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m0delYguy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2022
13
1
New Jersey, USA
Hello all,
New to the forum here so I appreciate any feedback that can be offered. Quick story, I am attempting to go to law school. I took the LSAT in November virtually which is the only method of taking it right now and I'm using my base model M1 Macbook Air with 8GB of RAM. During the test (which is administered in Chrome with the Proctor U extension) I was booted from the program saying I had insufficient memory available to continue. Test went downhill from there but that is beside the point. Really confused by this because I have never had a single issue before in any sort of workload I have thrown at the computer. I am now taking the exam in the same format again on Saturday morning so I decided to try and test this issue beforehand. I used the ProctorU tool on their website to test my system and the only point of failure was again my RAM usage and I'm just really confused how this could be as I only have Chrome open, and the ProctorU tool states that my RAM usage is at 98%. Is there anything I can do to lower the alleged usage of my RAM? Any insight is appreciated, I've attached two screenshots for reference.
 

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Quit everything not needed for the test. I see Safari and Messages open for example. It isn’t enough to just close windows of an app if the app is still running.
 
Quit everything not needed for the test. I see Safari and Messages open for example. It isn’t enough to just close windows of an app if the app is still running.
So I just quit those as well and am still at 91% ram usage according to the ProctorU tool. I really can't understand what would be causing this? Chrome alone can't take that much. I just want to be able to get it down to maybe under 80 so I don't bug out again
 
So I just quit those as well and am still at 91% ram usage according to the ProctorU tool. I really can't understand what would be causing this? Chrome alone can't take that much. I just want to be able to get it down to maybe under 80 so I don't bug out again
I helped my niece with the same software, it just seems like it is buggy. Once she was under the 95% reported, the test worked for her (YMMV). Looking at the dock, make sure there are no black dots under the applications you aren't using and that you aren't launching anything at startup (menu extras or background apps). The only other thing I can think of is to start in safe-mode but that will probably prevent the proctor software from working too. Sorry I can't be more help.
 
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Perhaps don't use Chrome, which is a notorious RAM hog, and instead use Safari for this specific exam and its software? Either that or use a different computer which has more RAM? Can you borrow one from a friend or relative?
This is specialized software designed to prevent cheating. As such, it probably requires Chrome to work. Safari is probably not an option.

Edit: Looking at their website, it looks like Firefox is the other option. @m0delYguy you might want to check out Firefox and see if that works better for you.
 
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RAM usage, IMO, is a poor metric for MacOS. MacOS will use as much ram as it can to make things more easily accessible. But it will also flush things out of RAM when necessary. More important than overall usage (in GB) is pressure. Memory pressure means MacOS is overloaded and can't keep up with read/write requests.

Imagine you're cooking a meal and you have all the ingredients on the table: you'll save some time having the ingredients right in front of you, right? the issue isn't that you have a ton of ingredients out. Now, if you need to add more ingredients to the table than you have room for, that's when you have issues.

As the other poster above said, maybe try Firefox? Fingers crossed.

Edit: what I guess I'm trying to say in that word salad is that I doubt anything is wrong with your computer. This web-app was probably just not well written or updated for M1.
 
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Did you reboot the machine before you took the test?
How often do you reboot because some people don't do it for months?
It empties the caches and can make a big difference so be sure to give it a try.
 
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I helped my niece with the same software, it just seems like it is buggy. Once she was under the 95% reported, the test worked for her (YMMV). Looking at the dock, make sure there are no black dots under the applications you aren't using and that you aren't launching anything at startup (menu extras or background apps). The only other thing I can think of is to start in safe-mode but that will probably prevent the proctor software from working too. Sorry I can't be more help.
I appreciate the help! At least I see I'm not alone in this pursuit or issue. Going to restart and close everything under the Sun before I begin the test.
 
This is specialized software designed to prevent cheating. As such, it probably requires Chrome to work. Safari is probably not an option.

Edit: Looking at their website, it looks like Firefox is the other option. @m0delYguy you might want to check out Firefox and see if that works better for you.
Going to try Firefox right now and post the activity monitor with everything else closed. Will keep you posted! Would've gladly used Safari if possible.
 
RAM usage, IMO, is a poor metric for MacOS. MacOS will use as much ram as it can to make things more easily accessible. But it will also flush things out of RAM when necessary. More important than overall usage (in GB) is pressure. Memory pressure means MacOS is overloaded and can't keep up with read/write requests.

Imagine you're cooking a meal and you have all the ingredients on the table: you'll save some time having the ingredients right in front of you, right? the issue isn't that you have a ton of ingredients out. Now, if you need to add more ingredients to the table than you have room for, that's when you have issues.

As the other poster above said, maybe try Firefox? Fingers crossed.

Edit: what I guess I'm trying to say in that word salad is that I doubt anything is wrong with your computer. This web-app was probably just not well written or updated for M1.
I appreciate the analogy! I definitely understand what you mean. I doubt its optimized for M1 performance and realistically, before the powerhouse of the M1 I likely would've bought more than 8gb of ram so I guess if you pair 8gb of ram with poorly written plug ins it would lead to the slow down I was used to before this laptop.
 
So I just restarted my computer to try and clear any caches and then went to Firefox only and attempted the same thing. Oddly enough, the "Test Your Equipment" link I used for Chrome now was unable to even verify my RAM usage at the time. I attached a screenshot of it at the time anyway. One additional question: my dad has a 16in MBP with 16gb of ram (the processor is currently evading me) but it is from 2020 just before the entire M1 transition. Do you guys suggest that his laptop with everything other than Firefox closed down would be a better bet than using my MBA? Thanks again!
 

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Yes, I would use your dad's machine; that 16 GB of RAM will undoubtedly make a difference, plus the MBP is probably more powerful in general (even though it's Intel-based) than either an Intel MBA or an M1 MBA.
Only a high-end 16" MBP would be more powerful than the M1 but the extra RAM probably will make a difference.
 
Only a high-end 16" MBP would be more powerful than the M1 but the extra RAM probably will make a difference.

Good point. My little 2020 13" M1 MBP with 16GB RAM seems to be almost as speedy and perky as my 2018 MBP with 32 GB RAM and 20 VEGA (discrete graphics). That 2018 MBP will eventually be replaced some time in 2022 with one of the new M1 MBPs, budget permitting.
 
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If it were me I would try this:
  • Disable all other Chrome extensions than ProctorU
  • Clear Chrome's cache
  • Reboot
  • Make sure all programs in the Dock are closed (Finder should be the only icon with a dot under it)
  • Launch Chrome and try again
If that doesn't work, try it with Firefox. If THAT doesn't work, use another computer. My guess is that some of the software you're running, possibly the ProctorU extension itself, isn't optimized for M1.
 
This sounds incredibly frustrating. I wish you the best of luck figuring everything out. I can't imagine the extra stress this is creating right before taking the LSAT.
 
Ugh looks like you also have Adobe and DropBox Bloatware running (both of which are worse on M1). Both of these cause issues with memory as you can see from the Activity Monitor screenshot.

From a fresh restart you will be better off, and when you restart make sure you that do not click the option to reopen windows and apps. Also make sure that no other users are logged in.

The extension is probably poorly programmed and would work fine without but you are better off using your dad's computer with 16GB if he allows access. Just do the same steps with the reboot.
 
Can you use other operating systems or macOS only? Also, does the macOS counterpart of Windows task manager not report free memory available? I haven't used macOS/Dell Hackintosh for quite some time now since the SSD stopped working and I am currently back to using Windows...
 
What version of macOS? There was a memory leak in 12.01 that seems fixed in 12.1
Off topic but my memory leak problems only started with 12.1. After a few hours multiple background tasks are using 100’s of MBs. I force kill them and I’m good for another 12 hours.
 
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