Paul J Dunning

Q: Is there a memory leak in Aperture 3.5?

Aperture 3.5

Mac mini (late 2012), 16GB RAM

OSX 10.9

 

I’ve been doing some phto editing work in Aperture recently. This has involved painting in Curve adjustments. It’s been getting pretty slow. Then this window appeared.

Screen Shot 2013-11-11 at 14.11.48.PNG

Looking at Activity Monitor, I found that memory had become rather tight. After I quit Aperture, the memory pane zipped down to green levels. See comparison screenshot here:

aperture.png

You can actually see the point where Aperture is quit - a massive drop in memory pressure. It seems that as I edit images in Aperture (and it appears that brushing in adjustments is the culprit - I only need to do two or three images before this starts to get serious), the memory pressure increases to a point where it seems to blow a gasket, and I am invited to quit applications.

 

The images are shot in RAW, and are 14MP in size.

Posted on Nov 12, 2013 4:17 AM

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Q: Is there a memory leak in Aperture 3.5?

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  • by William Lloyd,

    William Lloyd William Lloyd Nov 12, 2013 9:18 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 7 (21,148 points)
    Nov 12, 2013 9:18 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Odd.

     

    The 2.66 GB of memory use by Aperture is fairly standard (unused RAM is wasted RAM).  I'm curious about that 9.4 GB in use by kernel_task.  When you quit Aperture, does kernel_task drop markedly?

     

    I use Aperture and don't see this similar behavior, on my machine with 12 GB of RAM.  Do you have any system modifications that may be leaking in kernel space?  One big one that caused me many problems was iStat menus.

  • by Paul J Dunning,

    Paul J Dunning Paul J Dunning Nov 13, 2013 2:20 AM in response to William Lloyd
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 2:20 AM in response to William Lloyd

    If you look at the screen grabs, after quitting Aperture, kernel_task drops down to 1.4GB RAM use, so, yes, it drops down quite quickly.

     

    I don’t think I have anything that makes kernel_task leak (I have no idea how to check for other causes). What I do know is if I add in a Curves adjustment on a photo in Aperture, and paint it in, then this kicks off. I’ve not seen this problem happen anyweher else, so I am assuming that something in Aperture is causing this to happen.

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Nov 13, 2013 3:16 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 10 (107,215 points)
    iCloud
    Nov 13, 2013 3:16 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Paul,

    have you done any tests, to ensure, that there is really a system wide issue and not a problem with your user account settings or your Aperture library?

    If not, I'd suggest some simple tests.

    • To exclude problems caused by a library corruption or the drive your library is on, test with a new Aperture library on your internal drive. You can create a new, simple test library by using the command "File > Switch to Library > Other/New". Import afew test images and try to apply adjustments. Do you see the same happening? If Aperture works well on a new library, your library either contains corupted media files or needs repairing. I see this kind of behavior, if I import really large scans, with a filesize of nearly a GB.
    • To exclude problems caused by start-up items in your user account and preference settings or presets, try to launch Aperture from a different user account. Enable the Guest Account or create a new account in System Preferences > Users&Groups. If Aperture works from a different account, you may have corrupted preference files or presets, or use start-up items that are causing problems.

     

    Léonie

  • by Paul J Dunning,

    Paul J Dunning Paul J Dunning Nov 13, 2013 6:33 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 6:33 AM in response to léonie

    Léonie, thanks for your suggestions. I tried a new user first, and there were no problems that I could reproduce. So I created a new library in my usual user account, and imported some images and did what I could to cause the problem to reoccur by painting in a number of Curve adjustments (which seems to be to trigger). The memory useage of Aperture increased (which is what I would expect), but the memory use of kernel_task remained pretty much level, so I am guessing that my Aperture Library must be corrupted somehow. So I am rebuilding it - which looks like it may be a long job.

     

    I’ll see how this works out. I can only assume that somehwer along the way, the creation of the bitmaps for the adjustments being painted in is causing the problem. I’ve not been able to trigger the problem any other way.

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Nov 13, 2013 6:43 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 10 (107,215 points)
    iCloud
    Nov 13, 2013 6:43 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Let's hope, that the rebuilding will solve it. If not, keep Aperture's own Activitiy window open, while working with Aperture (Window > Show Activity). It may be one of the background tasks, like creating scanning for faces or rendering previews, that is causing problems, when trying to process a corrupted video or image file.

  • by Paul J Dunning,

    Paul J Dunning Paul J Dunning Nov 13, 2013 8:01 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 13, 2013 8:01 AM in response to léonie

    Hi,

    I’ve done all three - rebuilt, repaired database and repaired permissions, so I’ll see how I get on with that. The next step would be to import my library into a fresh, new one (something that I understand it quite a lengthy process). I’ll have to set some time aside for that.

  • by Blue Print,

    Blue Print Blue Print Nov 18, 2013 2:44 PM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 18, 2013 2:44 PM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Any solution or update? I have the same experience but lucky I have SSD so performance hasn't dropped to a halt but it's not good. I have a memory monitor installed and keep seeing it goes to RED everytime when I start using Aperture.

     

    I am a pro wedding photographer and I am unsure if it's the latest OS X or Aperture update that causes the problem.

     

    I tried rebuilding it but so far similar result.

     

    Jimmy

  • by SierraDragon,

    SierraDragon SierraDragon Nov 18, 2013 6:35 PM in response to Blue Print
    Level 4 (2,695 points)
    Nov 18, 2013 6:35 PM in response to Blue Print

    Jimmy, do you also have 16 GB RAM like Paul does, or do you have less? What is your specific hardware and setup?

     

    Note that Paul's problem seems fairly specific. Paging to disk due to limited RAM is common but not with 16 GB on a strong modern Mac.

     

    -Allen Wicks

  • by Paul J Dunning,

    Paul J Dunning Paul J Dunning Nov 19, 2013 12:44 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 12:44 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Sadly, no resolution yet. I ended up making a new library, and importing the old one in. That forces more than a simple database rebuild. The problem still manifests itself. I find quitting and restarting Aperture the best way to go if I'm doing a lot of brushing adjustments in.

  • by sorinfromtoronto,

    sorinfromtoronto sorinfromtoronto Nov 19, 2013 5:12 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 5:12 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    It is clear that other applications, some of them core Apple apps like Mail are triggering the same problem with the kernel running amok. Just like other .0 versions of MacOS, this one also leaks like a seave. We will have to wait for .1-.5 to get most of them fixed, after the usual denial stage from Apple and the fanboys.

     

    In the meantime, use whatever workaround is fastest and does not involve spending huge amounts of time and effort with it. In the end it WILL be an OS fix released by Apple that takes care of it.

  • by Blue Print,

    Blue Print Blue Print Nov 19, 2013 5:49 AM in response to SierraDragon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 5:49 AM in response to SierraDragon

    Hi SierraDragon,

     

    Yes I have a decent Mac, at least I think.

     

    I have a late 2011 17inch i7 Macbook Pro with 16G ram and 512 SSD.

     

    Something seems to be hogging the memory and not releasing it when I was using Aperture. It will virtually continue to use the memory until it got to ZERO!

     

    I do notice, everytime I scroll to the next RAW image, at least a few hundred mac is gone, zoom in to the picture takes another few hundred. That's a giga byte per image. So after about 10 images, my 16G is gone.

     

    This is weird. Yes Aperture will continue to use my SSD as virtual memory but I do notice performance drop, even with SSD and I can image someone who has a traditional hard drive will suffer terribly.

     

    I also use Activity Monitor to see the memory usage and it also seems that there's a big chuck goes to file cache!! I think that's Aperture's image preview when I scrolling through images. But they should be released as soon as I move to the next or two.

     

    That's poor execution I imagine but i am no technical guy so I don't really know. I am just trying to find a solution so I can get some work done. I have to use Adobe Lightroom as a back up at the moment but it isn't my favourite image processor.

     

    Jimmy

  • by Blue Print,

    Blue Print Blue Print Nov 19, 2013 5:51 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 5:51 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    I do notice one thing last night however, when my memory got to 100 MB, I did a permission repair from disk utility and all the memory got released!

     

    But that's only when I do repair but as soon as open Aperture again, same old problem.

  • by Paul J Dunning,

    Paul J Dunning Paul J Dunning Nov 19, 2013 6:19 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 6:19 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    There is an update for Aperture today  - I can”t say I have noticed an improvement, though when I tried to cause the memory pressure graph to go into the red, it didn’t, and when I left Aperture to rest (ie doing nothing), it started to drop a little.

     

    Blue Print: Quitting Aperure will release all the RAM it used, so I’m not surprised you saw this until you reopened Aperture.

     

    I don’t expect an app like Aperture to run on no RAM at all - obviously it needs slabs of memory for things like tracking undos, image caches, etc., but I do expect it to not grow memory use exponentially to the point where I am advised by the OS that I have run out of memory!

     

    Right now, quitting and restarting Aperture is the best option for me.

  • by Blue Print,

    Blue Print Blue Print Nov 19, 2013 7:19 AM in response to Paul J Dunning
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 7:19 AM in response to Paul J Dunning

    Hi Paul,

     

    Thanks but in my case, Aperture didn't release all the RAM and I was left with little so I had to either reboot or repair permission.

     

    Frustrating problem.

     

    Jimmy

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