out of application memory
Been troubleshooting an iMac 27" Mid 2011 for friends with a design studio. The machine was running out of application memory in seconds despite having 12 GB ram and lots of free disk space. I've seen reports of similar problems with Mavericks setups. I have been an Apple dev since 1987 and have seen a lot, but this is the worst I've seen. I have been able to calm it down a little, but it is still not 100%. The machine in question qualified for a new logic board and video card update which was duly installed by Apple certified techs. It has spent hours running diagnostic checks. At one stage it refused to turn on, took it back to the repair shop. They plugged it in and it worked and more diagnostics revealed nothing untoward. So ok back to me.
Trying to work with machines in this state is difficult and I thought I'd share the steps I took to try to improve the situation.
Obviously normal Apple Diagnostic tests were not revealing the cause of the behaviour.
I searched for others with similar issues, and looked at the advice. BTW I found Linc Davis to be contributing his usual thoughtful experience to this and would recommend reading his take on this and other issues.
This behaviour reminded me of fixing virus infested machines. To keep the machine alive long enough to add Anti Virus software I set Terminal to start at login. Then I was able to run Top and observe the insane processes in real time. [Activity Monitor was a no go at this point] By killing the stuck processes it gave me enough time to download install Sophos, and work on the iMac. Sophos found some virus infected email attachments and dealt with them.
Backed up the machine
Reset the SMC
Reset the parameter ram
Started up from Mavericks Recovery DIsk and from there used Disk Utility to repair permissions and check the disc.
The machine was running Mavericks 10.9.2 and decided to reinstall Mavericks. You can go back to 10.9. I had previously saved Mountain Lion and Mavericks installs on an external drive. You can install over the net - but a much longer process and not for flaky machines. Amazingly the iMac was stable throughout the Mavericks reinstall and it was successful.
It's early days but the iMac is much better. The designers mostly use Photoshop, Illustrator, Apple Mail and Safari. They work with large images for print and need fast solid machines. Interestingly as a side note, the machine was solid for a few hours and I tried to fire up Photoshop to give it a real test. Photoshop needed to install a java runtime to function? Ok installed java runtime. Opened Photoshop. Worked for a little then Crash. Grey screen of death.
One step forward two steps back. Time to let the designers have a go again.They can make it crash good. Would recommend new MacPro's for them but Adobe hasn't got its act together to take advantage of the power available, so staying with iMacs for now.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.7 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 12 GB
Boot ROM Version: IM121.0047.B1F
SMC Version (system): 1.72f2
System Version: OS X 10.9 (13A603)
Kernel Version: Darwin 13.0.0
Boot Mode: Normal
Model: iMac12,2
USB
USB Optical Mouse (Logitech Inc.)
MEDION MD 86360 (Medion AG)
System diagnostics
2014-03-31 PenTabletDriver crash
2014-03-31 PenTabletDriver crash
2014-03-31 SophosAutoUpdate crash
2014-03-31 mds crash
2014-03-31 mds_stores crash
2014-03-31 mds_stores crash
2014-03-31 mdworker crash
2014-03-31 mdworker crash
2014-04-01 Kernel panic
2014-04-01 PenTabletDriver crash
User diagnostics
2014-03-28 hiutil crash
2014-03-28 hiutil crash
2014-03-28 syncdefaultsd crash
2014-03-28 ubd crash
2014-03-29 Safari crash
2014-03-29 pkgutil crash
2014-03-31 CVMCompiler crash
2014-03-31 ReportCrash crash
2014-03-31 WiFiKeychainProxy crash
2014-04-01 Finder crash *
* Code injection
Kernel messages
Mar 31 18:38:51 hfs: mounted TIME on device disk2s6
--- last message repeated 1 time ---
Mar 31 18:46:45 hfs: unmount initiated on TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 18:46:47 hfs: mounted TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:00:05 hfs: unmount initiated on TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:00:20 hfs: mounted TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:03:46 hfs: unmount initiated on TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:05:47 hfs: mounted TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:05:50 hfs: unmount initiated on TIME on device disk2s6
Mar 31 20:06:06 hfs: mounted TIME on device disk2s6
Loaded extrinsic kernel extensions
com.sophos.nke.swi (9.0.53)
com.sophos.kext.sav (9.0.53)
Extrinsic daemons
com.sophos.webd
com.sophos.sxld
com.sophos.scan
com.sophos.notification
com.sophos.intercheck
com.sophos.configuration
com.sophos.autoupdate
com.promise.httpd
com.promise.emaild
com.promise.bgasched
com.adobe.fpsaud
Extrinsic agents
com.wacom.pentablet
com.sophos.uiserver
com.adobe.ARM.UUID
launchd items
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
(com.adobe.AAM.Startup-1.0)
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.sophos.uiserver.plist
(com.sophos.uiserver)
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.wacom.pentablet.plist
(com.wacom.pentablet)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
(com.adobe.fpsaud)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
(com.adobe.SwitchBoard)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.promise.bgasched.plist
(com.promise.bgasched)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.promise.emaild.plist
(com.promise.emaild)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.promise.httpd.plist
(com.promise.httpd)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.autoupdate.plist
(com.sophos.autoupdate)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.configuration.plist
(com.sophos.configuration)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.intercheck.plist
(com.sophos.intercheck)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.notification.plist
(com.sophos.notification)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.scan.plist
(com.sophos.scan)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.sxld.plist
(com.sophos.sxld)
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.sophos.webd.plist
(com.sophos.webd)
Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
(com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0)
Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.ARM.UUID.plist
(com.adobe.ARM.UUID)
Extrinsic loadable bundles
/System/Library/Extensions/EPSONUSBPrintClass.kext
(com.epson.print.kext.USBPrintClass)
/System/Library/Extensions/Pen Tablet.kext
(com.wacom.kext.pentablet)
/System/Library/Extensions/TabletDriverCFPlugin.bundle
(No bundle ID)
/Library/Extensions/SophosNetworkInterceptor.kext
(com.sophos.nke.swi)
/Library/Extensions/SophosOnAccessInterceptor.kext
(com.sophos.kext.sav)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobeAAMDetect.plugin
(com.AdobeAAMDetectLib.AdobeAAMDetect)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin
(com.adobe.acrobat.pdfviewer)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
(com.adobe.acrobat.pdfviewerNPAPI)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin
(com.macromedia.Flash Player.plugin)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
(com.apple.java.JavaAppletPlugin)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/WacomNetscape.plugin
(com.wacom.tabletplugin)
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/WacomTabletPlugin.plugin
(com.WacomTabletPluginLib.WacomTabletPlugin)
/Library/PreferencePanes/Flash Player.prefPane
(com.adobe.flashplayerpreferences)
/Library/PreferencePanes/PenTablet.prefPane
(com.wacom.PenTabletSettingsPrefPane)
/Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax
(No bundle ID)
Modified periodic scripts
/etc/periodic/daily/110.clean-tmps
/etc/periodic/daily/130.clean-msgs
/etc/periodic/daily/140.clean-rwho
/etc/periodic/daily/199.clean-fax
/etc/periodic/daily/310.accounting
/etc/periodic/daily/400.status-disks
/etc/periodic/daily/420.status-network
/etc/periodic/daily/430.status-rwho
/etc/periodic/daily/999.local
/etc/periodic/monthly/199.rotate-fax
/etc/periodic/monthly/200.accounting
/etc/periodic/monthly/999.local
/etc/periodic/weekly/320.whatis
/etc/periodic/weekly/999.local
User login items
iTunesHelper
Dropbox
Restricted user files: 90
Elapsed time (s): 61
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
