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mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Lion - Memory Usage Problems

Why is Lion using all 4GB of RAM running Mail, Safari (2 tabs), and iTunes? Snow Leopard was bad enough at handling memory, eating up every available byte and Lion seems to be arbitrarily using even more RAM. Windows 7 has zero problems handling RAM, there's no reason OS X shouldn't be able handle memory properly.

Can someone explain what Apple is doing here? I'm at a total loss. For users who just need Safari, Mail, and iTunes... I guess this works. But how am I expected to reliably run Logic, Final Cut, or Aperture with OS X using every available resource for Web Surfing, E-mail, and Music. This is totally unacceptable for a multi-million dollar software company greated towards professionals as well as consumers.

The following responses are not acceptable by the way:

Buy more RAM - I did that already, it will eat up 2/4/8GB, doesn't matter. Not to mention Apple still sells numerous 2/4GB confirgurations.
Buy a newer/more powerful Mac - this is a improper handling of memory issue, not a hardware issue.

I'd really love some insight into this. Thanks for reading.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 13" (late-2009)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 5:45 AM

957 replies

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 11:50 AM in response to Jeff Hallgren

Jeff Hallgren wrote:

Thought I'd post a snapshot from Activity Monitor - Safari is eating up a great deal of memory and I'm starting to notice some sluggishness launching new pages and tabs. Safari never used this much memory so quickly under 10.6.x. Additionally, Safari has only been running for about 5 days and soon it will be using 3+GB

One user said disabling Resume under System Pref -> General helped with Memory Usage.

I would also disable any Extensions if you haven't already done that, just to rule things out.

Those are just two suggestions.

Jul 29, 2011 11:55 AM in response to R C-R

"After doing the clean install, have you tried turning back on the restore feature to see what happens?"

Yep, restore still eats up the ram heavily. I'm beginning to think maybe it is the actual new applications having issue not necessarily the OS. In my personal business laptop the santa rosa 2.4 w/9400m macbook unibody, I upgraded the HD and to 8gb ram at same time as the clean install. Was still very sluggish, so turned that feature off and restarted and still no page outs in the ram activity monitor. Some coworkers here saying they notice marked improvements on their imacs as well by disabling this. Still, why should we have to do that, it must be a software error. At any rate; would like to hear from some of the guys with the 2nd gen i5,i7s to see if they are having these issues as well.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 12:01 PM in response to Matt Sephton

Matt Sephton wrote:

Here's more about this: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/27/os-x-lion-bug-safari-guzzling-massive-amounts-of- ram/

Mine has settled down somewhat, but I do have some concern about Safari's memory usage.

That's a good summary of the problem some of us are experiencing. I might do a serious side-by-side comparison when I get home to see exactly what differnces Extensions and Resume has on memory consumption.

Jul 29, 2011 12:04 PM in response to mightymilk

mightymilk wrote:

I'm unable to contact Apple Care because I'm beyond the 90-Day phone support window. I wrote to Apple Feedback and am trying my luck on other users forums. This topic appears on other forums as well, so with all the attention it's my hope that someone has contacted them by phone.

You can still buy AppleCare outside the 90 day window, it just needs to be within the one year warranty period. IMHO, it's good value to be able to pass the problem to Apple. All my Apple products have AppleCare agreements. I am a believer.

Or you can just wait and hope that something changes in the software which improves your experience.

I'm just thinking that given that the cause is undoubtedly a memory leak, this will probably work for you in the long term.

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 12:13 PM in response to mightymilk

FWIW, my biggest disagreement with the content of your posts is about calling it "the problem." Perhaps a small thing, but the topic has grown to include several different issues that could be considered "the problem." Some are reporting only concern about Safari using very large amounts of memory, others that this is also accompanied by performance problems.

It makes it hard to sort out who is talking about what. 😕

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 12:23 PM in response to harmonica01

harmonica01 wrote:

Still, why should we have to do that, it must be a software error.

If the restored items each need RAM, would this not be the expected behavior? Their data needs to be stored somewhere, & the only alternatives are RAM or paging it out to virtual memory on the disk.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 12:23 PM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

mightymilk wrote:

I'm unable to contact Apple Care because I'm beyond the 90-Day phone support window. I wrote to Apple Feedback and am trying my luck on other users forums. This topic appears on other forums as well, so with all the attention it's my hope that someone has contacted them by phone.

You can still buy AppleCare outside the 90 day window, it just needs to be within the one year warranty period. IMHO, it's good value to be able to pass the problem to Apple. All my Apple products have AppleCare agreements. I am a believer.

Or you can just wait and hope that something changes in the software which improves your experience.

I'm just thinking that given that the cause is undoubtedly a memory leak, this will probably work for you in the long term.

I've thought about it, and while I know that $250 is for quality technical support. Excluding something drastic like Motherboard or Display failure, I've always been able to solve *most* Hardware/Software issues. Of course, right now is a time I wouldn't mind having it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm cheap.

Jul 29, 2011 1:05 PM in response to mightymilk

mightymilk wrote:

John Kitchen wrote:

mightymilk wrote:

We're talking about Safari using anywhere from 1GB-3GB of RAM.

No, I get it. That sounds like a serious error somewhere. I have Safari open now with a large number of windows and tabs, and it's using 230 megs under Snow Leopard.

I assume you have taken it up with AppleCare?

Not as of yet, but I've other threads on this forum and macrumors describing the same situation. If you scroll through the thread even you'll see a few people describing similar issues. I'll contact Apple Support at some point, though I'm guessing this is an issue that cannot be fixed by me and will need to be addressed later with a Safari update.

Maybe it's time to give up "cheap"!

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 1:20 PM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

I'm just thinking that given that the cause is undoubtedly a memory leak ...

What makes you say that? Memory leaks are not the only thing that cause constantly increasing memory usage. And a memory leak in a routine in an app affects everyone that uses that routine, so one would expect that unless it is a rarely used routine most users would see its effects fairly quickly. That doesn't seem to be true here.

Jul 29, 2011 1:30 PM in response to R C-R

R C-R wrote:

John Kitchen wrote:

I'm just thinking that given that the cause is undoubtedly a memory leak ...

What makes you say that? Memory leaks are not the only thing that cause constantly increasing memory usage. And a memory leak in a routine in an app affects everyone that uses that routine, so one would expect that unless it is a rarely used routine most users would see its effects fairly quickly. That doesn't seem to be true here.

I'm sorry, my little joke backfired.

My argument all along is that the most likely issue is that Macs on the edge of a RAM shortage get pushed over the edge with a move to the next OS. Happened with Snow Leopard, and AFAIK, has happened with the majority of OS changes on all platforms. Heck, the first time I saw this was in the sixties!

I was being facetious. 😉

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 1:43 PM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

mightymilk wrote:

John Kitchen wrote:

mightymilk wrote:

We're talking about Safari using anywhere from 1GB-3GB of RAM.

No, I get it. That sounds like a serious error somewhere. I have Safari open now with a large number of windows and tabs, and it's using 230 megs under Snow Leopard.

I assume you have taken it up with AppleCare?

Not as of yet, but I've other threads on this forum and macrumors describing the same situation. If you scroll through the thread even you'll see a few people describing similar issues. I'll contact Apple Support at some point, though I'm guessing this is an issue that cannot be fixed by me and will need to be addressed later with a Safari update.

Maybe it's time to give up "cheap"!

I ment to say I was going to contact Apple Feedback, not Support. As you may or may not know, Feedback will sometimes contact you for more information and to help resolve an issue. This is honestly the first time (software or hardware related) that I couldn't solve an issue myself, or that wasn't already acknowledged as a bug. I have to wonder how much use I personally would get out of it, and at $250 it's not something to sneeze at. I'm also not entirely confident that your average Apple Tech would be able to solve this... this is probably something that requires a programmers attention.

Jul 29, 2011 1:49 PM in response to mightymilk

I have never been contacted as a result of submitting feedback. For that reason, I signed up as a developer, and now submit enhancement requests and bug reports via that path. That way it is possible to track any action on the issues.

You'll be pleased to know that there is a free option for joining the developer community. You just need to use your AppleID when signing up for membership.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 2:00 PM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

I have never been contacted as a result of submitting feedback. For that reason, I signed up as a developer, and now submit enhancement requests and bug reports via that path. That way it is possible to track any action on the issues.

You'll be pleased to know that there is a free option for joining the developer community. You just need to use your AppleID when signing up for membership.

I've never been responded to either, it's definitely not the best way if you need offical support. I pretty much use this forum as my means of free support, if you can't already tell.

I thought to join the OS X or iOS Developer Program, it was $100/year for each?

Jul 29, 2011 2:06 PM in response to mightymilk

Use official letter head

Jul 29, 2011 2:20 PM in response to mightymilk

Even easier - http://developer.apple.com/programs/register/

Lion - Memory Usage Problems