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12.2 eating more ram?
- Thread starter FreAk6767
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There has been a massive memory leak connected to the new feature of custom pointers. So it affected only those users who tried out that new feature. This memory leak has been fixed in 12.1, AFAIK.
There is another memory leak connected to the Spotlight search from the Finder app. It seems not to release the memory allocated for a search, so repeatedly searching from Finder, especially with large results, can cause trouble. It looks like this hasn't been addressed yet in neither 12.2 nor 12.3 beta. Spotlight searches from the menu bar seem not to cause such problems.
There are reports about more memory leaks, for example in Control Center and Facetime, but I haven't seen them confirmed yet.
So it may well be that you do not notice any problems if you happen not to use the affected apps or the affected functions within certain apps, or even if you do, but no too intensively (as with the search from Finder).
There is another memory leak connected to the Spotlight search from the Finder app. It seems not to release the memory allocated for a search, so repeatedly searching from Finder, especially with large results, can cause trouble. It looks like this hasn't been addressed yet in neither 12.2 nor 12.3 beta. Spotlight searches from the menu bar seem not to cause such problems.
There are reports about more memory leaks, for example in Control Center and Facetime, but I haven't seen them confirmed yet.
So it may well be that you do not notice any problems if you happen not to use the affected apps or the affected functions within certain apps, or even if you do, but no too intensively (as with the search from Finder).
High Sierra is quite frugal with RAM. I have systems on HS, Mojave, Big Sur and Monterey. RAM usage is higher with newer operating systems. The thing is that HS, Mojave and Big Sur are stable on RAM while it seems to go up on Monterey. I typically have to reboot for the WiFi bug about once a week though it's possible that the WiFi bug I see is actually a RAM bug.
High Sierra is pretty much EOL at this point. Every improvement that can be made, has been made. Monterey is barely out of beta and heaps of bugs are still being found. I'm sure its gonna bet better with optimization. Although most likely not for us with older macs case apple doesnt give a **** about optimization for anything beyond previous gen systems.
Between all the Electron crap apps and memory leak, it is turning out to be a weird transition. One has to use Web Apps for everything Meta related and Microsoft Teams.... from MS
Monterey is definitely doing something different when it comes to memory management.
I've got an M1 MacBook Pro and an M1 iMac that I use for day-to-day web development stuff. A few Safari tabs open, maybe Firefox if I need to test something, Transmit, Coda, Sequel Pro, MS Teams (eww) and a few Terminal windows.
On my older 4K Intel iMac with Mojave, memory usage would sit around 5-8 GB with that many applications open. The only time I'd get memory usage over 12 GB is if I opened a Windows 7 VM.
On my M1 Macs running Big Sur, memory usage would be about the same - 5-8 GB with those applications open.
On Monterey, both the M1 Macs are sitting around 10-12 GB with the same applications open.
I really don't like it.
I've got an M1 MacBook Pro and an M1 iMac that I use for day-to-day web development stuff. A few Safari tabs open, maybe Firefox if I need to test something, Transmit, Coda, Sequel Pro, MS Teams (eww) and a few Terminal windows.
On my older 4K Intel iMac with Mojave, memory usage would sit around 5-8 GB with that many applications open. The only time I'd get memory usage over 12 GB is if I opened a Windows 7 VM.
On my M1 Macs running Big Sur, memory usage would be about the same - 5-8 GB with those applications open.
On Monterey, both the M1 Macs are sitting around 10-12 GB with the same applications open.
I really don't like it.
Yeah it is troublesome, on a heavy day I only have 2GB-3GB left and.. I'm not running any VMs. I do have to say it's improved much more with the recent updates..
However take a look at my memory stats.. when I'm working from the couch, not even connected to my dual 4K monitors.
So yeah it does make me worried about the future and if I shouldn't have opted for the 32GB. Heck by the look of this I'll eventually have to upgrade by 2023 or something
Just to test, I rebooted both Macs and opened the exact same applications connected to exactly the same things - same browser tabs open, same database tables being browsed, same SSH connections. Everything the same.
Intel iMac running Mojave:
M1 iMac running Monterey:
When the M1 Macs first came out, a lot of people were saying "you only need 8GB, there's no need to upgrade to 16GB". If Monterey is the future of Mac OS, they're gonna regret that decision.
Intel iMac running Mojave:
M1 iMac running Monterey:
When the M1 Macs first came out, a lot of people were saying "you only need 8GB, there's no need to upgrade to 16GB". If Monterey is the future of Mac OS, they're gonna regret that decision.
I used Big Sur on an M1 mini (16 GB), and use Big Sur on an Intel iMac (32 GB), and Monterey on a 2021 MacBook Pro (32 GB). I have to reboot the MacBook Pro every couple of days. Big Sur on the M1 mini and Big Sur on the Intel Mac are stable on RAM and I ran a heavier workload on the mini and the Intel Mac. So, for me, the culprit is Monterey.
I had a lot of problems with Big Sur about a year ago and didn't start using it until summer 2021 and I found it surprisingly good. It just seems to take a while for Apple to get the bugs out of their operating system. It's a much bigger deal, though, with these really expensive MacBook Pros.
I do think that Apple Silicon uses more RAM if you're running Intel programs but RAM should be stable and not growing over time if it was strictly Intel programs causing leaks.
One of the earlier lists of applications was pretty impressive. A ton of Microsoft stuff - I can see that being a corporate standard for what you have to run for communications and work. Now add something like software development or other specialized programs and it looks to me like you really want 32 GB to be able to run all of that stuff comfortably. I'm a bit surprised at how big it has gotten - but maybe that's the tradeoff for remote work these days.
Take a look at my setup however connected to dual monitors... Window Server just gets crazy when connected to dual displays.
I originally bought the 2021 MacBook Pro 16 to drive three 4k displays. Then I later found out that I could only drive two. So, okay. And I ran into the memory leaks and then decided to just use it as a laptop because the RAM leaks were really bad and I had to reboot every two days. So I just use it as a laptop now and I got a couple of old iMac 27s, running older operating systems and this works for me. I could run Big Sur driving 2x4k without problems with 16 GB of RAM but can't on Monterey with 32 GB of RAM. I would run Big Sur on the 2021 MacBook Pro if it were possible.
You had a 32GB M1 Pro / M1 Max? Holy cow... Let's hope they sort this out.. I'm using 2x 4.2K Monitors
I don't have any issues per say right now but with 2GB left I can't really use a VM locally, thankfully I'm using VDI so I'm good.
However.. as you might imagine I'm worried about the future lol
I'm not worried as they will get it fixed eventually. But I have a hardware workaround. This kind of thing happens in transitions and you have to test to see if something works. Unfortunately, testing can be quite expensive if things don't quite work out as expected. If they don't work out, you have to find something that works until it gets fixed.
I have some strange issues, and I suspect they are connected to some memory problems. For example, today, Mail ceased to display the selected message list, or any search results. It kept displaying the inbox, no matter what I did. Quitting and restarting Mail would not help.
I logged off and on again, and after that, everything was back to normal.
I logged off and on again, and after that, everything was back to normal.
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My concern is I am now getting excellent ram performance but because I have cut most my apps to Native ARM apps.. either this is a waiting game alongside a general displeasure at some of the lazy coding and software practices going on such as electron or web based apps.
Maybe I’m completely wrong, but isn’t it so that M1 Macs share the same memory for CPU and graphics while Intel Macs use dedicated graphics memory? And wouldn’t that explain why memory usage of windowserver is much higher on M1 Mac when using multiple monitors?
Yep that's what it seems like, since it'a a unified arch in terms of RAM.
Honestly I keep thinking this is related to the Electron apps, doesn't make sense 16GB of shared memory can't support my workloads while using dual 4k monitors....
Today, I noticed that Mail had hogged over 8 GB of RAM. I quit and restarted it, now after 6 hours, it’s still at just 470 MB, which appears way more reasonable to me. Not sure what caused the enormous memory consumption.
It looks like one should logout and in again every few days to bring memory usage back to normal. This has never been the case with any of my Macs in the last 15 years.
I hope it’s only the new M1 architecture still being optimized (aka debugged).
It looks like one should logout and in again every few days to bring memory usage back to normal. This has never been the case with any of my Macs in the last 15 years.
I hope it’s only the new M1 architecture still being optimized (aka debugged).
I've had similar situation that I roughly day to day hang around in the same applications and noticed it creeping up and up and I wouldn't say any of them are very heavy.
The other day I had Blender running a render only using 2GB's of RAM and something ridiculous like an simple app was using 4!
The other day I had Blender running a render only using 2GB's of RAM and something ridiculous like an simple app was using 4!