macOS Python 3.14 CPU backend: intra_threads=0 aborts on 4.7.2 and oversubscribes on 4.8.0

[jmpnop]

Summary

On macOS arm64 with Python 3.14.5, the no-OpenMP CTranslate2 CPU backend behaves poorly when intra_threads=0 is used through Argos Translate. In 4.7.2 it produced a native abort during a sustained translation workload. In 4.8.0 the same workload no longer aborted in my test, but the automatic backend threading path was still pathologically slow and CPU-heavy compared with intra_threads=1.

Environment

macOS 26.5.1 arm64
Python 3.14.5
CTranslate2 4.7.2 and 4.8.0 wheels
Argos Translate / argostranslate-lt 1.12.1
English -> Russian Argos model

4.7.2 crash

With CTranslate2 4.7.2 and Argos' default ARGOS_INTRA_THREADS=0, a sustained Markdown translation workload aborted after several hundred translation calls:

libc++abi: terminating due to uncaught exception of type std::__1::system_error:
condition_variable wait failed: Invalid argument

Crash report showed the faulting thread inside the vendored CPU backend thread pool:

BS::thread_pool_light::worker()
std::__1::condition_variable::wait(...)

The main thread was waiting in:

ctranslate2::python::wait_on_futures<ctranslate2::TranslationResult>(...)
ctranslate2::python::TranslatorWrapper::translate_batch(...)

4.8.0 performance problem

I upgraded the same environment to CTranslate2 4.8.0. The crash-adjacent segment completed, and a full sustained run completed when using intra_threads=1.

However, with the unpatched default intra_threads=0, the process became extremely CPU-heavy and slow:

CPU: ~1470%
Hot path: ctranslate2::TranslatorWrapper::translate_batch
          ctranslate2::ops::Gemm::compute
          ruy::ThreadPool::ExecuteImpl
          ruy::BlockingCounter::Wait
          BS::thread_pool...

Benchmark on the same 30-unit Markdown slice with CTranslate2 4.8.0:

intra=0  TIMEOUT >60s
intra=1  elapsed=31.012s user=36.103s  sys=0.120s
intra=2  elapsed=48.529s user=84.297s  sys=19.564s
intra=4  elapsed=38.526s user=139.771s sys=28.153s
intra=8  elapsed=37.895s user=275.805s sys=28.084s

For this workload, intra_threads=1 is both fastest and most stable.

Notes

Argos Translate is mitigating this by defaulting ARGOS_INTRA_THREADS to 1 on Darwin while preserving explicit user overrides:

argosopentech/argos-translate#528

I am filing this here because the 4.7.2 abort and 4.8.0 oversubscription both appear to originate in the CTranslate2 macOS no-OpenMP CPU backend path when the backend default thread count is selected.