egragert

Q: No space on startup disk?  Problem with Mail?

Bought a new MacBook Pro Retina 15, 8mb ram.   Recently when running Mail, it refuses to close when I quit the application.  Worse, I get a window (screenshot attached) saying that I have no more space for running applications on my startup disk, even though just running Mail and Firefox.  Any suggestions?Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 3.20.00 PM.png

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 12, 2013 12:39 PM

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Q: No space on startup disk?  Problem with Mail?

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  • by mende1,

    mende1 mende1 May 12, 2013 12:47 PM in response to egragert
    Level 10 (93,307 points)
    Desktops
    May 12, 2013 12:47 PM in response to egragert

    Try closing Mail and see if you get that message.

     

    I found a bug in Mountain Lion that makes Mail consume more and more memory when you read a mail there, making your computer slow if you read a lot. I would like to know if it's similar to your case. Also, when you have Mail opened, open "Activity Monitor" (it's in /Applications/Utilities) and have a look at the memory that Mail takes

  • by egragert,

    egragert egragert May 12, 2013 12:54 PM in response to mende1
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 12, 2013 12:54 PM in response to mende1

    Hi,  Thanks for reply.  Often try to quite Mail but it just hangs at that point.  Had earlier looked at Activity Monitor and about 80% of the CPU was being used by something, but it was not apparent by what.  weird.  Mail would dramatically spike periodically in the monitor, but was not consistently eating up more than 25% of the cpu.   Looks to me like a bug/problem with Mail.

  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 12, 2013 2:03 PM in response to egragert
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    May 12, 2013 2:03 PM in response to egragert

    Your problem is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.

     

    That can happen for two reasons:

     

    • You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
    • You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.

     

    Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.

     

    In the Activity Monitor application, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the  Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select

      

    View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory

      

    from the menu bar.

      

    If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more memory over time without ever releasing it.

     

    The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.

      

    If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.

       

    The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command: 

    sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total

      

    where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

  • by egragert,

    egragert egragert May 12, 2013 2:13 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 12, 2013 2:13 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Hi Linc,


    Thanks!  I'm not sure how much each of the applications should be using to know if there is a leak.  Here is a screenshot of the real mem list.  Anything look suspicious?     Is there anything I can do to resolve a leak issue?

     

    Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 5.11.07 PM.png

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 12, 2013 2:30 PM in response to egragert
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    May 12, 2013 2:30 PM in response to egragert

    Are you getting the warnings now?

  • by egragert,Solvedanswer

    egragert egragert May 12, 2013 3:19 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 12, 2013 3:19 PM in response to Linc Davis

    You were absolutely correct.  Firefox kept adding and adding Real Mem, while open, even though I was not browsing.  I eventually received the notice.  Closing Firefox and using either Safari or Chrome solved the problem.  How do I deal with the "leak" in Firefox.  Should I trash my copy and download another one?

     

    In any case, thanks.   Very helpful.

  • by Linc Davis,Helpful

    Linc Davis Linc Davis May 12, 2013 3:27 PM in response to egragert
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    May 12, 2013 3:27 PM in response to egragert

    I don't know much about Firefox. In the case of Safari, memory leaks are sometimes triggered by extensions. The analogous items in Firefox are called "add-ons." You could try removing those and see whether there's an improvement. If not, go to the Firefox support forum.

  • by JDGreen&Yellow,

    JDGreen&Yellow JDGreen&Yellow Dec 5, 2013 10:01 AM in response to mende1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 5, 2013 10:01 AM in response to mende1

    I have the same problem with mail.   Every new message I read causes an increase in the real mem. value shown by Activity  Monitor.   Quiting mail and restarting it fixs the problem --- for awhile.    This is on Mail 6.6 and OS 10.8.5