Author Topic: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .  (Read 7764 times)

elagache

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OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« on: November 29, 2014, 10:58:40 PM »
Dear WeatherCat early adopters,

I upgraded to OS 10.10.1 last weekend and I was forced to reboot today because I was once more running out of memory.  Worse still, using the UNIX command line utility purge only freed up about 1/3 of the 6 GBs of inactive memory.  Since I believe purge, uses the same system calls that that various memory freer utilities are using, I believe that means none of the programs that you'all are using will nearly as effective as they once were.  Here is the graph of WeatherCat memory use just before I rebooted:



It appears to be growing much more slowly than before, but memory use isn't as steady as we were used to on Mountain Lion and earlier. 

So if your Mac running WeatherCat starts to behave strangely and you are running Yosemite, check memory use.  This might become a real pain for those who run WeatherCat on a dedicated machine because you may need to check in on it more often than usual.

Oh well, . . . . . .

Cheer, Edouard  [cheers1]

awilltx

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2014, 03:43:13 PM »
Edouard,

I don't believe I've experienced this sort of problem since upgrading to Yosemite, but I've only been looking at memory data from Activity Monitor and swap file usage from iStatMenu memory stats. The highest memory usage I have ever seen for WeatherCat is 530MB but it generally runs around 450-500MBs. Currently, the 'Cat on my machine has been up continuously for 6 days, 3 hours and is sitting at 496MB (via Activity Monitor) with 12 custom gauges open, CustomWeb and WU, CWOP, Weathercloud and PWS uploads running (if that counts for much in memory usage).

It appears you are running some sort of script to make your usage graph, so perhaps I could try that for comparison?

BTW, I'm on a late '12 iMac with 16GB.

Cheers, Alan

elagache

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Too many fires to fight (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2014, 09:47:24 PM »
Dear Alan and WeatherCat fans,

It appears you are running some sort of script to make your usage graph, so perhaps I could try that for comparison?

Yes, it is a modification of my WC Status Growler AppleScript.  I'd love to share it with you and everyone else, but I haven't had time to update the documentation and right now I'm having a desperate struggle keeping my station up and running. 

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1434.0;topicseen

I'll try to get to this, but for now it will have to wait.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

awilltx

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2014, 10:22:53 PM »
No hurries, and best of luck with your other, ahem, situation.

pbeaudet

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2014, 11:16:43 PM »
Yosemite uses a different memory management system. The Memory Pressure is best way to see if you are using too much. Memory usage should use close to your max installed ram. The leaking is Yosemite storing every little bit for later use.

However, if you see that a process is using 37 GB and you have only 16.....

I did have a process run amok with those numbers.

elagache

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Had to reboot again today. (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2014, 10:15:23 PM »
Dear WeatherCat memory "bailers." . . . .

Well, this morning I found my Mac with only about 100 MB of free RAM.  This gave me a chance to explore if some of my older applications might be misbehaving under Yosemite.  Alas, after quitting virtually everything - I still had very little free RAM.  The problem isn't with applications.  Running the purge command didn't help either, so this is a true OS memory leak. I logged out and logged back in and gave me 8 GB of free RAM.  So I suspect I still have this video memory leak problem that was supposed to be fixed by the Apple Support Forum procedure.  I'm going to repeat that procedure, but there were some really upset users who had not succeeded in extricating themselves by that procedure.  At the very least, Yosemite isn't as tolerant and trouble-free as earlier versions of OS X.

Oh well, . . . . .

Cheers, Edouard

Randall75

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2014, 10:56:11 PM »
Edouard
  Use that app I sent you it does work if it get below 3000 it will free it up I was having the same problem it is a Pro app


cheers


 [cheers1]


At least try it

elagache

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Fairly certain related to my Mac (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2014, 11:27:39 PM »
Dear Randall and WeatherCat Mac sysadmins,

  Use that app I sent you it does work if it get below 3000 it will free it up I was having the same problem it is a Pro app

If you check the reviews on places like MacUpdate, you'll see plenty or reviews pointing out that at least the Mavericks versions of these utilities do nothing more than the command line tool purge.  When I run purge, I only free up 1/3 of my inactive memory.  So there is clearly something else going on.  I think there are two possibilities: either I failed to zap the pram or the 10.10.1 update screwed up the pram once more.  Unfortunately, Apple wasn't very good about having a uniform way to zap the pram nor it is entirely clear when you have succeeded.  So it could be I went through that long protracted procedure only to fail on the last step.  I didn't have the time to go through all those loops today, but perhaps tomorrow.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

P.S. I am interested in these memory management utilities, but I don't want to install one until I'm sure my system is working properly.  I had to reboot twice because problems with TotalSpaces2, so Yosemite isn't exactly running seamlessly in my software ecosystem.

awilltx

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #8 on: December 07, 2014, 03:36:40 PM »
I recently reset the PRAM (Command+Option+P+R) on my iMac and have noticed a great improvement in WeatherCat memory usage (and other things such as iTunes and whatnot). Before the reset, I saw WeatherCat creeping up over 500MB of usage in the Activity Monitor after running for a few days, but it has been in the 410-430MB range after running for 3 days. Maybe this will help some?!

Cheers,
Alan

elagache

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Need to do this. (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2014, 10:21:34 PM »
Dear Alan and WeatherCat Mac system troubleshooters,

I recently reset the PRAM (Command+Option+P+R) on my iMac and have noticed a great improvement in WeatherCat memory usage (and other things such as iTunes and whatnot). Before the reset, I saw WeatherCat creeping up over 500MB of usage in the Activity Monitor after running for a few days, but it has been in the 410-430MB range after running for 3 days. Maybe this will help some?!

Yes, that is what the Apple Support thread that I posted earlier suggested along with a number of other procedures. 

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=1478.0

The trouble is that I tried to do that and still have memory issues.  My suspicion is that I failed to actually reset the PRAM.  For whatever perverse reason, Apple insisted on different PRAM reset procedures for MacBook Pros and it even varies by year of production.  I have a feeling I didn't find the correct procedure for my early 2011 MacBook Pro.

Oh well, something else for me to figure out . . . . .

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Randall75

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Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . .
« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2014, 11:49:32 PM »
Hi Edouard and WeatherCat Trouble Shooters
 I spent my Saturday yesterday at Apple with their techs for 1 hour running diagnostic on my imac and I learned a lot and one thing is the best way to zap pram to do it you must 1st shut done your mac then restart it then hold down control, command R and P for 2 start up chimes not a restart
Would love to have the diagnostic system they have there the worst thing was that it showed that I needed to do a clean install because of third party software had corrupted my system folder and library he said he could do it there but it might take longer than my 1 hour of free time then I would have to pay at $80.00 per hour  so I did it my self but they did transfer a bootable installer on to a usb thumb drive for me and to always put a clean system folder on a backup drive and have to replace mine if I start having trouble again


cheers


 [cheers1]

elagache

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Sorry for your troubles Randall (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #11 on: December 08, 2014, 09:08:27 PM »
Hi Randall and WeatherCat Mac troubleshooters,

I spent my Saturday yesterday at Apple with their techs for 1 hour running diagnostic on my imac and I learned a lot and one thing is the best way to zap pram to do it you must 1st shut done your mac then restart it then hold down control, command R and P for 2 start up chimes not a restart

I don't know why Apple didn't implement the same procedure for zapping the pram on the MacBooks as other Macs.  As I recall, the procedure I used appeared to do something - my MacBook didn't simply boot.  However, I've got memory "issuez" so it seems clear I didn't succeed.

Would love to have the diagnostic system they have there the worst thing was that it showed that I needed to do a clean install because of third party software had corrupted my system folder and library he said he could do it there but it might take longer than my 1 hour of free time then I would have to pay at $80.00 per hour  so I did it my self but they did transfer a bootable installer on to a usb thumb drive for me and to always put a clean system folder on a backup drive and have to replace mine if I start having trouble again

As far as I know, you can't restore a system by just copying the files.  I've been told you need to "clone" the system using one of the several utilities you can get to clone an OS X system.

I don't know if it is true or not, but I've always hoped I could recover from system corruption by using Time Machine.  I now have a Yosemite system on a partition of my Time Machine drive.  My plan was to if necessary boot on that system and then restore my main hard drive from there.  I'm not sure you can restore a time machine backup without some other software if you aren't booted on the drive that was doing the backup.

Oh well, . . . .

Cheers, Edouard

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Re: Sorry for your troubles Randall (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . . )
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2014, 10:39:55 PM »
I don't know if it is true or not, but I've always hoped I could recover from system corruption by using Time Machine.

I just did that very thing. You reinstall the operating system and take the option for setting up a new computer (rather than restoring from Time Machine). After you are installed and install all updates, you still don't go through Time Machine to restore because you run the risk of restoring whatever files were corrupt.

Instead, you connect to your Time Machine backups though your Finder. In other words, you connect to your backup drive through Finder and then simply drag and drop your data files from your backup to your local hard drive. I was even able to drag and drop some applications, like Office for Mac 2011 (I know I should be using Pages but its just not as capable as Word). I did have to have my Micro$oft Product Key but I ended up with a brand new installation and got rid of tonnes of legacy software files that no longer run on the OS X.
Blick


elagache

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Anybody use a Time Machine "helper?" (Re: OS 10.10.1 still leakin' . . . )
« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2014, 09:27:40 PM »
Dear Blick and WeatherCat OS X system administrators,

I just did that very thing. You reinstall the operating system and take the option for setting up a new computer (rather than restoring from Time Machine). After you are installed and install all updates, you till don't go through Time Machine to restore because you run the risk of restoring whatever files were corrupt.

Instead, you connect to your Time Machine backups though your Finder. In other words, you connect to your backup drive through Finder and then simply drag and drop your data files from your backup to your local hard drive. I was even able to drag and drop some applications, like Office for Mac 2011 (I know I should be using Pages but its just not as capable as Word). I did have to have my Micro$oft Product Key but I ended up with a brand new installation and got rid of tonnes of legacy software files that no longer run on the OS X.

I see your strategy, but it will be plenty tedious.  I've seen on MacUpdate a number of Time Machine "helper" applications that it would appear would make that job a bit easier.  I've wondered if any of those would be worthwhile having.  I think I need to upgrade my data recovery capability.  Next time Mac tools comes up for sale, I'd better snap it up.  OS X just isn't as bullet-proof has it has been in years past.

Anybody using one of those Time Machine "helpers?"

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]