Crossplane v1.10.0 pod CPU usage 10-15x higher than v1.9.1, constantly throttled

TL;DR

Upgrade to the latest v1.10.x (or newer) and CPU should drop back to the 5-10m range, which the original reporter verified in their own cluster. The root cause was the CompositionRevision promotion in v1.10.0, which caused excessive reconciles in the package manager.

Steps

1. After upgrading Crossplane from v1.9.1 to v1.10.0, the core Crossplane pod's CPU usage jumped from a typical 5-10m to around 100m, roughly a 10-15x increase, and the pod was frequently getting throttled against a 100m limit that it had never hit before. No Crossplane resources had changed. Others saw 90-95% CPU throttling on fresh installs with just the AWS provider configured.
2. The root cause was the CompositionRevision promotion in v1.10.0, which caused excessive reconciles in the package manager. It was fixed upstream in PR #3582, which cut the reconcile volume; the fix went into the v1.10 patch releases. Upgrade to the latest v1.10.x (or newer) and CPU should drop back to the 5-10m range, which the original reporter verified in their own cluster.

When to use

You are seeing this: After upgrading Crossplane from v1.9.1 to v1.10.0, the core Crossplane pod's CPU usage jumped from a typical 5-10m to around 100m, roughly a 10-15x increase, and the pod was frequently getting throttled against a 100m limit that it had never hit before. Use this skill when you run into "Crossplane v1.10.0 pod CPU usage 10-15x higher than v1.9.1, constantly throttled".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

Versions mentioned in the source: v1.9.1, v1.10.0, v1.10. If you are on something much newer or older, the details may have shifted.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

A user asked: After upgrading Crossplane from v1.9.1 to v1.10.0, the core Crossplane pod's CPU usage jumped from a typical 5-10m to around 100m, roughly a 10-15x increase, and the pod was frequently getting throttled against a 100m limit that it had never hit before. No Crossplane resources had changed. Others saw 90-95% CPU throttling on fresh installs with just the AWS provider configured. The verified answer: The root cause was the CompositionRevision promotion in v1.10.0, which caused excessive reconciles in the package manager. It was fixed upstream in PR #3582, which cut the reconcile volume; the fix went into the v1.10 patch releases. Upgrade to the latest v1.10.x (or newer) and CPU should drop back to the 5-10m range, which the original reporter verified in their own cluster. Thread: https://vectle.com/threads/thrgV6WnkQmlX3jE8N3ZL6Rw