After High Sierra update WindowServer High Ram Usage

Do you have Activity Monitor set to show "ALL" processes? I see WindowServer via my Activity Monitor.

Have done a reboot? I'm guessing maybe you have, but I need to ask the question.

Does the problem happen if you boot into Safe mode?

<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564>

This will not load any 3rd party additions, it will load some more conservative Apple drivers (may cause screen flicker), and it will clear some kernel caches (a cache is saved data in a form that can speed up a program, but is totally redundant to the original source, and thus can be safely cleared). Booting into Safe mode is just an experiment, but can often times eliminate any 3rd party interference, or a cached item out-of-sync with the world.

Please post the EtreCheck output as a "Reply" to this thread

<https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6174> or <https://etrecheck.com>

Use the EtreCheck "Share" button to "Copy Report" (See the image below)

And then Paste in a "Reply" to this thread.

If, AND ONLY IF, you get the error:

"The message contains invalid characters"

then try posting to PasteBin.com, and give us a PasteBin URL link.

<http://pastebin.com/>

.

EtreCheck is a tool that helps Apple Support Community volunteers debug problems without any access to the troubled computers. Debugging problems can be a difficult task even when the machine is in front of you. Attempting it via a discussion forum is extremely difficult. EtreCheck is a great help that regards.

The bug's been triggered when using not "default" but "scaled" screen resolution.

It's been fixed in 10.13.1 (which is beta 2 of now).

You'd need "to enrol your mac to beta testing program" to download it from Apple.

P. S. Apple's stuff don't read this forum.

I'm also experiencing the same problem. My screen resolution is scaled. I noticed that if you forced quit the WindowServer it will log you off and clear the memory usage.

MBP: 2015" - Intel Iris Pro

If anyone knows why this is happening please let me know!. =]

iPoige wrote:

There's little to none sense in reporting bugs to Apple. At least not with theirs support center. It's a waste of time. Apple didn't do any good job with quality testing before they released High Sierra but current state of things with theirs support is even worse. You typically can get of a better quality help from open source (and free of charge) software developers/communities.

If no one wants to tell the developers there is a problem, of course the developers will not fix anything.

I've been a software developer since the '70's. I have never found the developers are able to image all the situations a customer will use the software being developed, and as a result the best fixes occurred because a customer filed a bug.

When you signed up for the beta, you were given instructions on how to report problems. You should use it, so there is a chance someone will look into and address the issues you've found.

Or you can use the bug reporting system

BugReporter (Free ADC (Apple Developer Connection)) account needed for BugReporter

<http://bugreporter.apple.com>

Anyone can get a free ADC account at:

<https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action>

But at the moment, you system is to stand on the corner and tell passes by, hoping it will eventually get back to the right person at Apple. Because everyone participating in these forums are just users like you, which no more ability to change the software than you.

PS. If you prefer open source, it is possible to install a Linux distribution as the booting operating system on your Mac, so you can at least continue to use the hardware. I use multiple Linux systems at work on a daily basis, so I do not have anything against Linux.

You really don't understand how stuff works in OS X. The memory manager takes over almost all available memory in order to make managing it more efficient. Your window server may use a lot of memory if you have a lot of open windows and apps. By itself, one can't say if it's a problem. From what you have posted it all looks just fine.

Wish you had, then I could have had you post info from Activity Monitor, but you chose Bob's reply even though it isn't a solution to your problem. Sorry I couldn't help you enough, but I did need more info were you willing not to be so niggardly with it.

I do not see anything that is totally evil, but with High Sierra being new, it is a little early to tell if some previously useful 3rd party additions have tripped over a change in High Sierra that causes trouble.

NOTE: Booting into Safe does clear some kernel caches, which could result in a cure. Or just a reboot did it.

Hopefully, doing a normal boot stays stable.

Yeah, this is exactly a blunder Apple made.

And even worse — memory doesn't get freed if you'd close all video RAM demanding apps (such as Chrome and so on). Note — it'd get freed with El Capitan. It's no more the case with HighSierra.

Currently I'm seeing 7 GB of swap in use and 43.38 GB of "Memory" (I suppose it's VSS they call so in Activity Monitor) — and all this after I closed all memory hogs. Previously it would almost fully release swap and would deflate WindowServer's memory use as well significantly.

Stay away from HighSierra if you're heavy video RAM user. You'd be forced to reboot or at least terminate your session to get resources back with it until they fix it.

Also note it's not possible to preload shared library to WindowServer process (worked with El Capitan), so one can't preload some modern memory allocator to see if it's not a leak but fragmentation issue instead.

Same problem here, occurs when I use the "More Space" setting in Display preferences (with "Default" setting it doesn't use abnormal amount of RAM), seems like a memory leak. Reboot is only way to reset the WindowServer RAM-usage.

UPDATE:

I tried using onyx to clear cache, I tried resetting PRAM & SMC, and booting in safe mode, I reinstalled the OSX and also formatted my computer and installed a fresh copy of High Sierra and the problem persisted.

My current test: changed the screen resolution to default, restarted the computer and reset the PRAM (waited 2 chimes). So far the memory has been stabled at 68.8 mb (after opening safari and full screen youtube videos).

Conclusion: for what I've tested, this is indeed a problem using small text (more space) screen resolution with retina display.

PS: I contacted apple via phone service and they don't have a concrete answer for this problem neither. The specialist suggested to reset PRAM and reinstall OSX without formatting. But these steps wont fix the problem. also suggested to bring the computer to an apple store but this seems to be a software problem.

I think the same thing happened a few years ago with another macOS update, same issue scaled resolution and it would hang after a while. I think it was macOS 10.9 or 10.10 that had the same/similar bug.

For me on macOS 10.13 the hang does not happen with the Intel GPU, only the NVIDA GPU, I also see high RAM usage for Windows Server. The lock up seems to happen with the NVIDA GPU being used and the GPU RAM gets near full (might be from WindowServer). A force shut down and I can boot back up fine. Not seen the hang using default resolution so far.

SauloArruda wrote:

I've updated to 10.13.1 and windowserver process stop leaking memory. But, now kernel_task is leaking memory. Oh man... =(

Have you filed a bug with Apple? After all running the beta versions is so you can discover all the things that still need to be fixed, so that the rest of us do not experience them.