MAC startup disc has no more space available for application memory.

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MAC startup disc has no more space available for application memory.

I have a new mac, very little memory being used, and only a few programs being run...safari, i-tunes, etc. This error window keeps coming up "Your Mac OS X Start up disc has no more space available for application memory. To aviod problems, quit any applications and close windows you are not using. removing files you are not using from your start up disc will help". This window will come up with only finder and safari running, no other applications running. This has been going on for several weeks now off and on. What is causing this and what can I do?

iMac

Posted on Dec 10, 2011 12:30 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 10, 2011 12:33 PM in response to Gary0119

How big is your hard drive?

How much free space is on it?

If you don't know this, you can do a Get Info on the icon for that hard drive; the Get Info window will state those numbers.

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Answer 2

Kappy

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362,007 points

Dec 10, 2011 12:34 PM in response to Gary0119

How much memory in your computer? What are the applications you have loaded that make up the "etc?"

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. What does it tell you about memory usage?

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Answer 3

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 10, 2011 12:45 PM in response to Don Archibald

capacity 499 mb

428 available

I have word,excel,power point, safari, i tunes, and whatever else it came with from apple.

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Answer 4

Kappy

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Dec 10, 2011 12:47 PM in response to Gary0119

You haven't answered all the questions. How much RAM, what are all the applications you have running, which application is generating the error, and what is shown in Activity Monitor?

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Answer 5

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 10, 2011 1:01 PM in response to Kappy

Sorry....new to macs...struggling to find this info...what is activity monitor, where is utilities folder? Can't get to where to find the RAM. Again, sorry, doing my best. Other programs include Other programs included Mail,Dashboard, App store,Face Time,Address book,I cal, Previre, Photobooyh, I-photo,I-movie, Time Machine.

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Answer 6

Kappy

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Dec 10, 2011 1:07 PM in response to Gary0119

If you are running all those applications at the same time then that is why you are running out of memory.

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Answer 7

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 10, 2011 1:22 PM in response to Kappy

Nope, I only run one or two programs at once, finder and safari, or finder and I-tunes at one time. I never use or run most of the other programs. I'll even quit I-tunes before I open safari again. Should I remove some of these other programs all together if I don't use them. Will that somehow help?

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Answer 8

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Dec 10, 2011 1:25 PM in response to Gary0119

No, that won't do anything but add a GB or two of free space to your hard drive.

It would be helpful to post the info from Activity Monitor. Start with what appears on your computer when you run Activity Monitor. Here's what I'm looking for as displayed on my computer:

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Answer 9

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 10, 2011 1:34 PM in response to Kappy

ok, got it...here is what I have

Free 2.34 GB

Wired 7.99.2 MB

Active 687.8 MB

Inactive 204.2 MB

Used 1.65 GB

VM size 120 GB

Page in 266 MB

Page out 0

Swap used 0

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Answer 10

Kappy

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362,007 points

Dec 10, 2011 2:04 PM in response to Gary0119

I can tell you this. You have no memory issues. The error may be generated by an application that requires user allocated buffer space. Photoshop is an example of such an application.

Even under extreme usage conditions the OS doesn't run out of memory. If there isn't enough physical RAM then it uses virtual memory - the disk drive.

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Answer 11

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 10, 2011 2:22 PM in response to Kappy

Very puzzling since it seems to happen when just running safari and i-tunes, nothing "heavier" than that like a photoshop. Not sure where to turn from here!

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Answer 12

WZZZ

Level 6

13,238 points

Dec 10, 2011 2:41 PM in response to Gary0119

In Activity Monitor, after iTunes and Safari have been open for a while -- maybe a few hours -- what are they showing for Real Memory? Does this happen only after these two apps have been open for a considerable period?

Open Terminal in Applications>Utilities and type in "top" no quotation marks, then hit return.

This will probably just confirm what you've already run through with Kappy, but with both of those apps open, what are the figures inside the parentheses for Page Ins and Page Outs?

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Answer 13

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Dec 10, 2011 6:51 PM in response to Gary0119

Next time you see this error I suggest you note down the applications that are loaded at the time. What were you doing with what application when the error appears. Open Activity Monitor and note what it reports.

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Answer 14

Gary0119 Author

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Dec 11, 2011 1:05 PM in response to WZZZ

I've had safari, mail and itunes open for a bit this afternoon. Terminal is showing (0) pages in and (0) pages out. I'll continue to keep them open and see what happens and report back if it changes! Here's the rest of the data showing at this time.

Processes: 49 total, 5 running, 44 sleeping, 260 threads 16:02:59

Load Avg: 0.07, 0.20, 0.16 CPU usage: 1.44% user, 2.65% sys, 95.90% idle

SharedLibs: 7052K resident, 10M data, 0B linkedit.

MemRegions: 18435 total, 501M resident, 15M private, 564M shared.

PhysMem: 817M wired, 803M active, 265M inactive, 1886M used, 2206M free.

VM: 122G vsize, 1041M framework vsize, 91422(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts.

Networks: packets: 261079/251M in, 215760/24M out.

Disks: 106874/1947M read, 143722/2035M written.

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Answer 15

Star1

Level 2

465 points

Dec 11, 2011 3:17 PM in response to Gary0119

Hi Gary,

i think the problem lies in this fact:

"Start up disc has no more space available for"

It is a problem with your HD space, NOT memory...

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