In the last few months I’ve noticed that the memory is leaking badly, I can use a 3rd party app to free it up…. Am I paranoid to think I’m being manoeuvred into buying a new computer? This one is only 13 years old, barely broken in!
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13
Except when I used the 3rd party app the computer doesn’t lock up and need a hard power off to get restarted.
That sounds like you have a software interference at play, not an OS issue or RAM issue. Any anti-virus or so-called "cleaning" apps can do that.
And please— share the identify of the "third-party app." The senior contributors here have a long history with most.
And, as Grant points out, Memory Used ceased to be a viable metric for Macs in 2013. The current indicators are Memory Pressure and Swap Used. Both can be viewed with the built-in utility Activity Monitor. Here are memory use data for my older iMac after I installed macOS 10.9:
After viewing Memory Used, notice:
What you cannot see is that the computer performance was absolutely normal and stable with those numbers showing. That computer has never had any useless third-party cleaning or antivirus apps installed.
Except when I used the 3rd party app the computer doesn’t lock up and need a hard power off to get restarted.
That sounds like you have a software interference at play, not an OS issue or RAM issue. Any anti-virus or so-called "cleaning" apps can do that.
And please— share the identify of the "third-party app." The senior contributors here have a long history with most.
And, as Grant points out, Memory Used ceased to be a viable metric for Macs in 2013. The current indicators are Memory Pressure and Swap Used. Both can be viewed with the built-in utility Activity Monitor. Here are memory use data for my older iMac after I installed macOS 10.9:
After viewing Memory Used, notice:
What you cannot see is that the computer performance was absolutely normal and stable with those numbers showing. That computer has never had any useless third-party cleaning or antivirus apps installed.
Tthe algorithm used after MacOS 10.9 Mavericks is "unused RAM is WASTED RAM".
it is completely normal for your Mac to use all available RAM, to compress what can be compressed, and to occasionally spill onto Swap.
If you clear caches with a third-party Utility, you will only succeed is slowing down your Mac.
MudGuru wrote:
Except when I used the 3rd party app the computer doesn’t lock up and need a hard power off to get restarted.
Something is clearly wrong with that. I have an old iMac running El Cap and it is not so afflicted. Everything works, with the exception of newer websites that demand more recent browsers. Even in that case, Firefox often works. That Mac has not been rebooted in months, perhaps years.
Fix the problem, not the symptom. If you don't know where to begin, start by using EtreCheck: How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Support.
Caveat: I do not know if EtreCheck will run on El Cap or not, or if its developer offers an older version that will. You can contact him through his website.
I took the majority’s advice and moved the 3rd party app to the trash folder and rebooted. I’ve been watching the memory usage on Activity Monitor, the green bar is all the way across the bottom line of the memory pressure display and no lock up after a period of time longer than it ever lasted before.
so, mea culpa, you guys got it right I was stupid and wrong, Thank you!!!
I won't presume to speak for Apple but the likely response would be to upgrade the application and the operating system version, particularly for something as old as El Capitan which stopped seeing support several years ago. The issue may well have been solved several years ago by either of those. If you cannot or do not want to upgrade your computer to accommodate a newer system version and the developer is not updating the application for your OS anymore then you are kind of stuck. I am being pragmatic here.
I have a memory leak with an app I use on an even older OS and I just have to live with restarting the computer once a day.
. Am I paranoid to think I’m being manoeuvred into buying a new computer?
If that were the case don't you think Apple would have done that a decade ago? There haven't been any updates to El Cap in years.
Whatever third party app you're using to "free up" memory, don't use it. Those things are borderline scams.
Except when I used the 3rd party app the computer doesn’t lock up and need a hard power off to get restarted.
if I wrote a very handy app and put a time sensitive instruction to do something weird it might encourage you to upgrade.
ah well, I guess I’ll have to find the cash somewhere. 😂😂😂
Thank you. It’s just the issue is a recent occurrence, that made me wonder….
if I wrote a very handy app and put a time sensitive instruction to do something weird it might encourage you to upgrade.
I don't understand what you mean by that. Can you be more specific?
Excellent outcome! Thanks for the follow-up. That is always useful.
Not stupid. You were smart enough to come here and ask. Imagine all the people who don't even get that far.
Memory leak El Capitan
