Your System has Run out of Application memory

I have the same problem and keep having to reboot. Looking at my Activity Monitor, there doesn't seem to be much that is taking up memory. Other than Firefox (where I have many tabs open), none of the other applications end up with >100MB. So, I don't know what is taking up the memory.

The Memory Pressure starts off green and then crawls up to yellow and finally red. There are two non-applications that takes up memory space.

(1) kernel_task, which fluctuates and which I understand from this thread is normal (so I did not touch); and

(2) mds_stores, which is the one that slowly increases and sometimes end up using more memory than kernel_task. It belongs to the root. I have force-quit it before and there doesn't seem to cause a problem but Memory Pressure drops to green instanty. I hope I have not done anything wrong, though.

Force quitting mds_store worked perfectly. The Memory Pressure went down to green straight away and stayed there for the rest of my session. Since then it has been clean, despite having been put on sleep mode and shut down cycles several times. So, it looks like a permanent fix.

Now, can someone tell me if this will cause me problems going forward. The Memory Pressure looks boringly flat all the time.

mds_store is the process used by Spotlight to index your drive.

mds – what MDS process is and why it uses CPU on the Mac

http://osxdaily.com/2007/02/15/spotlight-wont-work-fix-a-broken-spotlight-menu-w ith-these-troubleshooting-tips/

You might need to reindex your drive. I would do this the last thing at night and let it run.

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

* Click Spotlight.

* Click the Privacy tab.

* Drag your drive to the list. Wait a couple of minutes.

* Remove the item you added.

* Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.

Thanks Diane.

Two questions:

1. the process I killed was mds_store. there is a separate mds process (the one refered to in the article you linked) which I left running. Same thing?
2. What do you mean by 'remove the item you added' in your fourth bullet point? Wouldn't that mean I end up with nothing left on the list?

Yes, so nothing will be excluded.

Thanks, so I ended with an empty list. Nothing seem to happen - does it re-index in the background?

Yes, by adding the Macintosh HD then removing it simply toggling Spotlight on/off. This is the most user friendly way to toggle Spotlight. You can also do this in the Terminal, but that scares some users.

How to reset Spotlight using the Terminal

Copy the text below and open Terminal (in /Application/Utilities). Paste the code into the Terminal window at the prompt.

sudo mdutil -E /

You will be asked for your administrator password (and if you've never used the sudo command you'll need to accept the warning presented). When you type your password, it will look like nothing is being typed. That's normal. Once you've typed your administrator password, press Return.

This will completely remove the Spotlight index and force a new one to be created. Probably not necessary, but I would immediately quit Terminal and restart your Mac.

SUMMARY:

Depending on your Mac and the contents of it's hard disk, re-indexing may take several hours. Doing this overnight is a good option if you have a large drive.

You can tell if it's still in progress by simply looking at the Spotlight menu: There's a blinking dot in the middle of the magnifying glass while indexing is occurring. You can also open Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities and type in md in the search filter. You should mdworker. If you have Microsoft Outlook you'll also see mdworker32.

Until this process is finished, Spotlight won’t know the contents of your disks and neither will Mail.

Yes, it runs in the background.

You can tell if it's still in progress by simply looking at the Spotlight menu: There's a blinking dot in the middle of the magnifying glass while indexing is occurring. (I find this diffucult to see YMMV)

You can also open Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities and type in md in the search filter. You should mdworker. If you have Microsoft Outlook you'll also see mdworker32.

Thanks Diane, can't see the red dot but several mdworker are running in the Activity Monitor, totalling some 150-200MB of memory.

The dot is black not red, but regardless, using the Activity Monitor is easier to read. I'm never sure I actually see it or I'm imaging I see it. :-)

I think the dot has gone away entirely in Mavericks.

AAh, so it wasn't my specs then

I have been having the same issue since i received my new Mac Pro, the hot black cylinder, 32GB of memory, very fast and efficient, yet i get this horrifying message, and then everything goes wrong, and i have to reboot. Not good. I had a very old machine before and I never had this problem. If this is Maverick's bug, I hope it gets fixed quickly. It's so disheartening to have to deal with this when i am almost certain my machine can handle ten times that work flow... HELP!!!! It's killing me, and it repeats daily ...

Use Activity Monitor in Applications/Utilities to monitor Memory. This should shed some light on what process is out of control.

See this link to understand Memory Pressure in Mavericks.

www.switchingtomac.com/tutorials/osx/understanding-memory-pressure-in-os-x-maver icks/

Same Problem

I run into this problem while running some python scripts

Please find a solution for this soon! Very frastrusted