Hi-
"Your system has run out of application memory"
I have started receiving this error(?) message frequently of late. Can't understand why - I have 16GB of RAM and activity monitor typically shows plenty of RAM available. How do I fix this annoyance?
Thanks.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
If you are getting "Your system has run out of application memory" dialog boxes, and a list of most likely innocent apps listed, then here is the explanation.
For the record, there are 2 reasons for the "Your system has run out of application memory" dialog box.
A) Your boot disk has very low free storage, and macOS cannot create page/swap files to offload virtual memory contents to disk. This is generally not the case, but I mention because if you do have very low free storage, it might apply.
B) A process (or set of processes) have asked macOS for excessive amounts of virtual memory address space. Virtual memory address space requires macOS to create Virtual Memory Page Tables in the kernel address space to keep track of the application virtual addresses given out. Generally, if there is a memory leak (process asks for a virtual address range, uses the addresses, forgets to give them back, asks for another virtual address range, uses the addresses, wash, rinse, repeat), eventually there are so many virtual memory page table entries trying to keep track of the virtual addresses, that macOS no longer has memory available for applications, and you get the "Your system has run out of application memory".
If you look at Applications -> Utilties -> Activity Monitor -> View (menu) -> All Processes -> Memory (tab), you can see what processes are using lots of memory.
You can also issue the following command from Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal:
ps ax -o vsz,pid,comm | sort -n
which will display the virtual memory used sorted so the largest virtual memory consuming users are at the end. The virtual memory sizes are in 1024 byte units.
NOTE: I have seen situations where no single process is using all the memory, but rather a host of smaller processes are using up all the virtual memory. That is to say, a 100 instances of the same program all running with a moderate amount of memory eventually adds up to a lot of page table entries being used.
I have also seen users with 100's of web browser tabs open, where each tab is being managed by its own separate process. And just because you are not looking at any give tab, does not mean the Javascript running on that web page, is not taking up memory and virtual addresses.
Bob, your instructions are not a solution. You need to dig deeper and revise it.
This is ridiculous. Brand new mac, running only 5 programs - none of which are large editing apps. They are just browsers and small task apps. I'm returning this pos computer
This worked for me, thank you
I've had this message with both the M1 and now this morning with my new MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) M1Pro running Monterey vers 12.0.1 (21A559)
Has anybody had any luck with support helping on this? I'm on 12.1 and get this frequently
Storage is fine, it's mostly Chrome tabs but nothing really obvious. more like death by a thousand cuts.
.
I would love to do it but i don’t work for apple. Tens of people are complaining it’s obviously a systemic bug. What are YOU doing to resolve this issue? Thank you
I don’t work for Apple either.
I’m an unpaid volunteer.
What I’m doing is providing education on how to identify the root cause.
I upgraded to Monterey and the problem surfaced. M1 did not have this problem until I upgraded. I don't understand how to solve the problem.
Thanks Man. We appreciate your contribution. My brand new Macbook Pro is worse than a windows machine now. I have to reboot constantly. Common Apple - communicate!
WhitegoldEmpire wrote:
I have the same issue too. running new M1 chip mac13 air, even after upgrading to Monterey,same problem. I get it even with only 4 apps open: pages, notes, safari, music,
at some point it will force quit the apps for me, without consent.
everything was running smooth until this!
Have you used Activity Monitor to identify the offending processes? See the my first reply to this thread on page 1.
fenskelynch wrote:
Hi Bob! Thanks for helping dig into this problem. I have a BRAND NEW M1 that I purchased one week ago. It's got 16MB RAM and I'm getting this error too. When I check the Activity Monitor, it tells me that I have plenty of RAM available and no processes are using an excess. But I still get the error. I am running Monterey 12.0.1. Any further thoughts?
A) There is a known memory leak bug in Monterey 12.0.1. You should upgrade to 12.1 (this version has been out for about a week). System Preferences -> Software Update
B) There should be a process (or several processes) that have excessive memory usage. If the apps listed in the "Your system is out of applications memory" dialog box do not show excessive memory usage, then make sure when using Activity Monitor, you set the Activity Monitor -> "View" menu to "All Processes", otherwise, it will not show you the daemons, agents, and other background processes.
C) And do not forget that if your internal SSD (NVMe) storage has too little free space, you can also get this dialog box. Since you say you have only had your M1 for a week, I'm suspecting maybe you have not run out of storage, unless you migrated a lot of data over from a previous Mac, and have basically filled up your internal SSD (NVMe) storage.
Sounds useful, thank you, Alexandra, I'll give that a try. Meanwhile just to double-check: is it normal for Safari Version 15.2 (17612.3.6.1.6) with 5 open tabs that contain mostly plain-text and basic HTML content to be showing this in the Activity Monitor? There are of course other processes named after each of the websites open, then there's a separate process for Safari, Safari Graphics and Media, Safari Networking...
Running macOS Monterey 12.1 on a MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) with 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, around 30GB of the 120GB SSD disk space free. This is how it usually starts to look a couple of hours before another "Your system has run out of application memory" comes on...
You did not. Why would this be happening with ANY app on a brand new M1 Mac with 16GB? It is ridiculous and a major Apple flaw!
Your system has run out of application memory
