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Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Guide: How to solve Yosemite memory leaks and CPU usage

I post this hoping to help those users who, like me, are experiencing high CPU usage and massive memory leaking with OS X core services and apps, leading to slow performance and battery drain.

I've tried everything mentioned, but found the right combination of steps to follow. I've tried this with seven different Apple computers, including mine, and has worked well so far. I applied this method yesterday to give these process a 24 hour window to fail again, so far everything good.

First step: disconnect any external or secondary monitors, if any is present. The video memory allocation leak can also happen if you have a system with an integrated card, like Intel, with no external monitors attached.

Second step: Shut down your machine and enter Safe Mode (press shift once you turn on your computer again, more info below). Once you're there, fix your disk permissions.

Guide of how to access Safe Mode: OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

Third step: From Safe Mode turn off your machine again and reset your System Management Controller (SMC). There are different methods, depending on machine, to do this. To know what method applies to yours read the following guide.

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Fourth step: Once your machine completes a full boot after resetting the SMC turn it off again and reset your PRAM (THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP, BUT THE PREVIOUS ONES ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THIS ONE TO WORK). The PRAM stores small bits of data that indicate our Apple computer how to interact with the devices connected to it, including monitors and video cards. It also affects software.

To reset it you should hold the OPTION, COMMAND, P and R keys in your keyboard immediately after turning on your machine again.You'll hear the start up chime, continue pressing the keys until the machine boots and the chime starts A SECOND TIME, then release. IF YOUR YOSEMITE INSTALLATION LOCKS UP AT A BLACK SCREEN AFTER THIS, DONT PANIC! It's normal, just turn off your computer and let it boot again.

More info about PRAM: OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM

Voila, reconnect your external displays and enjoy your system.

Message was edited by: Luis_Mercado

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 23, 2014 10:45 AM

557 replies

Oct 29, 2014 2:23 PM in response to Lauris_sp

We all have to remember that we're just guinea pigs...

Oct 29, 2014 2:30 PM in response to Luis_Mercado

After having connected my MBP 15 Retina to my HDTV via HDMI, my MBP started acting up: the startup Apple would suddenly change to a larger resolution and sometimes, when the Finder launched, the res was so high that only 20% of my screen was visible and and I had to restart. Had deleted any .plist file with the word Display in it but nogo. Followed your guide 100% and now everything is back to normal (or, perhaps, until I reconnect to my HDTV).

THANKS!

Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Oct 29, 2014 2:31 PM in response to Lauris_sp

Lauris, can you tell us what process seem to be the one causing the fans to spin?

Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Oct 29, 2014 2:33 PM in response to Gary Berkson

Gary, do remember that connecting external displays where part of the issue. Test this fix by plugin your TV back and report back 🙂

Oct 29, 2014 2:39 PM in response to Luis_Mercado

Of course. Simply being watching some stuff at youtube of facebook with mozilla firefox, and having opened some apps like mu Torrent and Mail. I'm not using my laptop for work, that is what worries me the most...

Oct 29, 2014 3:37 PM in response to Luis_Mercado

Will do sometime tomorrow and post the results. Until then, cross your fingers or make a sacrificial offering 😀

Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Oct 29, 2014 3:51 PM in response to Lauris_sp

Safari 8.0 is having some serious problems with flash. It's a reported bug. Sometimes my Safari is using near 2 gb of RAM and a lot of CPU.

Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Oct 29, 2014 3:51 PM in response to Gary Berkson

Gary, fingers crossed, sacrificial goat ready and waiting.

Luis_Mercado Author

Level 1

46 points

Oct 29, 2014 3:54 PM in response to Luis_Mercado

Wow, 5000 views.

Oct 29, 2014 4:03 PM in response to nlesh

I completely concur with Nlesh. As a sales exec of 25 years my motto to my clients is "I would never expect full price for partial service." The definition of anger is unmet expectations. The grand promises at WWDC aren't being delivered upon. Apple's development team has been dropping the ball I think. If Apple fixes it in a "timely fashion" then I'm good. I don't expect perfection Day 1 but I do expect a vendor to "OWN" their issues and make me whole -- I guess I'm spoiled by the Costco, Nordstrom, Mercedes Benz experience. Silence or blame-shifting is just veiled hubris.

I feel bad because I did not submit this bug nor report as suggested. Very much thankful for those of you who do. With over 50K employees at Apple and a culture that "eats it's own dog food," I have to believe there are thousands of Apple employees experiencing this issue. They must be communicating this internally. When Scott Forstal was ousted for refusing to sign the "public apology" from Tim Cook for the Apple Maps debacle, I found that interesting. I recently had lunch with an Apple Retail business leader and he provided a interesting contrast. In most companies, the sales execs are assets and everybody else is a liability. In stark contrast, enterprise reps at Apple that don't hit their quota get encouragement to "keep plugging away." However, when apps don't work as expected he said "developers get fired right-and-left." According to him, heads are rolling over iOS 8 and maybe that's the case over this issue too. Either way, I'm grateful for a forum like this with smart and responsive users providing interim fixes.

Oct 29, 2014 4:07 PM in response to Adamanitos

I have a call scheduled with apple support to talk about this issue, I'll mention this thread and report back if they offer any advice

Oct 29, 2014 6:38 PM in response to Luis_Mercado

Well, there's something really wrong at this side for sure. I followed your instructions but after resetting the PRAM once i hear the apple chime only half way and the computer turns off. Sometimes it does this again when i try to turn it on and it just ends turning on the third try. So, can't seem to try your fix all the way for some strange reason which doesn't seem very normal as i can't get to reset the PRAM twice. I'm still stuck with terrible graphic performance, choppy exposé and dock.

Any ideas?

ps. safe mode was terribly slow and with many graphic glitches when booting and logging in. when i mean slow i mean...almost frozen slowww. it only fixed one permission and it was related to some display file.

I'm on a late 2009 27 inch iMac with 6GB of ram and with a fried mini display port (maybe this is why?). Clean install. Turning transparencies off seems to help a bit but does not fix it for me.

Oct 30, 2014 3:27 AM in response to substance44

Can I ask, for people still getting this issue after trying the fix, how long does it take for your windowserver process to get high and start causing freezes / poor performance ... for us, our systems are freezing every 3 hours with the process at 70%

Oct 30, 2014 3:44 AM in response to Kevin Neal

Luckily ⚠ for me its just a single process (my own App) which causes the issue. It's just doing a permanent tiny icon update and after 3 hours or so WindowServer goes up to 10%. A simple reboot cures it. I thought I left that Windoze behind me >:-(

Oct 30, 2014 4:46 AM in response to ThomasKilian

Well that was a painful half hour on the phone to apple support, unfortunately the guy had no idea what a "WindowServer background process" was, he suggested I unplug it !! finally got him to understand it is part of OS X

Anyway he could only suggest that it was likely a 3rd party application and I should do a clean install on a partition and use the computer without installing anything else to see if the problem is still present. He wasn't really willing to accept it could be a bug in Yosemite (most likely)

So unless we can get to higher level support I guess its a waiting game for updates

Guide: How to solve Yosemite memory leaks and CPU usage