WindowServer taking unholy amount of RAM in 10.13

[EugW]

Yeah about that, we are in 2019 and 16Gs of RAM is not enough.
Apple seems to follow the Microsoft/and many other currently big company's route,

"cannot make a good OS/software, so let's make a big/buggy/slow one. RAM/CPU/etc not enough, well no problem, user will buy new one (every 2 year, just to keep planned obsolescence), quality, well not an issue, they're still buying, who cares!!!!"​

I remember back in the early days of PC softwares were at least written with Backwards compatibility in mind, plus as memory efficient and fast as possibly can.

Today look at Ubuntu or other linux, they can make less resource hungry OS. I dunno for how long as there I see a trend toward the above a bit.

What do you guys think?

I think Linux still sucks on the desktop, for mainstream consumers. Even Chrome can be better, despite Chrome's significant limitations. (Chrome is based off Linux, but it is not Linux.)

The only two viable options for me are Windows 10 and macOS.

Yes, software can be bloated and slow on Windows 10 and macOS, but I'd rather have bloated and slow mainstream software with real support compared to half-assed knockoffs that have no support.

16 GB is more than fine for me on a laptop. On a desktop, I prefer more than 16 GB, but 24 GB is sufficient. Most of my apps aren't especially memory hungry though (at least if you exclude memory leaks).

Switched back to Sierra from a 'pretty clean, brew+terminal for most things' High Sierra last week.

Metal 2 on WindowServer has considerably slowed down my machine, even though it should technically be supported. (rMBP, Mid 2012)

Sierra and it’s general responsiveness feels super zippy by comparison.

I don’t miss High Sierra and I don’t think I’ll be upgrading until it’s absolutely necessary.

inb4 older hardware, lots of startup items etc.

I prefer High Sierra over Sierra and even on slow machines, I do not notice a significant difference in performance. However, I have 8 GB minimum on all my machines, including my machines from 2008-2009.

 

[v0rtex-]

Hello, I just want to add that I've got that windowserver "Memory leak" even on the 2021 MBP 16' M1 Max / 32gb / 32 core / 2TB. I've tried to diagnose the problem by running Monterey (12.0.1) on Safe Mode but after watching 1h30h of Netflix, the windowserver process went up to 18gb... Also I did not install much on my mac. I got it a week ago...

 

[h9826790]

Hello, I just want to add that I've got that windowserver "Memory leak" even on the 2021 MBP 16' M1 Max / 32gb / 32 core / 2TB. I've tried to diagnose the problem by running Monterey (12.0.1) on Safe Mode but after watching 1h30h of Netflix, the windowserver process went up to 18gb... Also I did not install much on my mac. I got it a week ago...

Are you using the native resolution? I suspect this is Hi-DPI related

 

[v0rtex-]

Are you using the native resolution? I suspect this is Hi-DPI related

Yes, I did not change any setting on the mac besides trackpad... Kinda wierd cuz from the box it had that problem. You think that after a complete reset its fixed or is it hardware? If its hardware I instantly go bring it back cuz 4309€ does hurt...

 

[h9826790]

Yes, I did not change any setting on the mac besides trackpad... Kinda wierd cuz from the box it had that problem. You think that after a complete reset its fixed or is it hardware? If its hardware I instantly go bring it back cuz 4309€ does hurt...

Highly likely just software issue. This kind of issue randomly pop up on different computers. If hardware (design fault), a particular group of computer should be greatly affected.

Anyway, apart from that number is high in activity monitor. Did you feel anything wrong?

From your screen capture, swap still zero, memory pressure still low. May be the OS is programmed to allow WindowServer use more RAM to speed up the OS itself (whenever there is any free RAM available). Especially the M1 share use the RAM for GPU as well. I suspect when you watching videos, macOS simply allow all data stored in the RAM as cache.

 

[v0rtex-]

Highly likely just software issue. This kind of issue randomly pop up on different computers. If hardware (design fault), a particular group of computer should be greatly affected.

Anyway, apart from that number is high in activity monitor. Did you feel anything wrong?

From your screen capture, swap still zero, memory pressure still low. May be the OS is programmed to allow WindowServer use more RAM to speed up the OS itself (whenever there is any free RAM available). Especially the M1 share use the RAM for GPU as well. I suspect when you watching videos, macOS simply allow all data stored in the RAM as cache.

I did notice freezes (thats why I opened Activity Monitor to check an saw the RAM usage). The freezes are brutal, the mouse stops moving the and vid stops... I guess 2 possiblities are open 1. I wait for a software update and hope that they will fix it. 2. I reset the mac and hope that the issue disappear.

 

[buzzman]

I already posted the windowserver problem in another thread. Did you find a solution for your problem @v0rtex- ?
Got my 14 inch Pro last week and see the same problem. Occasionally some freezing for a couple of seconds, then it runs smooth again.
windowserver sometime uses more RAM that my Macbook has (I have a 16GB model and it took up to 30GB of RAM) and the windowserver process takes up to 150% CPU.
I did not install a lot of thing, but got rid of istat and Magnet just to be sure, but that wasn't the problem. I hope they will fix this very soon, I'm not happy with it.

 

[v0rtex-]

I already posted the windowserver problem in another thread. Did you find a solution for your problem @v0rtex- ?
Got my 14 inch Pro last week and see the same problem. Occasionally some freezing for a couple of seconds, then it runs smooth again.
windowserver sometime uses more RAM that my Macbook has (I have a 16GB model and it took up to 30GB of RAM) and the windowserver process takes up to 150% CPU.
I did not install a lot of thing, but got rid of istat and Magnet just to be sure, but that wasn't the problem. I hope they will fix this very soon, I'm not happy with it.

Really no, I did not find any solutions...

I did full reset my Mac, and only used safari. I knew that it's related to watching videos on fullscreen so I simply logged in on Netflix and let a serie running (Lucifer). After 3 episodes I went to the Activity Manager and what a surprise I find windowserver on 20gb,ram usage...

As you say I'm also not happy at all with this!! Cuz the battery life is also much, much lower then advertised!

It's weird cuz if it's not hardware related then every mac with (M1 MAX or M1 Pro) should have that problem on the latest Monterey version (12.0.1)... but no, else some content creator would have noticed it already.

To be honest I think about returning it cuz for that price come on now...

What I personaly do is I go on reddit to the r/macos and look for "windowserver" and sort by new: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/search/?q=windowserver&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&sort=new

If a fix will appear I think you will know it first on reddit.

(As I'm writing this my mouse freezes sometimes and the input lag is rough: )
(This makes me ***** sad/mad!!)

 

[buzzman]

I didn't know about the probelm with fullscreen videos. That seems to help not watching videos in fullscreen. Is this only related to Firefox and Chrome or also Safari? (I may have to test that out).
Hopefully there's a fix coming soon

 

[buzzman]

it's in Safari too...what a nightmare. Apple please fix this. can't watch any fullscreen videos

 

[davidlv]

it's in Safari too...what a nightmare. Apple please fix this. can't watch any fullscreen videos

Have you seen this?

macOS Monterey has a serious memory leak problem, and the cause has been found | TechRepublic

If you're using anything but the default macOS cursor in Monterey, you've probably noticed some serious problems. This bug can crash a Mac, but luckily avoiding it is simple.

www.techrepublic.com

Not sure it is related to your problem, but many have seen this memory leak.

 

[buzzman]

thanks, I haven't seen this.
But it's unrelated to my problem since I use standard settings and no mouse or no external display

 

[davidlv]

thanks, I haven't seen this.
But it's unrelated to my problem since I use standard settings and no mouse or no external display

Have you tried Chromium?
https://softaro.net/ungoogled-chromium/ <---Downloads, scroll down, last two on the list for x86-64 or Apple silicon respectively. Interesting enough, the x86-64 'Intel) version is actually labeled as Version 96.0.4664.55.
Which may be correct or perhaps a typo?
In any case Chromium ungoogled can't access the web store as all Google related (tracking etc) functions have been removed. For that purpose, use the Sync version at https://chromium.woolyss.com/ and switch back to the ungoogled version after you install things from the Web store.
I saw a thread somewhere where it was said that ad-block plus caused symptoms similar to yours, is that installed?

 

[buzzman]

it didn't happen to me yesterday after the new MacOS Upgrade. Was I lucky or did they fix it?

 

[kocoman]

how do they monitor the windowsserver.log in here??

macOS 12.5: Nvidia Kepler and WindowServer crashing · Issue #1004 · dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher

With macOS 12.5 Beta 3 and newer, Apple has broken support for Nvidia Kepler GPUs. More specifically, for devices using Nvidia Kepler as primary screen rendering devices. When running with the Kepl...

github.com