Resolved Safari causing Swap Memory by itself. How do I fix this?

[Michael Goff]

I have 8gb of RAM on my 2015 rMBP. I noticed that I have memory issues almost as soon as I open up Safari. I have a grand total of 14 tabs open, in case anyone was wondering. I'm going to be putting up two screenshots, one of the activity monitor and one where you can see the tabs themselves. I was wondering if there's a way to stop this from being an issue.

Or is it not an issue? I just didn't notice this on my MBA when I had it.

 

[aristobrat]

Memory Pressure is solid green. What issues is your rMBP having?

 

[Michael Goff]

Memory Pressure is solid green. What issues is your rMBP having?

Some Safari lag when switching between windows, and sometimes tabs. Also, you can definitely tell when I open or close Safari because it just kind of sits there for a few seconds before slowly pulling up the each window. :\

 

[simonsi]

Memory is well in the green and you have 3GB spare, whatever it is, it isn't a memory issue. Post the CPU tab as well.

 

[spikie]

I had crazy RAM usage by Safari on my machine earlier, easily going above 3GB+, and while the memory pressure stayed green the whole time the machine was practically unusable, slow, unresponsive and was swapping above 1GB.

I had this problem only on the main user account. Try to create a new user account and see if you still have the same problem.
On a fresh account everything worked very well for me, no crazy RAM usage. I deleted the Safari files from the main account, deleted extensions, removed everything related to Safari but the problem still persisted.

You might want to try the suggestions I got in my thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1853140/

Unfortunately I could not figure out what was causing my issue, but I reinstalled Yosemite and everything is perfect now, Safari doesn't eat my RAM at all.

While the memory pressure indicator is very useful, you can't swear by it. It is buggy, it can show green but the computer will still be swapping and be unresponsive.

 

[Michael Goff]

Memory is well in the green and you have 3GB spare, whatever it is, it isn't a memory issue. Post the CPU tab as well.

Here

I had crazy RAM usage by Safari on my machine earlier, easily going above 3GB+, and while the memory pressure stayed green the whole time the machine was practically unusable, slow, unresponsive and was swapping above 1GB.

I had this problem only on the main user account. Try to create a new user account and see if you still have the same problem.
On a fresh account everything worked very well for me, no crazy RAM usage. I deleted the Safari files from the main account, deleted extensions, removed everything related to Safari but the problem still persisted.

You might want to try the suggestions I got in my thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1853140/

Unfortunately I could not figure out what was causing my issue, but I reinstalled Yosemite and everything is perfect now, Safari doesn't eat my RAM at all.

While the memory pressure indicator is very useful, you can't swear by it. It is buggy, it can show green but the computer will still be swapping and be unresponsive.

Will do. Thanks.

 

[simonsi]

Some Safari lag when switching between windows, and sometimes tabs. Also, you can definitely tell when I open or close Safari because it just kind of sits there for a few seconds before slowly pulling up the each window. :\

Well you dont have an overall cpu or memory issue that I can see, how is your internet connection, I suspect the issue might be there, or with the websites that are being loaded.

 

[Michael Goff]

Well you dont have an overall cpu or memory issue that I can see, how is your internet connection, I suspect the issue might be there, or with the websites that are being loaded.

I have a 50mbps connection. I just downloaded a 940mb update in less than two minutes. My connection is not an issue. As for the websites, I don't know of one that is taking up a lot of RAM aside from occasional 600mb use by YouTube when I watch a video.

 

[Michael Goff]

There's still some lag, but it's looking like the Swap Issue might be fixed with the most recent beta of 10.10.4. And yet Safari is still the same version. Also, it is still gobbling RAM like it's nobody's business.

 

[simonsi]

There's still some lag, but it's looking like the Swap Issue might be fixed with the most recent beta of 10.10.4. And yet Safari is still the same version. Also, it is still gobbling RAM like it's nobody's business.

Then I think you should reinstall the OS and see if that improves matters, it has in other cases and this doesn't seem to be a fundamental issue with either 10.10.3 or Safari, so if the is a chance of an install-specific issue this will likely straighten it out.

Do you have any Safari extensions? Have you tried disabling them?

 

[Michael Goff]

Then I think you should reinstall the OS and see if that improves matters, it has in other cases and this doesn't seem to be a fundamental issue with either 10.10.3 or Safari, so if the is a chance of an install-specific issue this will likely straighten it out.

Do you have any Safari extensions? Have you tried disabling them?

I have one single extension, and it's ClicktoFlash. I actually moved to WebKit Nightly and ... surprise, RAM use is down and it's more responsive than ever.