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Keynote "not enough VRAM" error bug understood - solved

A critical keynote problem; "not enough VRAM" error.

The blogs and support communities dont seem to have the solution, I have it below. Bear with my inarticulacy, but it works.

The problem: You try to play a keynote presentation of any size (large or small) and an error message displays that your mac has insufficient Vram.


False Problem: You know this is a false error because the presentation worked just fine before


How to fix: Some entries suggest plugging in the projector and then you can play your presentation - this is TRUE and it works


HOWEVER: this is not sorting the CAUSE of the problem.


The CAUSE is: Badly written "presenter display software". You will find that the Vram issue occurs when you play with the Keynote>Preferences>Slideshow - the "present on Primary display / present on secondary display" tickboxes or toggle.


TO FIX: CHOOSE "present on primary display"

THEN: go to the next tab i.e. keynote preferences.> presenter display

NOW: untick everything (i.e. use alternate display to view presenter info, current slide etc etc)


CLOSE Preferences by clicking the red dot (close window button)


Go to the SYSTEM PREFERENCES>Display and TURN ON MIRRORING. You can also do this by clicking on the display icon on the top right of your screen.


MAGIC: Now your presentations work again. You can run your presentations on your main screen and if you plug in the projector, it will show there. Be sure to stop the slideshow before you plug in the projector.


WHAT I THINK IS HAPPENING: Mac confuses itself with primary and alternate and secondary displays. When you ask for presenter notes on one or other display the mac considers the projector as not have the enough pixels or whatever to run the picture so it kicks you out. I think it is an incorrect error message. When you remove presenter display options and turn on mirroring all works again.


Sorry for the poor techie speak, I just some dumb schmuck who ran into a cold sweat when my business presentation spontaneously chose not to work. It works again.


Good luck

Macbook Pro

Posted on May 6, 2011 1:07 PM

Reply
10 replies

Nov 8, 2013 8:13 AM in response to paul.levy

Thanks Paul for the try at diagnosing.


I tried your approach, but it didn't work for me. While I was trying your solution, my entire system became more unstable (toggling mirroring in display prefs did nothing, then keyboard became unresponsive, etc.). So maybe it will work for others.


I restarted and when it came back up everything was working fine. Weird.

Dec 3, 2013 2:14 AM in response to Kyle Cranmer

Unfortunately that does not solve the issue. Still I get the VRAM-error when presenting slides especially with ones contatining video. I encourage every one to contact Apple directly, this has to be resolved with Mavericks-compatability update for Keynote 5. This affects great amount of people. (Of course would not be huge issue, if Keynote 6 wasn´t such a downgrade. Professionals stick with Keynote 5 until 6 is at same level. But professionals also use Mavericks)

Jan 7, 2014 5:12 AM in response to mflider

Hi mflider...


Can you tell me what this preference actually is meant to do?


I have had reports from some of my users in the field on newly upgraded iMacs on Mavericks running keynote 5.3 that they are getting memory errors. It's rare, but it's happening and never happened on 10.6.8


I guess my question is: what side effect if any, during the presentation, will this preference have?


thank you!

Jan 7, 2014 4:36 PM in response to Avicdar

The memory errors only happen if you are running Keynote 5.x, and (much?) more frequently on Mavericks than prior versions of OS X. They don't happen at all with Keynote 6.


The "Allow Expose" setting lets you activate Expose, Dashboard, and change Spaces while in a Keynote presentation (this will pause the presentation until you return to that Space). Other than that, it should have no impact on the actual performance of Keynote.


I would recommend always turning on the "Allow Expose" setting.

Keynote "not enough VRAM" error bug understood - solved

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