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High Sierra on Mid 2014 MBPR exhibits GPU memory leak with external displays

Hi,


I've been struggling with this particular issue since upgrading to High Sierra on my MBPR mid-2014. It has Nvidia GeForce GT 750M 2GB graphics with the built-in Iris Pro 1536.


I have two locations where I use (mostly) the same external display configuration. At home, I have one Apple 27" Cinema Display and one Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display. At work, I have two Apple 27" Cinema Displays. In either case, the displays are connected directly to both ports on the MBPR.


What happens is the GPU memory graph in iStat Menus shows a steady increase in utilization (right now sitting at 92%). At some point the system starts responding very slowly, and if not caught soon enough, it will become completely unresponsive (mouse pointer still works, but that's it) with the fans going full speed. If I were to leave it, the heat coming out of the exhaust would always be hot, so I know the system is still working under whatever conditions caused it to lock up in the first place, and it just can't free itself from it.


If caught early enough, I'm able to do one of four things (aside from force power-down) to free up video memory and restore the system to normal.


1. Close some Safari windows.


2. Quit Safari all together.


3. Disconnect any one of the external displays in either of the two locations.


4. Change the screen resolution on any one of the external displays in either of the two locations.


The external displays and Safari would seem to be the two lowest common denominators. I haven't noticed this issue without the external displays connected, but that's not my common workflow, so it's not something I can test without disrupting my work day. However, I will be able to test this today because it's appropriate to do so. Even though manipulating Safari frees up GPU memory, I'm not 100% sure if it's the root cause, but because I use it more than anything else (right now I have 20 tabs open across three separate full screen windows) I don't have an appropriate comparative benchmark. That said, I will test again using Chrome and perhaps Firefox. I think I tested Chrome before, and it had eventually produced the same results, alas.


With regards to Safari, I have no extensions enabled. Flash and Java plugins are not installed either. So I think things are pretty bare-bones, and not obviously plug-in related, at least in that regard. I have verified that closing a simple widow with only text frees up memory, so it doesn't seem to be directly related to the number of images or whether those images are static or dynamic, or HTML5 video ads (**** things!) that may be playing off in the background somewhere.


I have tried to erase my machine and restore from backup without being able to resolve the issue. I don't know enough about where preferences files are stored in the system relating to displays or GPU or whatever, so I don't know how to delete those. Pointers welcomed!


Aside from testing further using a non-Safari browser, and deleting any preference files anyone here might recommend, I could try with only a single display connected. It's little intrusive to my workflow, but admittedly I haven't tried this yet and it seems appropriate to do so.


Do these issues resonate with anyone? Any ideas?


Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13), 15" Mid 2014 i7 2.8 16GB 1TB

Posted on Nov 7, 2017 5:37 AM

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9 replies

Nov 7, 2017 6:10 AM in response to Jason Lixfeld

So I just troubleshot this issue again, and here are some interesting, sequential metrics:


GPU @ 89% with everything closed except for my 20 Safari tabs across three full screen windows

GPU @ 57% after closing Safari

GPU @ 14% after disconnecting a external display

GPU @ 0% after disconnecting the second external display and running only off the MBPR display


So while Safari is contributing, the majority of the memory is freed by disconnecting the external displays. Anyone know if there are any preference files I can start deleting?


One other thing I didn't mention in my initial post (why can't I edit my posts?) is that I tried to reset NVRAM and SMC as a troubleshooting step as well.


Thanks!

Nov 8, 2017 1:06 AM in response to Jason Lixfeld

I experienced similar issues. Even my setup is very comparable: Mid-2014 rMBP with dGPU, and an external 4k display (Dell UP2414Q). I don't have iStats installed, but I did find it closely related to GPU: first it only happens when my external monitor is connected; second, I tried to disable/enable the automatic switch of discrete/integrated GPU, sometimes it could make it better, but sometimes not.


I'm also having 'Sleep Wake Failure' very frequently at High Sierra. Now I'm back to 10.12.6. Hopefully this will be fixed.

Nov 14, 2017 4:08 PM in response to Jason Lixfeld

I noticed this as well, on a 2012 rMBP and filed a bug report with Apple. They haven't offered much other than asking me if it's still a problem on each successive 10.13.2 beta build (which it has been so far), and to provide a sysdiagnose each time.


This is with a 24" LED Cinema Display from 2010.


I don't run many GPU-heavy applications, thankfully but it's still causing many dropped frames in system animations and so forth.

High Sierra on Mid 2014 MBPR exhibits GPU memory leak with external displays

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