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I just starting getting this low memory warning. You can see in the attached screen capture, the only app currently running is Activity Monitor, and there is plenty of free memory. The dialog cannot be dismissed. This is a Mac Pro (early 2008) running Yosemite. Any idea what's causing this or how to get rid of it?
Mac Pro
Have you tried restarting your computer?
Tried Safe Mode?
Double-check you have all your memory available after rebooting in case some of your memory is bad.
You can test the memory by creating a bootable Memtest86 USB drive using Etcher. Option Boot the USB drive and select the orange icon labeled "EFI". Unfortunately version 8.2 limits the number of test loops to four (not sure about the just released v8.3), but Memtest86 v7.5 allows changing the number of test loops beyond the default four.
This warning often pops up immediately after restarting. That screen capture was taken after restarting and launching Activity Monitor. Sometimes it doesn't appear till later. Also, sometimes it goes away on its own after the machine has been asleep. I'll take a look at checking the memory.
Something I noticed, the warning dialog is not drawn correctly (the title bar). Does that mean anything?
I tried Memtest86, and it told me the firmware was too old (MacPro early 2008), and it may not work. I let it run anyway, and it got through the initial steps where it gathers system info, then the screen went black and stayed that way for about 3 hours before I rebooted.
How much free disk space do you have? I'm speculating that maybe macOS cannot create swap space so it can page application data to storage when RAM fills up.
You could try the following command from an Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal session
ps axo rss,comm | sort -n
Column 1 is the resident memory each process is using in 1024 byte increments, sorted so the largest consumers are at the end of the output.
Maybe that will point to any offending processes.
I also tried the Apple Hardware Test, and couldn't get that to run. Holding either D alone, or opt-D, as specified in the Apple Support doc, does nothing, it just boots up normally. That's on MacOS 10.10.5, where it should work.
Use MalWareBytes to rid your computer of the installed adware (helperamc).
Thanks. Unfortunately MalWareBytes requires 10.11 or later, and this machine has 10.10.5. Any suggestions for an alternative app to get rid of that adware?
Low Memory Warning with Nothing Open
