Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
purge throws the following error
flycs-MacBook-Air:~ flyc$ purge
[ERROR] <CPPathUtils.c:526> The device-file for this operating system, 'osx-12.1.0.xml', was not found. An attempt to revert to a previous revision of the OS device-file: 'osx-12.0.0.xml' has been made. Please file a Radar report with Apple, on the 'CoreProfile' component, version 'X'.

This is the most annoyance I've got for investing in an OSX upgrade. Since the upgrade, OSX has crashed a few times and battery life has reduced. Hangs for about 7 seconds, when woken from sleep. Shutdown, which used to take 3 seconds now wavers between 15 seconds and 10.

My previous 2 upgrades (Leopard to snow leopard & snow leopard to Lion) made my system faster and more stable. 10.8 had fewer issues, 10.8.1 appears to have more issues than 10.8. I've not installed a single piece of new software between Lion, Mountain Lion and Mountain Lion 10.8.1. The only change in the system is OS X upgrade; I wish I could rollback the upgrade.

Steve - I dearly miss you.

That sums up all my issues.
 
Answer is in the message

The answer to your problem is in the error message. File it with Apple! :D

In the meantime, put up with the message. It's not having an adverse effect. The purge still works fine.

Purge does have a purpose btw for all you who are poo-pooing it. If, like me, you have big renders going on, once the memory becomes full it will lag the performance as the automatic flushing does it in small chunks for what it needs next, but it doesn't really know what the renderer is going to need next. So it does a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more. This takes time. What I do is watch it and when it get's full I do a purge and the render speed remains the same. Otherwise it grinds down to half (or less) speed. I've done benchmarks to test this out and I assure all of you sceptics that it is very true. :)

Pi
 
I thought I was the only that had this problem

Just updated to 10.8.1 on my 2012 MBA. Someone had commented on OSXDaily that their purge command in terminal was now returning this error.

[ERROR] <CPPathUtils.c:526> The device-file for this operating system, 'osx-12.1.0.xml', was not found. An attempt to revert to a previous revision of the OS device-file: 'osx-12.0.0.xml' has been made. Please file a Radar report with Apple, on the 'CoreProfile' component, version 'X'.

I tested the command on my machine and it also returns this error. OS X 12.1.0? Anyone else having this issue?

I recently updated to 10.8.1 on my Mac Mini (mid-2011) and ever since I did that I get that error too. I think it still works though because every time I use that command I still see a gain in memory.
PURGE ERROR.png
 
The answer to your problem is in the error message. File it with Apple! :D

In the meantime, put up with the message. It's not having an adverse effect. The purge still works fine.

Purge does have a purpose btw for all you who are poo-pooing it. If, like me, you have big renders going on, once the memory becomes full it will lag the performance as the automatic flushing does it in small chunks for what it needs next, but it doesn't really know what the renderer is going to need next. So it does a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more. This takes time. What I do is watch it and when it get's full I do a purge and the render speed remains the same. Otherwise it grinds down to half (or less) speed. I've done benchmarks to test this out and I assure all of you sceptics that it is very true. :)

Pi

I agree. Same with when I run matlab scripts with large variables

Those who say it doesn't work obviously are never in the computational situation where it in fact does prove useful
 
Error when trying to purge in Terminal

I haven't purged in a while but today I noticed this when I tried to purge and I have no idea what it means. I don't really know much about Terminal.

[ERROR] <CPPathUtils.c:526> The device-file for this operating system, 'osx-12.1.0.xml', was not found. An attempt to revert to a previous revision of the OS device-file: 'osx-12.0.0.xml' has been made. Please file a Radar report with Apple, on the 'CoreProfile' component, version 'X'
 
Last edited:
Inactive memory has been proven to slow performance and decrease system life. Purge should automatically be activated every few minutes.
 
Inactive memory has been proven to slow performance and decrease system life. Purge should automatically be activated every few minutes.

Untrue. Inactive memory actually increases system performance if you access the same applications again before it's purged, which is why Mac OS X handles it intelligently the way it does. Purge will only harm your performance if run automatically like that (it has it's specific purposes, but that's not what it's for).

jW
 
Untrue. Inactive memory actually increases system performance if you access the same applications again before it's purged, which is why Mac OS X handles it intelligently the way it does. Purge will only harm your performance if run automatically like that (it has it's specific purposes, but that's not what it's for).

jW

The entire concept is fine but OS X is very happy to use up as much RAM as it can but then very reluctant to release that memory. I don't agree with running purge every minute but there is clearly room for improvement here.
 
The entire concept is fine but OS X is very happy to use up as much RAM as it can but then very reluctant to release that memory. I don't agree with running purge every minute but there is clearly room for improvement here.

Agreed. Some kind of middle ground would be nice.
 
Here's the fix..

Create a symlink from osx-12.0.0.xml to osx-12.1.0.xml.

How to:

Open Terminal

Code:
cd /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreProfile.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Devices
sudo ln -s osx-12.0.0.xml osx-12.1.0.xml

Running ln as sudo mode will probably prompt for your password, type your normal login password.

After this, you may run purge in peace.
 
Here's the fix..

Create a symlink from osx-12.0.0.xml to osx-12.1.0.xml.

How to:

Open Terminal

Code:
cd /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreProfile.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Devices
sudo ln -s osx-12.0.0.xml osx-12.1.0.xml

Running ln as sudo mode will probably prompt for your password, type your normal login password.

After this, you may run purge in peace.

This is not necessary if you upgrade to 10.8.2.

purge throws the following error
flycs-MacBook-Air:~ flyc$ purge
[ERROR] <CPPathUtils.c:526> The device-file for this operating system, 'osx-12.1.0.xml', was not found. An attempt to revert to a previous revision of the OS device-file: 'osx-12.0.0.xml' has been made. Please file a Radar report with Apple, on the 'CoreProfile' component, version 'X'.

This is the most annoyance I've got for investing in an OSX upgrade. Since the upgrade, OSX has crashed a few times and battery life has reduced. Hangs for about 7 seconds, when woken from sleep. Shutdown, which used to take 3 seconds now wavers between 15 seconds and 10.

My previous 2 upgrades (Leopard to snow leopard & snow leopard to Lion) made my system faster and more stable. 10.8 had fewer issues, 10.8.1 appears to have more issues than 10.8. I've not installed a single piece of new software between Lion, Mountain Lion and Mountain Lion 10.8.1. The only change in the system is OS X upgrade; I wish I could rollback the upgrade.

Steve - I dearly miss you.


Yes, things were definitely better in the good, old days when Steve would personally debug every line of code. Back then Apple never released anything that was broken or had regression bugs.

Unfortunately, even the Apple software engineers working on the automated test tools have admitted that their automated regression testing is not what it should be and they're trying to fix it. You can watch the last lecture of the 2011 Stanford university iOS 5 course with Paul Hogarty if you doubt that.
 
Last edited:
The entire concept is fine but OS X is very happy to use up as much RAM as it can but then very reluctant to release that memory. I don't agree with running purge every minute but there is clearly room for improvement here.

Agreed. I have to run purge practically every day because my 12GB of memory is all used up and 6 - 8GB of inactive memory will not budge.
 
I have an mid 2007 iMac running Snow Leopard, when I run PURGE it says, command not found? Why?:eek:

You need to install Xcode.

----------

Anyone running After Effects on a regular basis knows that the 'purge' command is a lifesaver for freeing up huge amounts of RAM that AfterEffects sucks up and never releases.
 
Mavericks : 'sudo purge' ~ Admin Only ~

It seems that with the upgrade to 10.9 Mavericks, I also 'lost the ability' to purge in Terminal.. However, it has been suggested that entering the Command 'sudo purge' will prompt you to Enter your Admin Password and then the PURGE will continue as it used to.. ** I cannot confirm if this is a good or bad thing to do with your computer in general, but it does seem to allow my 2011 MBP to Free Up some of the memory being used..

Hopefully this is helpful, and perhaps a smarter MAC-nerd will confirm this is an acceptable solution for those who previously used this command!! :apple:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.