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CMMChris

macrumors 6502a
Oct 28, 2019
850
794
Germany (Bavaria)
Steam was running, Outlook was running, I was surfing around the web and YouTube was running in a background tab. Nothing that I didn't do yesterday as well and back then it did not happen and I did not reboot since then. Was working the whole day with the machine and now on late evening it kicked in. For me it usually happens every couple of days and there is no way I can trigger this issue. It's just random.
 

mick2

macrumors 6502
Oct 5, 2017
251
237
UK
Steam was running, Outlook was running, I was surfing around the web and YouTube was running in a background tab. Nothing that I didn't do yesterday as well and back then it did not happen and I did not reboot since then. Was working the whole day with the machine and now on late evening it kicked in. For me it usually happens every couple of days and there is no way I can trigger this issue. It's just random.
Just to add my $0.02...base MBPro 14, Monterey 12.1...I've been experiencing the same memory leaks / high CPU from wondowserver since I got the machine.

My experience is like yours; happens approx every 2-3 days, seemingly at random. The one possible constant I have is that I can usually trigger it when watching eg Netflix streaming full screen using Firefox (v 95.01). I don't think it's limited to Netflix, and it hasnt occurred so far doing the same with Safari.

Will test again later and try @SpecMode 's spindump if the mem leak occurs again. Another data point to throw into the mix...
 

jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
In the spindump file, you have a header section that provides an overview for the report, and below that is a (very long) list of processes and thread data (most of which can be safely ignored if you're not the one actually debugging the issue).

What you're looking for is the top line for the thread being used by "com.apple.skylight.stats" (just search for it in the file, it should only be in there once); the "cpu time" value should be near the end of that line, and you're checking for the amount of time reported in seconds.
I've just redownloaded the spindump file from feedback assistant lol. Yep you're right
 

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jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
Just to add my $0.02...base MBPro 14, Monterey 12.1...I've been experiencing the same memory leaks / high CPU from wondowserver since I got the machine.

My experience is like yours; happens approx every 2-3 days, seemingly at random. The one possible constant I have is that I can usually trigger it when watching eg Netflix streaming full screen using Firefox (v 95.01). I don't think it's limited to Netflix, and it hasnt occurred so far doing the same with Safari.

Will test again later and try @SpecMode 's spindump if the mem leak occurs again. Another data point to throw into the mix...
It first happened to me when I was watching YouTube or Netflix on Chrome. Interesting.
 
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SpecMode

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2007
385
744
NorCal
Finally had this happen again after watching Activity Monitor almost hourly for the last few days — of course, it was while the machine was closed and (supposedly) sleeping. At least this time I remembered to grab a sysdiagnose along with the spindump so I could submit my own feedback against 12.2 (21D5025f); let's see if Apple does anything about these after the holidays.
 

jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
I had it happen today. Still going. Started watching disney plus via chrome. Maybe it's a HDR thing? Like that bug that I read was causing panics when these first came out?
Will test with lower quality video.
Now to leave my MBP awake overnight to stop this process from draining my cpu
 

mick2

macrumors 6502
Oct 5, 2017
251
237
UK
I had it happen today. Still going. Started watching disney plus via chrome. Maybe it's a HDR thing? Like that bug that I read was causing panics when these first came out?
Will test with lower quality video.
Now to leave my MBP awake overnight to stop this process from draining my cpu
After rebooting to clear the leak, try watching exactly the same thing under Safari, if possible. When I did this on Netflix, the leak didnt reoccur.
 
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zarathu

macrumors 6502a
May 14, 2003
650
361
You, like me and almost everyone who uses Monterey,. has the dreaded memory leak bug. Apple will fix it eventually.

Before then there is a simple temporary solution. Presumably you have several desktops on your mac. I have 11 at the moment. Go to one you don’t use often and open up Activity Monitor(its in your applications and on every mac). Leave it open all the time. Click on the column that tells you the use of memory by system processes and apps. Highlight(click on) any that look completely out of control, and then click on the little icon with the x in the middle of a circle. Choose force quit. If its an app it will quit and you will have to restart it. If its a process(weird names mostly) then it will quit but come back almost instantly in the small size it's supposed to be. For me about 15 minutes ago I noticed that the most common culprit, Control Center(which normally uses about 26 mb of memory) was slowly sucking more and was up to 144mb. Earlier this week I found it at 14 GB.

You can keep these little buggers from stealing memory by just keeping an eye on them. Be advised: if WindowServer is up at 1gb then its probably doing it too, and if you force quit that one, your screen will go black for about 5 seconds while the OS puts it back, and then you will have to type in your machine password again.



Hope this helps.
 
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jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
After rebooting to clear the leak, try watching exactly the same thing under Safari, if possible. When I did this on Netflix, the leak didnt reoccur.
the first time I had the problem rebooting didn't fix it. only thing that worked was not letting it sleep connected to power for a few hours. then rebooted to clear the excess memory.
will test via safari and see if it's fine, then if nothing see if it's caused by hdr content on chrome. i belive normal hd content i've played on chrome has been fine
edit: no I was wrong, it's not to do with hdr content (just happened playing something just HD on prime video on chrome)
So I will be testing via safari from now on
 
Last edited:
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jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
You, like me and almost everyone who uses Monterey,. has the dreaded memory leak bug. Apple will fix it eventually.

Before then there is a simple temporary solution. Presumably you have several desktops on your mac. I have 11 at the moment. Go to one you don’t use often and open up Activity Monitor(its in your applications and on every mac). Leave it open all the time. Click on the column that tells you the use of memory by system processes and apps. Highlight(click on) any that look completely out of control, and then click on the little icon with the x in the middle of a circle. Choose force quit. If its an app it will quit and you will have to restart it. If its a process(weird names mostly) then it will quit but come back almost instantly in the small size it's supposed to be. For me about 15 minutes ago I noticed that the most common culprit, Control Center(which normally uses about 26 mb of memory) was slowly sucking more and was up to 144mb. Earlier this week I found it at 14 GB.

You can keep these little buggers from stealing memory by just keeping an eye on them. Be advised: if WindowServer is up at 1gb then its probably doing it too, and if you force quit that one, your screen will go black for about 5 seconds while the OS puts it back, and then you will have to type in your machine password again.



Hope this helps.
when we have this bug on the new mbp this is only a temporary fix. it starts happening again
 

Seanm87

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 10, 2014
2,208
4,406
My MacBook now decides to start shutting down when battery life is between 20-30%.

I had no problems before 12.1. How on earth does apple let these bugs get through QC?
 

jezbd1997

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2015
949
1,284
Melbourne - Australia
My MacBook now decides to start shutting down when battery life is between 20-30%.

I had no problems before 12.1. How on earth does apple let these bugs get through QC?
i would return my macbook if that happened to me. that’s not been an issue for me. but yes bad qc. i have considered returning due to the bug in this thread but it may not be an issue via safari
 
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