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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

iVain

Level 1

18 points

Jul 28, 2011 3:57 PM in response to R C-R

My mom has the same issue on her MacBook.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 28, 2011 4:04 PM in response to R C-R

R C-R wrote:

If you expect to be taken seriously, explain just one thing that you seem intent on ignoring:

If there is a there is a serious memory issue with Lion, why doesn't it affect all users?

Hahah, is that really your argument? It's not a serious issue because not everyone is affected? You just lost all credibility. Do I really have to explain to you the millions of variables with hardware and drivers that can cause only certain users to be affected?

Jul 28, 2011 4:26 PM in response to R C-R

Could we stop the Tit for Tat here? This is neither Facebook nor, I assume, are either of you in High School.

Both of you have supplied some good technical advice which is what this space is known for.

Thanks

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 28, 2011 4:52 PM in response to ColoradoiPodUser

ColoradoiPodUser wrote:

Could we stop the Tit for Tat here? This is neither Facebook nor, I assume, are either of you in High School.

Both of you have supplied some good technical advice which is what this space is known for.

Thanks

You're right we shouldn't be using this forum as a medium for bickering.

Anyway, I've tried disabling the Restore option as suggested by a previous poster but unfortunately nothing has improved. At this point, I'm just closing Safari everytime it's memory usage beyond what I would deem acceptable for a browser. I'm eager ot hear if Apple addresses this in an update, or if someone here can come up with a solution to the problem.

On a good note, the Resume feature makes bringing back all the tabs you had open after closing Safari a breeze.

Jul 28, 2011 4:56 PM in response to iVain

iVain, it seems that if you contact AppleCare, you will be the first to do so. I had assumed that at least someone had posted their experiences with Apple Support, but on reading the 8 pages of posts, I can't find it. Surprise!

Your situation is a great case, since you have two Macs in the family with the same symptoms.

Here is the link - https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.do?PRKEYS=SG1

You get logged in with your AppleID, make sure your Mac is registered to that ID, describe your problem, and get them to call you.

BTW, for the rest of the posters in this thread, the above works in the USA, can't be sure what the story is elsewhere.

Typically, they'll ask a heap of questions, and possibly get you to run diagnostic programs and send them the results.

I think this is beyond the user-to-user help system

Jul 28, 2011 5:02 PM in response to John Kitchen

For what it's worth, after upgrading to Lion the day after it came out my MB seems to be settling down. 113MB of Page Outs, 563MB of free and 752MB of active memory.

Nothing has been changed on my since the upgrade.

Hope that those of you more technically inclined than I find this helpful

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 28, 2011 5:45 PM in response to mightymilk

mightymilk wrote:

Do I really have to explain to you the millions of variables with hardware and drivers that can cause only certain users to be affected?

At this point, the only thing I would be interested in seeing you try to explain is on what basis you have decided that whatever is affecting all of these certain users must be caused by some flaw in the Apple-suppied software.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 5:11 AM in response to R C-R

R C-R wrote:

mightymilk wrote:

Do I really have to explain to you the millions of variables with hardware and drivers that can cause only certain users to be affected?

At this point, the only thing I would be interested in seeing you try to explain is on what basis you have decided that whatever is affecting all of these certain users must be caused by some flaw in the Apple-suppied software.

Your argument is so laughable I'm literally at a loss for words. The only thing you've proven is your inability to apply your knowledge towards any sensible method of trouble shooting.

As someone already pointed out, this forum is not for bickering. I'm done replying to your posts for fear of being banned, and if you have any sort of brain you'll do the same.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 5:20 AM in response to ColoradoiPodUser

ColoradoiPodUser wrote:

For what it's worth, after upgrading to Lion the day after it came out my MB seems to be settling down. 113MB of Page Outs, 563MB of free and 752MB of active memory.

Nothing has been changed on my since the upgrade.

Hope that those of you more technically inclined than I find this helpful

Mine settled down slightly as well, which is strange considering no updates have been released. It's still using quite a bit of RAM for small menial tasks, but overall comsumption is down slightly.

It's only been a day though, and I'd like to see what it's like over the long term.

mightymilk Author

Level 1

32 points

Jul 29, 2011 5:19 AM in response to iVain

iVain wrote:

My mom has the same issue on her MacBook.

This seems to be a wide issue effecting many different machines. There's quite a few threads here and on MacRumors, so I can only hope via these Forums and Feedback that Apple is aware and investigating.

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 7:27 AM in response to John Kitchen

John Kitchen wrote:

Typically, they'll ask a heap of questions, and possibly get you to run diagnostic programs and send them the results.

They may ask you to do a few things you can do on your own to help isolate the cause of your issues. One is to start up in Safe Mode. Because this disables system additions, if the problem disappears in this mode, you can assume that the cause is one of them.

Another is to create a brand new user account. If the problem does not occur when logged into it, you can assume the problem is somewhere in your normal account's home folder. After testing, you can delete the test account.

Jul 29, 2011 7:41 AM in response to R C-R

Good grief, cut out the back and forth squabble I'm losing patience at hoping my email from this thread subscription is more screenshots and personal tweaks; instead I'm seeing a cat fight presumably amongst grown men.

See my previous post about turning off the heavy ram usage until apple makes it more efficient to those having ongoing issues especially with slow performance and time between app swapping.

R C-R

Level 6

17,782 points

Jul 29, 2011 8:02 AM in response to mightymilk

These forums are intended for user-to-user support. Because of the huge number of posts, the Community Hosts (whose job is to make sure users obey the Terms of Use & keep the site running smoothy) rarely have time to follow individual communities or discussions.

Because of this, if you want to bring something to Apple's attention, don't rely on posting to these forums for that. Instead, use the appropriate link at the http://www.apple.com/feedback/ site (& include as much detail as you can on the provided form) or, if it available to you, either AppleCare or the Express Lane service John Kitchen mentioned earlier. If you are a member of the Apple Developer program, you can also use its bug reporter system.

Jul 29, 2011 8:23 AM in response to mightymilk

Does anybody care sufficiently enough to contact Apple Technical Support, or is it just not that important?

Jul 29, 2011 8:33 AM in response to John Kitchen

I'm pretty sure many of us have. I'm dealing with some seniors about the clamshell errors popping up only in lion with laptop to external monitor use as this is affecting hundreds at my department alone. As per this issue somebody else needs to use an official letter head to get in contact with senior technicians. For now, as I posted a few pages back, uncheck the box in system pref pane to drastically improve service and basically make safari function as it did in 4. Will also affect mail and pages and the ram issue.

Lion - Memory Usage Problems