HT203161: Isolating issues in Mac OS X

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Q: My Mac freezes constantly. Says memory is full.  Color wheel spins constantly.

All memory slots are currently in use

OS X Yosemite10.10.5 (14F1605)

Computer freezes/unable to reboot

Can only turn off computer on power button

MacBook Pro (17-inch Mid 2010), OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Is my memory full

Posted on Mar 19, 2016 7:33 PM

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Q: My Mac freezes constantly. Says memory is full.  Color wheel spins constantly.

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  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Mar 20, 2016 4:20 AM in response to passworddrowssap
    Level 9 (52,101 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 20, 2016 4:20 AM in response to passworddrowssap
  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Mar 20, 2016 5:41 AM in response to passworddrowssap
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Mar 20, 2016 5:41 AM in response to passworddrowssap

    Step 1   

    The first step in dealing with a startup failure is to secure the data. If you want to preserve the contents of the startup drive, and you don't already have at least one current backup, you must try to back up now, before you do anything else. It may or may not be possible. If you don't care about the data that has changed since the last backup, you can skip this step.

    There are several ways to back up a Mac that is unable to start. You need an external hard drive to hold the backup data.

    a. Start up from the Recovery partition, or from a local Time Machine backup volume (option key at startup.) When the OS X Utilities screen appears, launch Disk Utility and follow the instructions in this support article, under “Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility.” The article refers to starting up from a DVD, but the procedure in Recovery mode is the same. You don't need a DVD if you're running OS X 10.7 or later. 

    b. If Step 1a fails because of disk errors, and no other Mac is available, then you may be able to salvage some of your files by copying them in the Finder. If you already have an external drive with OS X installed, start up from it. Otherwise, if you have Internet access, follow the instructions on this page to prepare the external drive and install OS X on it. You'll use the Recovery installer, rather than downloading it from the App Store.

    c. If you have access to a working Mac, and both it and the non-working Mac have FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, start the non-working Mac in target disk mode. Use the working Mac to copy the data to another drive. This technique won't work with USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.

    d. If the internal drive of the non-working Mac is user-replaceable, remove it and mount it in an external enclosure or drive dock. Use another Mac to copy the data.

    Step 2

    You might be able to start up in safe mode even though you can't start up normally. Otherwise, start up from an external drive, or else use the technique in Step 1b, 1c, or 1d to mount the internal drive and delete some files. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.

  • by BobHarris,

    BobHarris BobHarris Mar 20, 2016 6:57 AM in response to passworddrowssap
    Level 6 (19,272 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 20, 2016 6:57 AM in response to passworddrowssap

    The exact error message would be useful.

     

    If your disk storage is full, that may be different from say "Your System has run out of Application memory".

     

    Disk storage full may generate the "Your System has run out of Application memory" if the system cannot create any more /var/vm/swapfile(s) for virtual memory to be written to.

     

    And if you are out of Disk storage, the operating system cannot create logs, and other files it may need to operate.

     

    If you have lots of free disk storage, but are getting "Your System has run out of Applications memory", then this could indicate a process (or collection of processes) which has consumed too much virtual memory (sometimes this is caused by a condition known as an application memory leak).

     

    However, that situation would be reset by rebooting the system, and should NOT cause a problem booting your system.

     

    Absolutely follow ' instructions and protect your data, and try booting into Safe mode.