Q: Your System has Run out of Application memory

Hi Drew

I collected from an authorised dealer is Cape Town. Its a brand new Macbook pro which i collected; its a build to order. So only 2 days old. I just restarted the machine after it happened. I will monitor it and let you know if it happens again. I just thought id let everyone know that this error occurred with basically no additional drivers or software installed, out of the box, and only spotify installed.

God forbid we admit there is a problem with Mavericks. The choices are:

1. You installed BAD software. You should know better.

2. You are using non Apple software. You got what you asked for.

3. You are using only Apple software. Your hardware is defective.

4. None of the above. The user must be an idiot. It is the only logical explanation.

What will it take, DREW, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Mavericks memory management??!!

PS: In the interest of full disclosure I was, am and will be a Mac user.

Sorin Vacaru

sorinfromtoronto wrote:

 

What will it take, DREW, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Mavericks memory management??!!

Try a properly documented, repeatable instance of performance suffering because of it.

Fair enough. How about this:

Aperture, Nik Software - turn on Onscreen Proofing = BLOW UP

Turn off Onscreen Proofing = No Problem

**** YOU, google ********!!!!  

PS: this is fun b.t.w.

Oh, one more thing: what do YOU thing these poor users are doing on this forum, if not "documenting"?!

Asking to be poo-pooed on?

I thought not, bye.

sorinfromtoronto wrote:

 

God forbid we admit there is a problem with Mavericks. The choices are:

 

1. You installed BAD software. You should know better.

2. You are using non Apple software. You got what you asked for.

3. You are using only Apple software. Your hardware is defective.

4. None of the above. The user must be an idiot. It is the only logical explanation.

 

What will it take, DREW, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Mavericks memory management??!!

 

PS: In the interest of full disclosure I was, am and will be a Mac user.

 

Sorin Vacaru

I believe in isolating the fault to see better evidence before stating something is faulty.

I have been bitten by false assumptions in the past, it's very easy to assume the last major change caused a problem, when it was the result of previous changes to a system.

If there is lots of software installed it's difficult to assign blame to 10.9 alone, especially when I have seen many cases of users complaining about poor performance with 10.9 on these forums. It often disappears when the user either clean installs, or uses Etrecheck to remove & update older software. It just looks like 10.9 has so many changes that older software falls apart and affects the entire OS. It's hardly surprising when you consider some people have third party software running at a system level designed for 10.6, 10.5…

Personally I think it is mostly Apple's fault - they make upgrades/ Migration Assistant/ Time Machine restores so simple but fail to inform users about everything that is old or deprecated but still active.

I agree with your points 1-2.

3. Even Apple's older software fails on 10.9 - try using 'Save as' in Pages '08, you are seeing Aperture fail too. Ideally Apple should be updating all of their software that is running on 10.9, but I think the yearly release cycle & new pricing suggests they won't do that.

I can't see how any user could cause this 'out of memory' dialog via point 4 unless they are doing things they are not telling us.

sorinfromtoronto wrote:

 

What will it take, DREW, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Mavericks memory management??!!

I don't deny there are issues with 10.9 & it's probable that certain hardware causes it to show up more often too. I just think people need to rule out the old installed stuff first, since a trip to the Apple store may end up in a clean install anyway.

The 'documentation' I was referring to earlier was simply to allow chonki3 to take a nice list of dates/ times /activities/ screenshots to show the Apple service agent. Hopefully that would help show that there is a real, recurring issue instead of simply telling an engineer to look at this topic & unpick 10 pages - that should be Apples job. Reproducing errors like this is 1/2 the battle of troubleshooting & resolving them.

FWIW I think we both agree on more than you assume or perhaps I'm just misjudging?

Disclosure: I don't work for Apple & have no control over any of this stuff, so my acknowledgement of anything here has zero value here, sorry. I have also used Macs for many years & continue to do so.

Happened to me as well on 2 machines within a day,  iMac 27" & mini both with 8GB. Both needed rebooting, never happened before yesterday.

I have exactly this issue, with both needing to force restart and 'system has run out of application memory' on a brand new MacBook Air.  Infuriating and utterly bizarre.

Not sure if the orginal question has been answerd somewhere in this thread (I'll go back and re-read the entire thread in a moment), but I've been using Mavricks for at least a couple of months now and just NOW started getting the "Your System has Run out of Application memory" promt. Odd that it would show up now and actually when I wasn't even running too many other apps back to back, which, when I have done so in the past on an earlier OSX platforms, I had no issues whatsoever. Could this be Spywear releated, in that it could be allocating more app memory that my actaul apps?

Truly confounded and not sure what I can do to undo an issue that has surprisingly just showed up and for little reason.

SH

All of these problems began after I had been using Mavericks for a couple of months, but they started at different times. The time delay makes them very weird bugs. I hope they are fixed soon, but I might have to put up with them for a long time. I can't upgrade to the next version of 10.9 until I can determine that it doesn't break Pages 4. (I made the mistake of relying on Apple software.)

System ran out of application memory

This happens on my computer, but it is infrequent. It doesn't seem to be associated with any particular program. I can recover quickly by force quiting the non-responsive application and restarting it.

com.apple.internetaccounts wants to use the keychain

This is a dialog box that is on top of all the other windows and the text box has the focus, but won't accept keystrokes. Other people have the same issue, but for them, com.apple.internetaccounts has an extension. ESC will get rid of the dialog box. It doesn't seem to have any adverse affect if I just dismiss it. Apparently, com.apple.internetaccounts doesn't know that it doesn't need this. It is just a weird nuisance.

Slow FInder windows

The solution was to go into the Time Machine disk (through the file system, not through Time Machine) and copy the contents of the Library folder from a date before the problem began, and paste it into the current Library folder. The side effect was that a lot of software thought I was running it for the first time. This also solved the next problem.:

Show item info (cmd+J) shows nothing

If I checked the box to display item info in the Finder window, it resulted only in white space. This problem was fixed as a side effect of fixing the Slow Finder windows problem.

Finder won't relaunch after force quit (or killall Finder)

I couldn't fix this one, but all I have to do is click on the Finder icon on the dock to relaunch it. Weird.

Folders don't update

If I drag and drop a file into a Finder window, the file doesn't appear in the folder, and isn't selected with CMD+A, even though it appears when I do a directory listing in Terminal. Closing and opening the window makes the file visible.

All of these problems show up on my Late 2013 iMac, even after emptying caches, rebuilding databases, repairing permissions, checking disks, restarting into single-user mode, reinstalling Mavericks, and burying my fingernail clippings under a full moon while not thinking about a hippopotamus. Only the application memory problem appears on my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro.

My own issues with this, while still running 10.8.5 mind you, seem to be disk space related.

If I drop below 1/3 of hard drive spae free, it happens more frequently. If I move files off the drive and free up space, it hapens less frequently. It happened today with 317 GB free on the hard drive. It used to happen only when I got down to around 200 GB free. Now if I get anywhere close to 300 GB free, it happens.

I decided to look and see if 10.9 fixed the issue. It apparently has not.

Since I do a lot of video and audio editing, I tend to have a lot of files on my main drive after recording them. Moving them off the drive frees up space, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what is taking up so much space on my hard drive in the first place. I routinely move large movie files from my main drive, but can never get the free space to get above 500 GB. I thought it might be my downloads folder, but that is only 31 GB. My movies folder is the largest, with 101 GB, but after I take what I need out of what I record, I move the edited footage off the drive and delete the unneeded files, so that is constantly in flux.

It also doesn't help that OS X decides I, for some ungoly reason, need a VM size of over 200 GB and it also decides to constantly hold RAM as inactive for programs I might open once a week (when I can keep it on for that long)... and STILL swaps, even though that inactive memory is supposed to be freed when something else needs it.

I shouldn't have to watch my free hard drive space like a hawk when I have between 300 to almost 500 GB free at any given time or risk haveing the OS tell me I have no available memory for running programs. That's just insane.

It's also the reason that after a decade of using Macs, I am going back to Windows on my next computer. The video and audio editing programs there are just s good, now, and I know that I won't have to watch my hard drive space as closely when I have plenty of free RAM and hard drive space available.

Face it, OS X has some horrible memory management issues and has for a while, now (at least since 10.7). I've been dealing with its running out of memory for applications issue for a year or more on 10.8, with activity monitor not showing anything is taking up GBs of memory. And now more people are dealing with the issue since upgrading to 10.9.

You can see the size of the swapfiles with the following in Terminal…

ls -lh /private/var/vm/swapfile*

I suspect a 'sleepimage' file may be larger (if you have hibernation mode active). That will be in the same directory…

ls -lh /private/var/vm/

Also take a look at WhatSize or GrandPerspective

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net

http://www.whatsizemac.com/index.php (not free)

They should show you where disk space is used if you give them time to index it all. Have a look to see if there are any logs that are spiraling out of control (examine /Library/Logs, ~/Library/Logs, /var/log). Sometimes they can eat space out of sight. I'd look at the cache sizes in your library too, but they may only be regenerated if you delete them.

If you have a spinning HD you should probably take a look at some benchmarks, this has some great info…

http://macperformanceguide.com/Storage-WhyYouNeedMoreThanYouNeed.html

I don't know how relevant it is to you but I found that running with half empty spinning disks gave better performance than when they are getting full.

SSD's don't have the speed decrease so consider an upgrade if you think it will help. Work out the disk model you have installed & search for some benchmarks, you may find it's all disk IO that is slowing you down.

http://etresoft.com/etrecheck lists the disk model along with a lot of other info (use it to review your kernel extensions & other system level stuff).

Activity Monitor should show you everything if you select the 'all processes' option, You can also see 'real memory' & virtual memory per process if you select the headings & enable those columns. Try keeping a record of the disk IO & transfer speeds when it slows down too.

Sorry if this is no help, I don't know what is going on with your Mac but it sounds 'more disk' than 'memory'?

PS video apps work best if you can keep media on a separate fast internal or external disk. Streaming large files to and from the same disk as the OS can be problematic.

I am also having the same issue... system has run out of application memory. I ran etrecheck, and here is what my system looks like...

I sure would appreciate any help that some of you experts may have with this... thanks in advance...

Here is the report:

Hardware Information:

    iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)

    iMac - model: iMac12,1

    1 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

    8 GB RAM

Video Information:

    AMD Radeon HD 6770M - VRAM: 512 MB

System Software:

    OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 0:18:51

Disk Information:

    ST31000528AS disk0 : (1 TB)

        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 999.35 GB (698.59 GB free)

        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

    OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5690H 

USB Information:

    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

    Seagate Backup+ BK 1 TB

        EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

        Seagate Backup Plus Drive (disk1s2) /Volumes/Seagate Backup Plus Drive: 999.86 GB (459.66 GB free)

    Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

    Wacom Co.,Ltd. Intuos PTM

    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

    Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Kernel Extensions:

Problem System Launch Daemons:

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

    [System]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.barebones.textwrangler.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.crashplan.engine.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.flipvideo.FlipShareServer.launchd.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [invalid]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

    [System]    com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backupd-auto.plist 3rd-Party support link

Launch Agents:

    [System]    com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.flipvideo.FlipShare.AutoRun.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [invalid]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

    [System]    com.wacom.pentablet.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [System]    com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Launch Agents:

    [not loaded]    com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [not loaded]    com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link

    [not loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link

    [not loaded]    ws.agile.1PasswordAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Login Items:

    iTunesHelper

    Dropbox

    To-do Lists 2

    CrashPlan menu bar

    To-do Lists

Internet Plug-ins:

    WacomNetscape: Version: 2.1.0-1 - SDK 10.8 3rd-Party support link

    Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

    Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16   - SDK 10.8 3rd-Party support link

    OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin: Version: 12.2.3 3rd-Party support link

    WacomTabletPlugin: Version: WacomTabletPlugin 2.1.0.2 3rd-Party support link

    Silverlight: Version: 4.0.60531.0 3rd-Party support link

    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.44 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

    Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.44 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

    iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

    SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

    AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.1 3rd-Party support link

    GarminGpsControl: Version: 2.7.1.0 Release 3rd-Party support link

    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update

Audio Plug-ins:

    BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

    AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

    AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

    iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

User Internet Plug-ins:

    WebEx64: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

    Move_Media_Player: Version: npmnqmp 071301000022 3rd-Party support link

    WebEx: Version: 1.0 3rd-Party support link

    Picasa: Version: 1.0 3rd-Party support link

3rd Party Preference Panes:

    ADOView  3rd-Party support link

    Fan Control  3rd-Party support link

    Flash Player  3rd-Party support link

    Flip4Mac WMV  3rd-Party support link

    Growl  3rd-Party support link

    Perian  3rd-Party support link

    PenTablet  3rd-Party support link

    WacomTablet  3rd-Party support link

Bad Fonts:

    None

Old Applications:

    Microsoft Language Register:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Additional Tools/Microsoft Language Register/Microsoft Language Register.app

    QIF Master:    Version: 10.3 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

        /Users/[redacted]/Documents/SOFTWARE/QIFMaster10.3/QIF Master.app

    Solver:    Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Add-Ins/Solver.app

    /Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/WebEx Folder/1224

        Cisco WebEx Meeting Center:    Version: 11.24.32.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        asannotation2:    Version: 8.25.31.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        atmsupload:    Version: 4.14.29.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        convertpdf:    Version: 1.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

    /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011

        Microsoft PowerPoint:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Excel:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Outlook:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Word:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Document Connection:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

    /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office

        Microsoft Graph:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Database Utility:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Office Reminders:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Upload Center:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        My Day:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        SyncServicesAgent:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Open XML for Excel:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Alerts Daemon:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Database Daemon:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Chart Converter:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Clip Gallery:    Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

    Wondershare Helper Compact:    Version: 2.2.6.4 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        /Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/Helper/Wondershare Helper Compact.app

    /Applications/iWork '09

    Network Recording Player:    Version: 2.2.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        /Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/WebEx Folder/500/Network Recording Player.app

    Coda:    Version: 1.7.5 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

        /Users/[redacted]/Documents/SOFTWARE/CODA/Coda.app

    Microsoft AutoUpdate:    Version: 2.3.6 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

        /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app

    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0

        Microsoft Error Reporting:    Version: 2.2.9 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

        Microsoft Ship Asserts:    Version: 1.1.4 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

    Senuti:    Version: 1.2.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

        /Users/[redacted]/Documents/SOFTWARE/Senuti.app

Time Machine:

    Skip System Files: NO

    Mobile backups: OFF

    Auto backup: YES

    Volumes being backed up:

        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 930.71 GB Disk used: 280.10 GB

    Destinations:

        Seagate Backup Plus Drive [Local] (Last used)

        Total size: 931.19 GB

        Total number of backups: 61

        Oldest backup: 2013-01-28 22:16:45 +0000

        Last backup: 2014-02-17 13:09:26 +0000

        Size of backup disk: Adequate

            Backup size 931.19 GB > (Disk used 280.10 GB X 3)

    Time Machine details may not be accurate.

    All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

    /sbin excluded from backup!

    /usr excluded from backup!

    /System excluded from backup!

    /bin excluded from backup!

    /private excluded from backup!

    /Library excluded from backup!

    /Applications excluded from backup!

Top Processes by CPU:

         3%    WindowServer

         2%    firefox

         1%    Activity Monitor

         0%    EtreCheck

         0%    sysmond

Top Processes by Memory:

    344 MB    firefox

    188 MB    com.apple.IconServicesAgent

    123 MB    mds_stores

    106 MB    CrashPlanService

    90 MB    WindowServer

Virtual Memory Information:

    4.35 GB    Free RAM

    1.79 GB    Active RAM

    865 MB    Inactive RAM

    1.01 GB    Wired RAM

    398 MB    Page-ins

    0 B    Page-outs

Old kernel extensions & startup items have been a cause for issues with other users, you don't have any, so I'd look at the system jobs…

Anything labled [System] is running 'across the entire OS'.

Launch Daemons, Launch Agents, User Launch Agents:

These are all background jobs, they are not necessarily bad, but if they are loading old code it could be doing untold damage to the performance & stability of the entire OS. Focus on the System level jobs (the ones inside /Library - the system level).

I would remove the 2 invalid Oracle jobs (probably in /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons )…

[invalid]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

…

[invalid]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

 

Be aware that Oracle's updater has been failing to run - that means Java is not up to date. If you use Java update it otherwise remove it, it poses a potential security risk, especially when left at old versions.

For each of the other listed jobs check that the software is up to date, if you don't use it, find out how to uninstall it via the developers site - leaving active software behind may not help matters.

User login items:

Applications and helpers that are managed inside 'Systems Preferences > Users and groups > Login Items tab'.

These are loaded at the 'User level', consider removing all of them whilst you troubleshoot.  When you decide to re-add them ensure the software is up to date.

User Login Items:

    iTunesHelper

    Dropbox

    To-do Lists 2

    CrashPlan menu bar

    To-do Lists

Do you need 2 copies of To-do lists running at login?

3rd Party Preference Panes: & Internet Plug-ins:

/Library/PreferencePanes/ and ~/Library/PreferencePanes/

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ and ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/

Update these items or remove them from your system. If the prefpanes manage additional software use the uninstaller or see the developers site for uninstall instructions. You can also right click to remove 3rd party preference panes in System preferences.

Read the list of Internet plug-ins carefully, if Safari or browsers misbehave it could be because of a plugin.

Don't forget to also update Safari's extensions in it's preferences (if you have any).

Re-run EtreCheck after cleaning up to see if items have returned (some apps will reload the background jobs when re-opened, so either update or remove the software).

Also check for updates to any apps you use all the time like Firefox and check that any plugins or extensions are up to date within Firefox, if the developers site doesn't say 10.9 is supported consider removing it if you can live without it.