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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

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 2:26 PM in response to mightymilk

mightymilk wrote:

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

The basic program is free. The benefits of the paid programs are listed in the "learn more" links here.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 2:44 PM in response to John Kitchen

Thanks for the links guys, this is all news to me.

pimeye

Level 1

0 points

Jul 29, 2011 3:23 PM in response to mightymilk

Hi guys.

I've been reading this thread with interest. I have a similar issue with RAM guzzling but in Mail. It is using 2.21GB of my 4GB RAM and everythime I quit it (which I try not to do) it takes 15 mins to start up fully.

Today by mistake I used an incorrect SMTP server to send a message. As it kept trying to send the message it increased the RAM usage to 3.99GB!

I know the thread is mainly about Safari - I have not dared to open it, but using Firefox instead. Just wondered if you had any ideas for a Mail fix?

Aug 1, 2011 1:56 PM in response to mightymilk

I just read a post over in the Aperture community where people are having performance issues with Aperture.

The poster suggested running Aperture in 32 bit instead of 64, and was very happy with the result. I did a test and Aperture's RAM demand dropped from 4 gigs to 1.5 on my system.

This trick may work for Safari, Mail or any other RAM guzzlers. Worth a try.

Right now I'm posting this on my Lion MBP with Safari in 32 bit mode. Safari has 14 tabs open and is using only 87MBs

pimeye

Level 1

0 points

Aug 1, 2011 4:41 PM in response to John Kitchen

Thanks for the suggestion but it did not change the RAM usage by Mail in 32 bit mode. Also reisntalled Lion with no change. Unsure what to do. Have to keep Mail open and then able to run only one other programme at the same time. If I quit Mail it takes 10-15 mins to reopen.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 2, 2011 7:59 AM in response to pimeye

As an update, I've switched programs to 32-bit mode in the past and it does typically decrease memory usage of any given program. However all my free memory is still being consumed, just at a slower rate than before.

I'm still getting spinning beach balls under Safari once all Memory is consumed, and generally sluggish performance. I wish I could add more, but I haven't been able to find any particular Java Scripts or Flash based content that causes it. I don't have any Memory or Performance issues with Mail as some have described, so it's difficult to tell if these problems are related to Lion or something else.

Obviously we're all visiting different websites, and receiving different e-mails, and since the usage varies so much from user-to-user... I'm at a loss and don't know what else to try.

My Page Outs and Swaps Used total about 1GB each, after one day without Quiting or Restarting Safari/Mail/iTunes.

Aug 2, 2011 8:14 AM in response to mightymilk

Here is a screen shoot of my activity monitor. As you can see it indicates I'm almost out of Free Memory only 145.8MB. Not sure where Inactive Memory plays in this.

Also while Page Outs are at only 1.3MBs, as the day progresses and aditional applications are opened and closed it will grow significantly (between 250MB and 1.1GB). Yet if I add up the running process' "Real Memory" it never seems to total with what it seems to indicate is being used. Again never saw anything like this under Snow Leopard

Aug 2, 2011 9:03 AM in response to ColoradoiPodUser

Eric. The pie chart can almost be ignored if you are using it for diagnostic purposes. RAM demand varies microsecond by microsecond, so you don't know if you are seeing a peak or a trough in the pie chart which is updated once every few seconds.

You didn't see this happening under Snow Leopard because Snow Leopard uses less RAM than Lion. New OSes always use more RAM than their predecessors.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 2, 2011 9:15 AM in response to ColoradoiPodUser

ColoradoiPodUser wrote:

Here is a screen shoot of my activity monitor. As you can see it indicates I'm almost out of Free Memory only 145.8MB. Not sure where Inactive Memory plays in this.

Also while Page Outs are at only 1.3MBs, as the day progresses and aditional applications are opened and closed it will grow significantly (between 250MB and 1.1GB). Yet if I add up the running process' "Real Memory" it never seems to total with what it seems to indicate is being used. Again never saw anything like this under Snow Leopard

Here's a quick description on the 4 different types of memory being used by your system.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342

Inactive memory

This information in memory is not actively being used, but was recently used.

For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from the slower hard disk.

Despite it's description, once Free RAM is consumed my computer started Page Filing instead of grabbing from the Inactive RAM pool. I'm going to do some more experimenting, but so far it looks like Inactive RAM is being held up instead of being released as needed. Inactive RAM holds steady at about 1GB and Page Filing takes over once all Free RAM has been used up.

pimeye

Level 1

0 points

Aug 2, 2011 9:27 AM in response to mightymilk

Only 35 minutes to start Mail up today!

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 2, 2011 9:29 AM in response to pimeye

pimeye wrote:

Only 35 minutes to start Mail up today!

Pimeye what model/year Mac is experiencing this problem?

Aug 2, 2011 9:31 AM in response to mightymilk

For a really full discussion go to this link.

It's 57 pages, so be warned!

Could you explain what you mean by Page "Filing"? This is a new term to me and Apple's document doesn't mention the term "filing". Maybe it's a typo, sorry.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 2, 2011 9:42 AM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

For a really full discussion go to this link.

It's 57 pages, so be warned!

Could you explain what you mean by Page "Filing"? This is a new term to me and Apple's document doesn't mention the term "filing". Maybe it's a typo, sorry.

Page Filing, Paging, or PFing is just a Windows terms for what OS X calls Page In and Page Out. The two processes are very similar in nature. I'll try and use the correct OS X term to avoid anymore confusion.

Thanks for the link, I'll have to read that when I get home.

Aug 2, 2011 10:17 AM in response to mightymilk

Pages 37 to 41 tell you how to find memory leaks, so I'm sure you'll like this.

In OS X, Page Outs occur when RAM demand is high and room is made by stealing changed pages. These are written to the Swap space and their size contributes to the "Swap used" metric in Activity Monitor.

Page Ins occur when those pages are required at some future time.

But Page Ins also occur even if there have never been any Page Outs.

OS X uses the paging I/O mechanism to bring data into memory. This data is typically executable code, and will not be changed. Such pages may be stolen without the Page Out penalty

pimeye

Level 1

0 points

Aug 2, 2011 10:28 AM in response to mightymilk

I'm running a MacBook Pro (first of the unibodies) 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM 1067 MHz DDR3

Lion - Memory Usage Problems