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macOS Tahoe + WindowServer / memory pressure over long uptimes — anyone else seeing this?
- Thread starter RumorConsumer
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boppin
macrumors 65816
SDAVE
macrumors 601
You're not pushing it. How many tabs in Chrome for example? Are you doing heavy workloads? Not judging, but letting you know that people who do higher end work on Tahoe are concerned and reporting issues.
It will get better, but on Intel for example Tahoe is broken.
There's no way all those apps you're running you're only using 3GB of RAM. It's not about the RAM, it's about how RAM is managed and then released. Tahoe is very buggy.
On Chrome alone on my end I use 30-40GB of RAM (on my Desktop with 192GB RAM)
SDAVE
macrumors 601
burgman
macrumors 68040
I'm just an average user, I searched memory issues on Tahoe and found this thread. M3 iMac 8GB since upgrading to 26 I keep getting windows server and couple websites in Safari increasing memory usage even after restarting Safari, force quit Safari, quitting the large .com memory users in AM. Right now as I type this MacRumors is using 2GB Windows 1GB, no other tabs open. On the couple of websites that bork memory every time , Windows server get's up to 5GB and the websites have gone up to 8Gb, swap file about 1GB or higher. Doesn't drop after not visiting those websites for days. Only fix for me is a machine restart, I don't have to look at AM now. My machine starts to stumble and opening AM can take about 10 seconds. No change in 26.2. I just completed a recovery install, as a WAG before I found this thread.
So not interested in the typical MR thread slogs just sharing my issue.
So not interested in the typical MR thread slogs just sharing my issue.
boppin
macrumors 65816
Hi there.
On my M4 machine the process "WindowServer" uses up to 1.2 GB of RAM the more windows and tabs I use. No really memory pressure seen. All green and no swap used. So I guess that this might be a bug in Tahoe in older machines. So we have to wait for an update.
But as said before somewhere: on my old MacBook Pro with just 8 GB RAM there was a yellow memory pressure, with about 3 GB RAM compressed and about 1 GB RAM in swap. But nothing was slow there by using El Capitan and Sierra.
On my M4 machine the process "WindowServer" uses up to 1.2 GB of RAM the more windows and tabs I use. No really memory pressure seen. All green and no swap used. So I guess that this might be a bug in Tahoe in older machines. So we have to wait for an update.
But as said before somewhere: on my old MacBook Pro with just 8 GB RAM there was a yellow memory pressure, with about 3 GB RAM compressed and about 1 GB RAM in swap. But nothing was slow there by using El Capitan and Sierra.
boppin
macrumors 65816
What is this program? And what workflow do you use or is needed? Tell me something about it.
boppin
macrumors 65816
burgman
macrumors 68040
Starts out normally then quickly borks while using. That happened in about 3 minutes. Couple of other websites I use do the same thing. This time the Windows server ram use didn't go crazy like before and a simple tab refresh reset. It's quickly climbing again as I type over 7GB. No clue why, at least now I can close tab and problem goes away. No restart needed.
boppin
macrumors 65816
What web browser do you use? Safari? I'll try to reproduce this one some day I have time for it.
Does some kind of AdBlock Help?
boppin
macrumors 65816
Sorry.
Can't reproduce your problem so far.
https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com 894.0 MB
Using Safari 26.2.
And even in Google Chrome version 144.
"WindowServer" currently uses 604 MB. 92% CPU inactive.
boppin
macrumors 65816
Current 10 tabs open.
Most of them are from Google like Gmail, Google Drive, Google photos ...
Honestly, I don't care about much RAM got compressed or what's just sitting around in the swap, I only care about performance. If the system gets slow, I just restart it.
And this was also a topic in some German Mac forums: in some previous Mac OS X versions, the system would slow down after a long sleep or when data was being moved to the hard drive. The software quality probably changed, or the hardware couldn't keep up. I only remember that either the hard drive was full or the CPU couldn't keep up. The result: the fans ran at full speed.
SDAVE
macrumors 601
SDAVE
macrumors 601
boppin
macrumors 65816
Won't that get confusing eventually?
If I were still working on the old website, I'd definitely have many more tabs and windows open in multiple web browsers to test the website both online and offline.
SDAVE
macrumors 601
Wym confusing? It's part of my workflow for over 15 years. I close them down when I'm done with a project. This is why I have so much RAM (For Chrome, Photoshop, After Effects). Chrome has gotten better over the years unloading tabs from the ram until you activate the tabs again.
Anyway, everything is working great in Sequoia so I'm happy.
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boppin
macrumors 65816
So, I've disabled that function. To be honest, I'm glad that the RAM is finally being used properly, unlike back when you could never fill up 16 GB of RAM no matter what you did.
burgman
macrumors 68040
That's same as I have on Safari until I start interacting in the threads like commenting and such. That starts the bork every time, even while using other tabs the memory use quickly rises. This never happened until 26 update.
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boppin
macrumors 65816
Try using some AdBlock and disable any unused extensions or try to use another browser like Firefox, Chrome, ...
Everyone defending Tahoe (and especially you with your light workload) are missing the point.
If an OS has this many reported instances of bugs, slowdowns, and performance issues, it literally doesn't matter that it works for some people. It's clearly not for many others—enough that it's a very noticeable problem and means upgrading is basically a 50-50 gamble as to whether Tahoe will screw up your system or not.
I'm not playing those odds. Sequoia is excellent.
Real question: How would people know if an app is coded in Electron? Listing one app that's an example of that really isn't educational or helpful, either, btw.