M1 Pro Max - Slow 6 Months in?

[clevins]

Lol, Safari for serious productivity its a sad joke. Even for casual browsing & performance lacks big time.

Tell me you havent used Safari in the last year without telling me...

 

[ajergome]

These are exactly my symptoms, verbatim. All the way down to Quick Look just showing an icon instead of a preview. I'm glad I'm not alone – though I'm sorry for your poor machine performance.

Do you use Chrome @ajergome? I use Google Chat and Drive on my Mac, both are Chrome based.

@ipedro yep that was another thing I had considered, I actually use Chrome, Safari AND FireFox. I saw you had both Chrome and Safari open. I could probably ditch Chrome. I do most things in Safari, but web dev I prefer FireFox - but then I end up just filling whatever browser I'm in with tabs and windows

Another symptom I forgot to mention is that iCloud sync sometimes hangs uploading or downloading forever (right now it's downloading - 206.5mb of 209.6mb and it'll stay there forever until a reboot. As for the speaker pop/crackle, it also happens in headphones sometimes, so (like your discovery about Rosetta) it's definitely software/driver related I think.

I had never noticed the bird process previously, but right now it's in the top 4 CPU %

 

[nvmls]

Another symptom I forgot to mention is that iCloud sync sometimes hangs uploading or downloading forever (right now it's downloading - 206.5mb of 209.6mb and it'll stay there forever until a reboot.

This has been broken since Monterey beta 1 and reported several times.

 

[ajergome]

This has been broken since Monterey beta 1 and reported several times.

ah! thank you.

@ipedro I can remove Chrome etc (per https://chromeisbad.com ) and will let you know if I notice a difference

 

[ipedro]

Update: It looks like Chromium based Brave allows for full featured Google apps, including sharing tabs in Google Meet and running Google Chat as a separate app, which is why I needed Chrome to begin with. My Mac is running a lot better already. Looks like my Mac was a classic victim of chromeisbad.com

I still need to run Google Drive which I suspect will still ask for Chrome to remain installed, but at least I won't need to run the Chrome browser.

cc: @ajergome

This looks a lot healthier. And look at Brave... all the way down there.

 

[ADGrant]

Overall, with the tips from the folks in this thread, I'm fairly certain the culprit is all the browser windows. That's kind of surprising given the heavy video and graphics rendering this machine is (was?) capable of, websites are bringing it to its knees.

Those video and graphics apps are native apps. Websites are basically Javascript apps these days running on top of a Javascript interpreter. Modern web frameworks are memory and cpu hogs and that's without all the ads and tracking cookies that get loaded.

 

[zach-coleman]

Memory:

Is Honey mining bitcoin these days??? What the hell???

 

[ipedro]

Another update:

So, Chrome has been banished from my Mac... but Brave has taken over the hungry hippo role:

 

[southerndoc]

Glad deleting Chrome worked for you. I'm not seeing nowhere near the performance decrease you are from using Chrome.

 

[dieselm]

Another update:

So, Chrome has been banished from my Mac... but Brave has taken over the hungry hippo role:

How many tabs do you have open?

Are you still running the same extensions? Did you try turning off all your Chrome/Brave extensions off and adding them back one by one?

 

[ipedro]

How many tabs do you have open?

Are you still running the same extensions? Did you try turning off all your Chrome/Brave extensions off and adding them back one by one?

Not running any extensions. About 80 tabs. Sounds like a lot, but Apple's top of the line latest pro tier computer shouldn't be brought to its knees in normal use with a browser.

 

[Malus120]

Here's a suggestion since you're tied to Chromium and the GPU acceleration (regardless of Chrome/Brave) seems to be eating the machine alive:

Try disabling GPU Acceleration.
How to Turn Hardware Acceleration Off or On in Google Chrome

1. Launch Chrome, then select “Menu” > “Settings“.
2. Scroll down to the bottom and select the “Advanced” option.
3. Scroll to the “System” section and toggle “Use hardware acceleration when available” on or off as desired.

(I imagine its a similar process in Brave/Edge/etc)

It's not an ideal solution and may make some things a bit slower, but the M1 Max CPU is powerful enough I doubt it will make a big difference. FYI I often have a similar number of tabs open and yeah its not always great but I don't have GPU acceleration eating almost 7GB of RAM (on Safari.)

Also, as others have suggested give Edge a try, its also Chromium based but may not have the same issues as Chrome/Brave.

That said. I hate to break it to you but as someone who does a lot of academic research on their Mac, yes, 80 tabs will bring almost any Mac without 64GB+ of ram "to it's knees" (at least yellow memory pressure.) This really has more to do with how inefficient modern websites are (using 500MB+ / tab) than the machine itself. That said I do wonder if Windows/Linux handle this any better. It's honestly pretty atrocious on Mac how browser tabs are allowed to run amock.

 

[clevins]

...and that's without all the ads and tracking cookies that get loaded.

That reminds me... @ipedro... if you havent, install an adblocker. All the crap on various pages sucks up an incredible amount of resources. You can whitelist work domains, etc. You can also show %GPU as a column which might ID some things

 

[southerndoc]

I still can't understand how somebody can keep 80 tabs organized. I think I'd go schizophrenic. I doubt all of those tabs have active information continuously that would prevent you from using a link to open them as needed.

 

[darngooddesign]

I still can't understand how somebody can keep 80 tabs organized. I think I'd go schizophrenic. I doubt all of those tabs have active information continuously that would prevent you from using a link to open them as needed.

Not to question their browser habits, but many of them could be turned into on-demand tab groups.

 

[ipedro]

I still can't understand how somebody can keep 80 tabs organized. I think I'd go schizophrenic. I doubt all of those tabs have active information continuously that would prevent you from using a link to open them as needed.

8 open windows with 10 tabs each is not unusual.

Nonetheless, my Mac's performance has improved since deleting Chrome and running Brave instead for my Google Workspace apps. It's still not back to where I remember it but at least I know where to look to improve this machine's performance issues.

 

[ipedro]

Here's a suggestion since you're tied to Chromium and the GPU acceleration (regardless of Chrome/Brave) seems to be eating the machine alive:

Try disabling GPU Acceleration.
How to Turn Hardware Acceleration Off or On in Google Chrome

1. Launch Chrome, then select “Menu” > “Settings“.
2. Scroll down to the bottom and select the “Advanced” option.
3. Scroll to the “System” section and toggle “Use hardware acceleration when available” on or off as desired.

(I imagine its a similar process in Brave/Edge/etc)

This did cut Brave's memory usage by half, resulting in a bit of a snappier computer overall. Thanks for the the tip.

 

[vddobrev]

OP, 32GB RAM is not top of the line, far from it... do yourself a favour and get 64GB or more. Even with your Brave improvements you are still swapping to disk.

 

[darngooddesign]

8 open windows with 10 tabs each is not unusual.

Maybe, maybe not, but unless you are regularly, actively switching between all of them have you considered doing them as tab groups instead.

 

[ajergome]

24hrs after deleting Chrome & Keystone, things definitely seem better. Memory pressure is in the green even after slamming Safari with 60+ tabs across ~12 windows, WindowServer and kernel_task both seem better behaved, and quick look is working fine. It's early days but it seems positive so far

 

[darngooddesign]

24hrs after deleting Chrome & Keystone, things definitely seem better. Memory pressure is in the green even after slamming Safari with 60+ tabs across ~12 windows, WindowServer and kernel_task both seem better behaved, and quick look is working fine. It's early days but it seems positive so far

Great news!!!

 

[pastrychef]

This did cut Brave's memory usage by half, resulting in a bit of a snappier computer overall. Thanks for the the tip.

There's a Chrome/Brave extension called "The Marvelous Suspender" that may be helpful to you.

 

[dieselm]

Not running any extensions. About 80 tabs. Sounds like a lot, but Apple's top of the line latest pro tier computer shouldn't be brought to its knees in normal use with a browser.

I can keep 100 tabs open on brave or chrome on my 16gb machine before it bogs down. Safari probably 200-300. Your 32gb machine should handle it fine.

Though at some point I declare tab bankruptcy and archive them all into tab groups.

 

[clevins]

Maybe, maybe not, but unless you are regularly, actively switching between all of them have you considered doing them as tab groups instead.

This. And... use bookmarks. UNless you need a site continuously, there's no justification for having it sitting there taking resources and while one site might not be much additional load, 20, 40, 80... can be.

I can keep 100 tabs open on brave or chrome on my 16gb machine before it bogs down. Safari probably 200-300. Your 32gb machine should handle it fine.

Though at some point I declare tab bankruptcy and archive them all into tab groups.

Depends on what site and what they run. And whether or not one has a content (ad) blocker. Between Ka-Block in safari and nextdns at the network level nothing gets through that I don't want to get through.

 

[Paradoxally]

I hope you're running an adblocker, OP.

Ads take up a ton of RAM, especially if they are video-based.

I don't know how people can even use the Internet without one nowadays. Every major site is infested with that garbage. uBlock and SponsorBlock (to skip YouTube sponsors in videos) are the two most important extensions in my browsing arsenal.