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Aperture 3.5.1 and OSX 10.9.4 memory issue

I note the complaints of running out of memory using Aperture date back to OS X 10.9.2 and subsequent posts suggest the problem had been fixed with 10.9.3. I don't think I am the only one still plagued by this issue now running 10.9.4 on a 27" iMac i7 (late 2009) with 16GB memory and 2Tb HD. Aperture is the only application that presents me with this problem and so I am inclined to believe that there is a memory leak that has not been addressed by Apple. What are some of the other experiences out there and what solutions have you found? In the back of my mind there is the thought that this is a problem Apple no longer cares to deal with and our likely choices will be to see what becomes available in Photos o just move on to PS, Pixelmator, C1, etc., when we have finally had it with force quitting and restarting.

Aperture 3, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jul 30, 2014 10:07 AM

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15 replies

Jul 30, 2014 10:19 AM in response to DesertSage39

I am using Aperture 3.5.1 with OS X Mavericks (10.9.4) on three different Macs, without any memory leak problems at all:

  • MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), 2.4 GHz i7, 16GB, 500GB SSD,1TB HD
  • iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), 2,7 GHz i5, 12GB RAM,1 TBHD
  • MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011), 2.2GHz i7, 16GB 1333MHzDDR3 1TB HD


If you are still experiencing problems, these might be specific for certain architectures. So, if someone answers, it would be good to include details about the architecture.

Jul 30, 2014 11:56 AM in response to DesertSage39

  1. 2009 iMac 21.5 12gb 10.9.4 3.5.1
  2. MBP 2011 4gb 10.9.4 3.5.1


No problems on either machine (though the MBP is a bit sluggish with only 4gb)


You haven't given us a lot to go on, no mention of when the problem started or how it presents itself. That and the tone of your post leads me to believe you are not really interested in pursuing the issue. Apple has stated that they will support Aperture at least through Yosemite. If you don't think that is happening thne it might be time for you to move on. No sense staying with software you are not comfortable with, at least I know I wouldn't.


regards

Jul 30, 2014 2:49 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Well, so far two people have assured me that there is no problem, yet I continue to encounter the examples attached. Frank comes to the easily understandable conclusion that I am not interested in solving this problem when in truth I am skeptical that it will be resolved.The reason for skepticism can be found in the previous posts relating to this issue and listed at the bottom of this page.


The history of my problems is relatively short. I found Aperture to be quite satisfactory for routine DAM tasks in my life as a prosumer photographer with the emphasis on ...sumer. Lots of great Nikon gear with an occasional great picture. When Apple announced that Aperture would be discontinued, I thought it would be wise to tidy up my library of 20K slides I had scanned into Aperture. So the heavy duty editing-cleaning began about three weeks ago and that is when I first encountered the experiences documented in the attached screen shots. I can edit 3 or 4 slides before getting the Aperture is not responding message. Force quitting and restarting allows this process to continue. So the question remains; what is the problem and is there a solution? Frank? Anyone?User uploaded fileUser uploaded file

Jul 30, 2014 3:05 PM in response to DesertSage39

To be honest nothing in your bottom screen shot indicates a problem. The system has dome no swapping, the memory pressure is almost 0 and the amount of memory compressed is also not an issue.


Aperture (or any program) can be showed as Not responding by Activity Monitor for a number of reasons, they usually don't mean that there is anything wrong.


I would reboot the system, open Aperture and open Aperture's Activity window then start the task that you feel caused the problem, this may show what Aperture is doing and lead to some conclusion. It might be as simple as a corrupted master.


Also before running Aperture do a Library repair.


BTW are there videos in the Aperture library? Aperture does seem sensitive to bad video files, more so then image files.


regards

Jul 30, 2014 4:50 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

OK, the numbers show there is no problem yet that white retouch spot in the image above the activity monitor screen shot is frozen and won't move in response to the keyboard or mouse; so could it not be more than just a Not responding Message in the Activity Monitor. As for your other suggestions, they have all been tried to no avail. The library has not only been repaired but when that made no difference I rebuilt it overnight with the same result. I've lost track of the number of system reboots I have done in response to this problem. There are no videos in this Aperture library. I see that the physical, virtual. and swapped memories are all within nominal range yet the application still hangs (49 times according to the Aperture activity monitor). I appreciate all the help and suggestions but perhaps we have reached the dead end of this path as I feared in my first post relating to this phenomenon; reminds me of the tale from Harvard Med where the docs went around complaining that the guy's numbers were all perfect but he still died. In the meanwhile I am trying to become passably facile in Pixelmator.

Thanks again....

Jul 30, 2014 6:30 PM in response to DesertSage39

I appreciate all the help and suggestions but perhaps we have reached the dead end of this path as I feared in my first post relating to this phenomenon

As you have already made up your mind on this issue, as I suggested in my first post, I will leave this thread. No sense wasting anymore of my time.


As I wrote above you should look for an Aperture replacement, no sense making yourself miserable using software you do not like from a company you feel has abandoned you.


regards

Jul 30, 2014 9:00 PM in response to léonie

Leonie, the slides are all in jpeg scanned on an Epson Perfection VPro750 and ranging from1 to maybe 3 MB in size. The thing that surprises me is that I had not encountered this problem until recently despite the fact that I had previously worked on editing-cleaning up some of these images without a problem. Clearly, Aperture is nearing the end of its life span and we will all have to move on and I am prepared to do so. I would just like to be in a position to export "clean" images from my 38GB library to whatever software I end up with. That is what brought me to this site and the links posted below with the hope that there was some fix to make the transition to the next stage more efficient. The only addition to my system in the last year other than the regular Apple updates is the most recent version of Pixelmator. Frank clearly has no answers other than denying the existence of a problem but I am still hoping that someone in this community has encountered a similar experience and been successful in resolving it.

Jul 31, 2014 2:11 AM in response to DesertSage39

Have you tested in a different user account, with a new Aperture library, all system preferences set to default? This will tell you, if Aperture is having a system wide problem or only having issues in your account.


If it is system wide, check for hardware trouble or incompatible system additions. Etrecheck will help you track down incompatible software.


Aperture may have a bug, causing your problems, but you cannot be sure of this, until you have done a thorough trouble shooting, more than you already have done. If problems happen directly after an update, it is natural to blame the update for the problems, but it may be a coincidence. Or the update may be exposing problems that have been there all along, unnoticed.

See this article: http://www.thesafemac.com/understanding-upgrade-nightmares/

Jul 31, 2014 6:21 AM in response to DesertSage39

Just so this won't be a total waste of my time, here try to learn something.

yet the application still hangs (49 times according to the Aperture activity monitor).


From http://lists.apple.com/archives/unix-porting/2005/Oct/msg00032.html

"not responding" means that the application is currently "hung".

"recent hangs" is the count of times the application was not responding, but then became responsive again.



ActivityMonitor sends "ping" AppleEvents to processes to determine if they are hung. If they respond to the event, then they are not hung. If they fail to respond to the event, then they are considered to be in a "Not Responding" state, and for each transition from "Responding" to "Not Responding" that it sees counts as a "hang" of the application.



Normally, an application will be written in such a way that it will at least *periodically* check for AppleEvents, even if it tends to call from an event from CFRunLoop into a long involved process.You can get false positives on a "Not Responding" (the same situation that gets the busy cursor on an application in the GUI, FWIW) if an application does a huge amount of work in something called from CFRunLoop.


You have a problem, not Aperture not Apple. That problem is not a 'memory leak' as is obvious from your Activity report or any other buzzword you've picked up on the net trying to sound impressive.


I gave you a few steps to start the troubleshooting process, you choose to ignore those and instead come back here and make disparaging comments about me.


During the over 35 years I was doing this for a living I had to put up with people like yourself, now that I do this on a volunteer basics I don;t have to.


regards

Jul 31, 2014 8:07 AM in response to léonie

Leonie, Thanks for the suggestion of pursuing this problem in a different account and library which I shall try in a couple of weeks after retuning from a scheduled vacation trip. In the meanwhile maybe you can direct me to a site that would detail the steps of the trouble shooting sequence. I shall try to educate myself more while on the road and return to this task with a broadened perspective. Don't really mean to irritate Frank with my responses employing jargon picked up on the web sites but when somebody talks about a problem that resembles one that I am dealing with there is a tendency to repeat the phrase. My bad!

Jul 31, 2014 8:27 AM in response to DesertSage39

In the meanwhile maybe you can direct me to a site that would detail the steps of the trouble shooting sequence. I

Start with Frank Caggiano's advice in the first post - find out, what Aperture is actually doing by keeping Aperture's Activity window open.


If that does not give you any clue, which processes are running, test with a different Aperture library.


To check, if a problem is system wide or only occurs because of settings in your User account, see this knowledge base article:


Isolating an issue by using another user account http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4053


If everything works in a new account, troubleshoot your account settings as described here:


Aperture 3: Troubleshooting Basics


If the problem appears to be system wide, check for incompatible software, duplicate fonts, plug-ins - all system modifications you may have installed. Etrecheck, the tool I linked to, can help with that.

Aperture 3.5.1 and OSX 10.9.4 memory issue

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