I see, I don't have Amazon video, can you try some Youtube videos to see if that has similar issue?
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WindowServer taking unholy amount of RAM in 10.13
- Thread starter Morgon
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I see, I don't have Amazon video, can you try some Youtube videos to see if that has similar issue?
It seems you are using Safari. I start the test now, report later.
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With both chrome, and safari, I'm seeing no more than 150 MB watching Amazon Prime (HD, 1080p)
(the browser instances are on the order of 700 meg for chrome, and 1.3 gig for Safari, but windowserver is comparatively tight.)
what video card do you have?
(the browser instances are on the order of 700 meg for chrome, and 1.3 gig for Safari, but windowserver is comparatively tight.)
what video card do you have?
Yes Safari. I remember someone mentioned using Chrome seems better for this, but I have abandoned Chrome on Mac for a long time.
Just ran 40min Youtube on Safari. Seems not a "hard" bug in 10.13. I can't reproduce that.
Before
After
I have been watching this thread since I first commented and I do not see any of what you are talking about. I just started 3 YouTube videos in 3 separate windows and my WindowServer memory usage went down. It started at 120 MB and dropped to 110 MB.
I do not doubt that some of you are experiencing an issue with WindowServer, but, you cannot jump to a simple conclusion that it is one thing or another.
Software is very complicated and effects in one area can have totally unexpected effects in other area’s.
Everyone here has disparate systems when it comes to both hardware and even more so with software.
Obviously I do not have a solution, but try to keep open minded when it comes to trying to pin it on a specific event or cause.
I am not being critical, just trying to help. Keep an open mind and try to find a common thread……..and I do not think that it is streaming video’s, as you seem to be focused on at the moment.
I do not doubt that some of you are experiencing an issue with WindowServer, but, you cannot jump to a simple conclusion that it is one thing or another.
Software is very complicated and effects in one area can have totally unexpected effects in other area’s.
Everyone here has disparate systems when it comes to both hardware and even more so with software.
Obviously I do not have a solution, but try to keep open minded when it comes to trying to pin it on a specific event or cause.
I am not being critical, just trying to help. Keep an open mind and try to find a common thread……..and I do not think that it is streaming video’s, as you seem to be focused on at the moment.
No, it's certainly not streaming video alone, but the issue does seem tied to windowing updates itself, which would include playing videos.
If I let things idle, just watching Activity Monitor, it doesn't go up much at all. If I start switching Virtual Desktops, I can accelerate the process. Playing a movie in Plex raises it further. About 3 MB increase every 6-7 seconds.
I've used my laptop all weekend for various things and I'm sitting at 19.13 GB Memory, 18GB Compressed (thus 1.13 'real' Mem). Unrelated, but equally annoying is my kernel_task is 4 GB 'real mem'.
If macOS is going to become a hog, it's high time they released some 32GB MBPs.
If I let things idle, just watching Activity Monitor, it doesn't go up much at all. If I start switching Virtual Desktops, I can accelerate the process. Playing a movie in Plex raises it further. About 3 MB increase every 6-7 seconds.
I've used my laptop all weekend for various things and I'm sitting at 19.13 GB Memory, 18GB Compressed (thus 1.13 'real' Mem). Unrelated, but equally annoying is my kernel_task is 4 GB 'real mem'.
If macOS is going to become a hog, it's high time they released some 32GB MBPs.
Over here: https://discussions.apple.com/message/32319643 someone noticed this might be related to retina display's pixel scaling setting. "default" setting seems to be fine (no memory leak from WindowServer), "more"/higher resolution results in leaking.
I have done a test and confirmed this finding: "default" resolution on my late 2013 rMBP 13'', Safari playing Youtube video for 45 minutes now, stays at 150MB. Yesterday on the "max resolution", it went from 100MB to 1.2GB in about the same period of time.
I have done a test and confirmed this finding: "default" resolution on my late 2013 rMBP 13'', Safari playing Youtube video for 45 minutes now, stays at 150MB. Yesterday on the "max resolution", it went from 100MB to 1.2GB in about the same period of time.
Cannot reproduce on my iMac(even at full 5k resolution, full screen). Probably related to Intel's graphics drivers; not AMD's.
Anecdotally, I can confirm this. I switched to 'Default' and played a movie (for about two minutes) to no rise in memory. Switched it back to where I had it (between 'Default' and 'More Space'), and in seconds it starts to rise again.
I get that they have the disclaimer "Using a scaled resolution may affect performance", but this is silly.
I'm up to 8 gigs here for the WindowServer in 3 hours of uptime on a 15" Mid 2015 Retina MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics running at (the majority of the time) a scaled resolution of 1680x1050.
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As far as I'm aware, the latest MacBook Pros even use a scaled resolution by default.
Just out of curiosity for those having this issue, is anyone running the 10.13.1 Public Beta?
I have too many windows open to install it right this sec, but would schedule some time if nobody else has tried; curious if it's something they may already know about.
I have too many windows open to install it right this sec, but would schedule some time if nobody else has tried; curious if it's something they may already know about.
Haven't tried it but may do so now as I'm still in the evaluation phase with High Sierra and this certainly won't do. My productive system will remain on Sierra for the time being.
So far so good. After more than an hour of testing on 10.13.1, the window server process remains comparatively well behaved (at ~160MB of memory used). Either I've yet to trigger the issue I was running into before or Apple might have already fixed it.
Is this a retina display and you have selected the "max" resolution?
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32GB MBP, that's a good speculation with this bug. Now that's not a bug, but a feature!
Yes, a Retina display. Not the maximum resolution but the one in between "Default" and "More Space". Same computer and settings as described in post #37. Running at (pixel doubled)1680x1050 for a good 5 hours now (on the public beta of 10.13.1) and window server RAM usage is hovering around 200MB currently. I can check whether 1920x1200 will make any difference.
How is it now that you've had a few more hours? The rise is seemingly slower, but I'm at 261MB RealMem where I was at about 200 after installing 10.13.1. Obviously more time is needed for me to really determine, but since you're ahead of me by a bit, wanted to see what your experience has been.
I had to shut the machine down a few hours later unfortunately, but everything still seemed fine at that point, with window server RAM usage only fluctuating at a low level within a narrow corridor, even at 1920x1200.
Your memory pressure is in the green. I say do not worry.
Swap can, and will, always be used depending on what software you have. There are a few programs out there that even my 128GB Windows 10 machine has some stuff going to swap. Here is a good explanation. https://serverfault.com/questions/796492/page-faults-with-128gb-ram
I can confirm that I am also having this issue after 'fresh installing' from Sierra to High Sierra on a MacBookPro10,1
Console.app constantly keeps reporting this:
com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds
Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
![72rjsO8.jpg]()
Console.app constantly keeps reporting this:
com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.preference.displays.MirrorDisplays): Service only ran for 0 seconds
Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Same thing here, including on 10.13.1. I don't think that's directly related to the window server memory issue though.
That was only because it was a relatively fresh reboot. I was already 4 GB in swap, which is not good, no matter what memory pressure claims. I normally leave my machine up for weeks at a time with development tools and Chrome tabs running. Not having a process consume 18GB is always a goal to strive for.
Just when I was getting a bit annoyed at my MBPs WindowServer gobbling up ~16GB of RAM and started looking for causes (YT and Plex videos) and hopefully solutions (set retina resolution to non-scaled), here they are, reliably as ever on macrumors.
Well done.
Well done.