Major Aperture 3 memory leak

Just to add another puzzled user to the list.

Simply starting A3 begins to eat real memory. Then virtual memory grows steadily until the dreaded, "Startup disk is full..." error message. Force quitting the program, the only way to stop it, releases resources back to the system. It's unusable. I have imported a dozen images to test out the program before fully committing my library, so lib size should not be an issue.

Yeah after a while, even with Faces turned off, I get the memory munching. I got about 20 mins for responsive Aperture then it kicked in.

Very odd and annoying. I'm just hoping that once I manage to get the library processed it'll run ok from there but it's not great is it?

I've experienced the same issues that everyone else has but has anyone actually contacted Apple to see if they acknowledge the problem and are working on a solution?

Message was edited by: cliverman

Apple never acknowledges any problems with their software. I'm experiencing the memory leak as well. Mine starts immediately on executing Aperture. It usually opens up at around 800 megabytes and climbs from there. Not sure why LR3 beta is more stable then A3 final.

why not post in the ADC to Bug Reporter if you think you actually found a bug, work with the developers to fix it

http://bugreport.apple.com/

Same issue, turned face recognition off, and it still doesn't work. What's also strange, is that I can't run the application in 32 bit. On the Get Info tab, there isn't a tick box to select 32 bit only. The Aperture file is dated Aug. 2009, which is also strange, shouldn't it be newer? In the Get Info tab, it does state version 3. When it runs, it is running in 64 bit. How else can I force it to run in 32 bit? Note that mine was a version upgrade. Are people experiencing the issues with a fresh complete version, or a version upgrade?

Hello, I am a little new to Aperture 3. I love it, but I have noticed my library, with all the photos stored on an external is showing that it is taking up 9GB of space on my computer's drive! I dug into it a little and found that there area ton of "AP.THUMBNAIL" files taking up about 7GB!! Can someone please tell me if A) this is normal, and B) what the difference is between preview files and thumbnails? Do I need these thumbnail files? I realize the previews take up some room, I just don't get why my A3 library was fine, and then all of a sudden it took up 7 more GB.

Thanks!

Just installed Aperture today and left for the evening while my Library was being converted. Got back and the installation process was frozen with 3% done. A message stated my start-up drive was full. However, my Aperture 2 library and new Aperture 3 Library are on a separate drive. That drive has about 800gb free. I had to force quit. Restarted the computer and my start-up drive has 56gb free space. Something crazy going on.

Yeah, I can't figure it out! I did notice that I have a thumbnail folder with a bunch of crazy folders and files named AP. THUMBNAIL all over the place taking up 7gb!! I guess I found where the space went, and since my files are backed up I deleted the THUMBNAIL folder to see what would happen and now, of course, the program isn't working to well......please let me know if you have anymore ideas. I know previews and thumbnails generate, but 7GB for thumbnails!! My previews are only 1.5GB.....

Dan,
I think you'll find that it needs the space on your primary hard disk to use as swap space. Doesn't matter where the library is, it needs the swap space.

Regards,
Calx

Could somebody report what %age of their HDD was free before starting an upgrade? Once a HDD is 30% full, I/O is slower, at 50% significantly slower and so on. Also useful to know what available memory as reported in Activity Monitor (and Page In/Out's). So, it there is a contention problem between thumbnail and preview builds alongside Faces, it could be exacerbated by the above.

I've posted this response in another thread, but this thread is probably the more appropriate one: The problem seems to be the updating library routine where the memory requirements to convert an entire library, from version 2 to 3, in one go are excessive. My work around solution was to simply update one month's worth of shots at a time. To do this, I accessed the aperture library folders by using the control key click on the aperture library icon to show the hidden folders and before I dragged all the masters all onto the desk top. I replaced the first one (ie the earliest dated year file) and restarted Aperture. If it locked up, I would replace only one month (from each year) and again restart Aperture (for one month, I had to get down to replacing only one week's file at a time to avoid a lock up). This process reduced the computer's memory load and it worked. Sure it was labour intensive but I had only several thousand photos (not tens of thousands). However, after two hours' work, I now have Aperture 3 running beautifully, fast and without any problems (I'm not that naive to believe there won't be several still to come) but, I'm now happy again.

I dont think the memory issue has anything to do with upgrading or importing your libraries/photos...

I started with a new install of Aperture 3 (download version), as I hadn't previously used the program.
I was able to drag in about 80 photos form iPhoto with no problems... I was able to edit one photo for about 30 minutes before the program totally froze my computer... ON subsequent reboots of the program, I couldn't even get to any editing before the program froze again...

Today I uninstalled and did a completed new install - the program starts off very snappy (Activity Monitor shows it is using about 250 MB of real memory at that point), but within minutes, without doing anything more than selecting a photo to work on (I was on the phone, not touching the conputer but watching the Activity Monitor), Activity Monitor showed that it progressively ate up 1.66 GB of real memory and almost 3.5 GB of virtual memory and things were totally frozen again... I force quit a few times and rebooted the app and each time it progressively eats RAM until there is nothing left as well as virtual memory....

This is a severe problem having nothing to do with importing photos or the upgrade version.

Forgot to mention - I have no faces in the photos I imported *they were photos of rooms) - so dont think Faces is the culprit either...

*I too upgraded from A2 to A3. With over 6000 photos, yes Aperture 3 gave memory leak issues. However, with backups cached, I left Aperture overnight to process Faces the 1st time. Yes it crashed and reported but it did NOT corrupt the database. It has crashed a couple of time since too. Have decided to leave Faces until fix arrives.*

*My issues (in order of pain):*

*1. How searches in Places is US centric & freezes Aperture while it searches (for ages!!) with each letter entered (I ended up pasting searches in so I could tolerate the search feature.) PS: seems to have been developed by an old US centric MS Encarta / CompuServe search engineer
*

*2. How the initial Face recognition process consumed virtually all CPU, increased heat (and fan) so the desktop was virtually inoperable. I went to bed and in the morn it was still working but less intense. (Note my database has <7000 photos)
*

*3. Brushes CPU intensiveness <- (this is becoming a pain of late)*

*See positive views at: <a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://">http://web.me.com/vcolaci/Home.me/Lob Spot/Entries/2010/2/14_Aperture_3_-_now_has_bells_and_whistles_%28and_somesmoke%29.html*