Strange, many in this thread (me included) are running zeros with no problem at all and it seems most showing around 30% CPU usage.
Don’t think the cost of hardware is an issue with most, just the fascination of getting a SBC that was once given away with a magazine to run PiAware.
Geffers
I use a PiZero for the moment and was actually really good for a while, I set up a Cronjob to start a script that runs ‘cpulimit’ on a list of processes, a nightly reboot, and has worked without issue since iirc April 2021, but since around Feb it has become extremely unreliable.
Right now I even have a WiFi switch that I use whenever I get an email reminding me it’s offline, then just cycle the power as it’s unreachable via ssh
Edit: I didn’t realize this post was so old, I thought it was from either Jan this year or last June, on mobile so can’t check
First place to check is the power. Try a new power adapter and see if that fixes the problem.
Welcome to forum.
The new Zero 2W is quad core and will have no problems running software, the original Zero is fine for just tracking the aircraft, sending data and viewing the map, it may struggle if you install various graphs and data utilities.
As @geckoVN suggested power can be issue, my zero only consumes less than half an amp running PiAware and feeding FR24 and ADSBexchange so even a USB power bank drives mine OK.
MicroSD cards fail too. I had one once, all seemed to be working fine but card could not be written to.
A reinstall is sometimes quicker and easier that trying to find the problem.
Geoff