MacBook Pro M3 Pro - WindowServer uses nearly 40GB!

nikolaydanev wrote:

I have just updated my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro Chip, 18GB of RAM) to Sonoma 14.4.1. I am using a Samsung OLED G9 (49 inch) external display (widescreen, 5120x1440, at 240hz) and mainly do office work and some trading (in Safari, no demanding software really). That has been my use of the MacBook for about 3 months now, no issues.

I have for the first time today received an error message about my application memory being full, so naturally I checked my Activity Monitor and ... shockingly my WindowServer is using 39.39GB oof memory. This did not seem correct so I restarted the system several times but this is still the case.

Does anyone have any ideas why this is happening? I literally use Safari, Mail, Google Chrome (for trading) and some Microsoft Office.

have you shut down and rebooted?

if you have an issue— equivalent Shut down, close the lid 30 secs+ , reboot as normal.

If no resolve try SafeBoot Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support to sort anomalies.

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.