I'm sure that they have the confidence to disable the service through the MSC GUI. If they would prefer doing it from a command prompt this is the code to run:

net stop "HP Audio Analytics Service" && taskkill /f /im HPAudioAnalytics.exe && SC CONFIG "HP Audio Analytics Service" start=Disabled

---

@TimButterworth wrote:

HP has dropped the ball here and they should already have a fix out in Windows Updates, even if it's just to roll back to the previous version.

---

I thought you've supported Windows machines for 30 years? You should know that this isn't pushed through Windows updates... it's handled either through HP Support Assistant, or through a manual software update through support.hp.com.  Yes, HP dropped the ball, but it genuinely is nothing more than a programming bug - one of hundreds that people experience every day.  Every. Single. Day.

Of the 3000 workstations I manage, roughly 50% are made by HP, probably 40% are from Dell, and 10% or fewer are Lenovo, with a handful of Toshiba and industry-specific brands mixed in.  Of the 1500 that are HP, we've had reports of this problem occurring on fewer than 10 machines total.  That equates to less than 1%, or 0.67% (0.0067) to be more precise.  But if YOU have a whole bunch of these and you can't manage, I'm more than happy to fix them for you pro bono.  Just let me know and I will give you a remote support link.  Or, you can copy & paste the script above to a batch file and execute it with admin privileges.