REPG

Q: Your System has Run out of Application memory

I upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion, and I have been getting the error message "Your System has Run out of Application memory", and I am forced to restart the computer to be able to keep working.

 

I have been monitoring the Activity Monitor and I have not found a process that is increasing the amount of memory used. I have seen a proliferation of processes.

 

I have an iMac 27-inch, Late 2012 with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 and 24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3.


iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 27-inch Late 2012; 3.4 GHz i7; 24GB

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 7:33 PM

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Q: Your System has Run out of Application memory

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  • by kgelner,

    kgelner kgelner Feb 17, 2014 6:20 PM in response to REPG
    Level 4 (1,205 points)
    Feb 17, 2014 6:20 PM in response to REPG

    I am also seeing this happen fairly frequently.

     

    In my case I have a pretty new Late 2013 15" Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, and also the discrete GPU.

     

    I didn't migrate over a previous computer, just installed a few things as needed - so I don't really have old system extenstions.

     

    For me I get this "out of application" error primarily when running Aperture.  It happens a few times a week.  I am not 100% sure but it seems like runnign Safari makes the problem worse, generally I close most other things when runnign Aperture, but I do leave Mail and Safari open.

     

    I would be nice to figure out how to monitor for this problem, or end it - a number of times it's locked up the system enough I had to manually power off, which at times has meant a library rebuild for Aperture.

  • by Exivus,

    Exivus Exivus Feb 19, 2014 4:58 PM in response to REPG
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Feb 19, 2014 4:58 PM in response to REPG

    Well, join me to the chorus here. I've done everything up and down and no result, and agree with many digging into what the issues may be or what may exacerbate the symptom.

     

    With all my experience, this certainly does seem to be something between Mavericks and the new iWork apps (iWork could exacerbate it just as much too).

     

    This is really the most disappointed I've been with Apple in as far as I could remember.

  • by kgelner,

    kgelner kgelner Feb 19, 2014 6:32 PM in response to Exivus
    Level 4 (1,205 points)
    Feb 19, 2014 6:32 PM in response to Exivus

    iWork is avery good guess.  I was just about to fire up Aperture, and looked at the system activity app for memory use.  kernel_task was using about 6.5 GB, typical of what I see aorund the time I get applcaition memory errors.

     

    I had Numbers open, so quit that - immediate reduction down to 2.13 GB in kernel_task.

     

    Another odd thing I've noticed having Numbers open is constant disk activity, again visible in Activity Monitor, and vanishing when I close Numebrs.

  • by renderpaz2,

    renderpaz2 renderpaz2 Feb 27, 2014 10:09 AM in response to kgelner
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2014 10:09 AM in response to kgelner

    Having this issue with 2013 13" Retina MBP. Just bumping the issue so it might be fixed.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Feb 27, 2014 11:20 AM in response to renderpaz2
    Level 5 (7,778 points)
    Notebooks
    Feb 27, 2014 11:20 AM in response to renderpaz2

    I don't think bumping threads works that way, Apple don't seem to change things by number of posts, but whatever.

     

    If you want to do some actual troubleshooting I'd suggest you provide more info about the Mac, or go to a genuis bar.

  • by The cragrat,

    The cragrat The cragrat Feb 27, 2014 12:10 PM in response to kgelner
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 27, 2014 12:10 PM in response to kgelner

    Not necessarily - I don't have iWorks etc on my Mac Air  1.8 Ghz i5 10.9.2

     

    But it's annoying and has only just started for me.

  • by Jason Tong,

    Jason Tong Jason Tong Feb 28, 2014 5:56 PM in response to REPG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 28, 2014 5:56 PM in response to REPG

    I just got a late iMac 2013.  I got this same message. 3TB fusion drive and 32GB of ram so I don't see how that is possible.

  • by Jason Tong,

    Jason Tong Jason Tong Mar 1, 2014 3:12 AM in response to Jason Tong
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 1, 2014 3:12 AM in response to Jason Tong

    I noticed it happens when running a time machine backup.  I haven't been able to run a backup since moving my data to this iMac from the previous backup on a MacBook pro

  • by luthersboy,

    luthersboy luthersboy Mar 6, 2014 11:48 AM in response to Jason Tong
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 6, 2014 11:48 AM in response to Jason Tong

    I held off on the upgrade but when the latest security issue hit, I did it.  Now I am seeing this all the time.  I'm getting it when I'm not even doing much of anything (web browsing, email, etc.)

     

    Something is badly wrong with the upgrade.

     

    I got the message just a few minutes ago and tried go ignore it as I was working on something important at the time.  About 2 seconds later (literally) I got a bluescreen.  Or, in the case of Apple, a gray screen and forced reboot. 

     

    What's going on?

     

    Is it easy to roll back my latest update?

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 6, 2014 1:58 PM in response to luthersboy
    Level 5 (7,778 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 6, 2014 1:58 PM in response to luthersboy

    luthersboy wrote:

     

     

    What's going on?

     

    Is it easy to roll back my latest update?

    It could be older software that is loading into the system if you used Migration Assistant or upgraded from an earlier OS to 10.9 or it could be any of the 'normal' reasons computers break - failing hardware, misconfigured software, damaged files…

     

    You can try the regular troubleshooting like repairing the disk in recovery mode…

    Recovery mode

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

    Reset the PRAM

    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

    Using Apple Hardware Test

    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

    Reset the SMC

    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

    Safe mode

    https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

     

     

    EtreCheck reports are an easy way to show what is running (but please make a new thread so people can focus on your issues).

     

    Roll back will depend on what backups you have. A full system clone before the update makes it easy, Time Machine will allow you to pick a point in time but it less easy because you must install 10.9.1 first.

     

    10.9.2 fixed a risky security hole, so you really want to avoid rolling back if at all possible.

  • by Candace50,

    Candace50 Candace50 Mar 7, 2014 1:39 PM in response to REPG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2014 1:39 PM in response to REPG

    the "out of Application memory" message appeared for the first time this morning - on my brand new Mac Pro with 32G 1867 MHz DDR3 memory, running 10.9.2. the only programs running were Mail, Chrome and Preview.     

     

    i hadn't used Migration Assistant to transfer data from Mac Mini because the Pro could never locate the Mini, and the Mini seemed to think Mig.Assistant was only for x-fering data TO it, not FROM it. i began to suspect some data on Mini, so created User on Pro, downloaded most from iCloud, and then installed 3rd party s/w manually. all was fine (well, except Intuit, but that's another story) until this morning when, all loaded, i got the above message.

     

    i read this thread. Force Quit the Mail program and all seems to be OK. didn't reboot - and really would find that a difficult fix to swallow. reminds me all too much of the old DOS and Windows PC days when crashing/freezing/rebooting was the norm. i'm not going back there.

     

    just thought i'd add that it happens on a Pro too. i'm crossing my fingers and hoping i get none/few of these errors in future. if my luck doesn't hold, i know where to come back.

  • by Mr A.M.,

    Mr A.M. Mr A.M. Mar 7, 2014 7:07 PM in response to REPG
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Mar 7, 2014 7:07 PM in response to REPG

    This is without a doubt a Mavericks bug.

     

    I see some people trying to point out that maybe it's 3rd party software, maybe you have old software, etc.

     

    It is none of those.

     

    I left my machine ( 2014 27 inch iMac ) running and left it for about 2 hours, come back and I get the same exact message for the first time since getting this machine.

     

    I went into Activity Monitor and the 1 thing maxing out my ram was Kernal_task, nothing else.

     

    I know that the Kernal_task is the thing that runs when the computer sometimes is idle ( it's some kind of maintenance for OS X or something ) but this was the first time It locked things up so bad ( Had a 2007 iMac before this and it would run, but not to lock it up like this )

     

    So know that this is a Mavericks issue, not your issue or any 3rd party issue.

     

    ( All I personally did is select to close all the applications it showed, restarted from the finder Menu and I'm a-ok now )

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Mar 7, 2014 9:01 PM in response to Mr A.M.
    Level 5 (7,778 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 7, 2014 9:01 PM in response to Mr A.M.

    The reason we point to 3rd party software is because a lot of other issues on 10.9 have been resolved by removing old software, specifically system level extensions & launchd jobs (background & auto-starting tasks).

     

    It does look like this could be just a Mavericks bug, but I'm unwilling to categorically claim it is the fault of 10.9 alone when users have additional software that may be contributing to the issue.

    This thread has reports of Aperture, Calendar, Calendar Agent, Finder, Mail, Safari, iTunes, Numbers, Pages, Spotify… causing the dialog to appear, weirdly there are also 2 users who report seeing it on 10.8.5 too.

    2 Pages back Somawise said a safe boot resolved it.

     

    Mr A.M. wrote:

     

    I went into Activity Monitor and the 1 thing maxing out my ram was Kernal_task, nothing else.

     

    I know that the Kernal_task is the thing that runs when the computer sometimes is idle ( it's some kind of maintenance for OS X or something ) but this was the first time It locked things up so bad ( Had a 2007 iMac before this and it would run, but not to lock it up like this )

     

    So know that this is a Mavericks issue, not your issue or any 3rd party issue.

     

    ( All I personally did is select to close all the applications it showed, restarted from the finder Menu and I'm a-ok now )

     

    FYI kernel task is the first process that is started on boot (it has a process id of 0). It oversees everything. launchd is the second process that is started, hence the theory (and evidence in these forums) that old code running at these low levels can do bad things to the entire OS (but it probably is not be the case here).


    My understanding is that kernel task can 'inherit' leaked memory from processes it was responsible for, so massive RAM usage in kernel task may not be a fault in the kernel task, it could be one of it's many 'child processes'.

    The intricacies of this are where my knowledge ceases, however I would still look for logs in Console (in Utilities folder) that were created around the time of the alert (perhaps in system.log and kernel.log).

     

    I'd also see if there is any visible sign that an application is using lots of RAM, or writing lots of data to/from disk, or getting a lot of messages in Activity Monitor. You will need to enable extra columns to see certain statistics & show all processes to see a full picture.

     

    Finding a way to provoke the issue into appearing is half the battle, then we can properly look at it.

  • by darryl-1,

    darryl-1 darryl-1 Mar 15, 2014 8:22 AM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 15, 2014 8:22 AM in response to Drew Reece

    I bet time machine is adding to the load?

  • by Candace50,

    Candace50 Candace50 Mar 15, 2014 8:24 AM in response to darryl-1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 15, 2014 8:24 AM in response to darryl-1

    Time Machine hadn't yet been initiated on my new install of Mavericks on my Mac Pro when I got the "out of Application memory" error.

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