Run out of Application Memory

[iWillNeverUnderstandMac]

I recently had my Mac upgraded from 8GB of Ram to 16GB of Ram

Ever since than, I am getting "Your system has run out of application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using"

Out of a 2TB Hard drive, I have 1.13TB free, I have got this error doing multiple things at once (normal usage) multiple tabs open in Chrome, watching videos on VLC, converting movies to MKV, browsing online, moving files around... To the complete opposite only yesterday of doing a Time Machine Backup and Running ClamXav, that was all I was running and it still gave me the error

I can understand using the computer like I normally do, I was potentially asking way too much of it, with only 8GB of Ram, but now that it has 16GB it's still giving me the error

I have reset the NVRAM/PRAM multiple times, and it's fine for awhile but noticeable things (gremlins) start happening, and then I have to reset all over again.

What am I able to do, from my end, without taking it in to a Apple Store, to diagnose what is really going on/potentially fix

P.S does anyone use remote login programs, I use LogMeIn and it's great, but one of the gremlins will be it will let me use it like once or twice, then won't let me even turn it on, the program will be running but I can't login to my computer, a reset is required and if it wasn't for Chrome having a remote login ability built in, I wouldn't be able to login at all, and even resetting the program doesn't help

 

[DeltaMac]

What else is using your memory?
You could keep your Activity Monitor open, so it is already available when you check it. Make sure that it is set to show all processes, and not just My processes. (It's a setting in Activity Monitor.)

When you see the "Your system has run out of application memory", go to the Activity Monitor, click the memory tab. You can sort the process list by clicking on the appropriate part of the header. Sort by Memory. You can see what processes are using the most memory at that moment.
Even the "Energy" tab can be helpful, as it displays a sort of history of the last 12 hours usage by the apps that you use.
What apps show the highest energy use on your Mac? Sometimes, it turns out to be something different than you might expect.

 

[simonsi]

Post a shot of your memory pressure too please.

 

[iWillNeverUnderstandMac]

Not that I understand what most of the things running are, but this is how it currently looks

This is via LogMeIn, and a screenshot on my iPhone. I am at work so this is the best I can currently do

Keep in mind I did the NVRAM/PRAM reset this morning, and it hasn't given me an error yet, but at this stage I don't know what I can do to make sure/ensure it is not going to happen again

All I am looking to avoid doing is dragging the iMac in to get fixed, and if I can have step by step instructions (if those exist) so I can try and fix it myself

 

[DeltaMac]

First step I would make would be to remove Sophos (completely - get rid of it), then download Malwarebytes, and run a scan with that. It's pretty efficient for finding and removing adware on your Mac. You can leave it as a free app, so it doesn't sit there in the background, taking over part of your system resources. I might run a Malwarebytes scan every month or two. It's probably not necessary to run it more often.
Looks like you have Checkup for Mac, and also CleanMyMac? I think both do similar tasks. Remove one (both would be better, there's no particular benefit from either one)
Do you often use the Qbittorrent software? My suggestion, if you only occasionally download torrents (couple times a year, like I do), then uninstall that torrent software. Reinstall when you have some need (only takes a minute or two, and the settings would stay in place for the next time. There may be other software that is just not an important need, but takes up your system resources.
You can also download and run EtreCheck. That can help you find some startup software that can contribute to system loading problems, and might find some software that you don't realize is starting up with your Mac. You can post the results of the Etrecheck scan here. The software strips out any personal information, so pretty safe to post that scan listing here. Someone here can likely give you some other tips after looking at that listing.

 

[iWillNeverUnderstandMac]

First step I would make would be to remove Sophos (completely - get rid of it), then download Malwarebytes, and run a scan with that. It's pretty efficient for finding and removing adware on your Mac. You can leave it as a free app, so it doesn't sit there in the background, taking over part of your system resources. I might run a Malwarebytes scan every month or two. It's probably not necessary to run it more often.
Looks like you have Checkup for Mac, and also CleanMyMac? I think both do similar tasks. Remove one (both would be better, there's no particular benefit from either one)
Do you often us the Qbittorrent software? My suggestion, if you only occasionally download torrents (couple times a year, like I do), then uninstall that torrent software. Reinstall when you have some need (only takes a minute or two, and the settings would stay in place for the next time. There may be other software that is just not an important need, but takes up your system resources.
You can also download and run EtreCheck. That can help you find some startup software that can contribute to system loading problems, and might find some software that you don't realize is starting up with your Mac. You can post the results of the Etrecheck scan here. The software strips out any personal information, so pretty safe to post that scan listing here. Someone here can likely give you some other tips after looking at that listing.

Thanks for getting back to me, I did do a Etrecheck last night and it really helped. And it was the only time I definitively have got two startup items to stop starting up, every time I thought I had disabled it before, when I reset or shut down and started up again, it never worked. Now it's fine

I will do another one and post the results I get

As I said before I have ClamXav, and I think that is working way better than Sophos ever has, i'll remove it tonight, as well as Checkup. I already have Malwarebytes. I never knew if I was doing something wrong with Sophos, if it ever detected anything it never gave me methods of getting rid of it, and would take forever to scan.

QBittorrent is only used because I was using Vuze, but that stopped working and I haven't brought myself/convinced myself yet to delete it, same for UTorrent, again used very rarely

I mainly use FileZilla, But that is only focusing on one thing at the moment, and I use QBittorrent to get other things simultaneously.

 

[kohlson]

"Your system has run out of application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using"

Is this message from Mac OS or from an application?

 

[chabig]

Is this message from Mac OS or from an application?

That’s a good question. I don’t think he’s getting it from the OS—the graphic he posted is entirely normal. But he’s running some questionable stuff, like Sophos (as previously pointed out) and. I bet he has installed something that’s giving him the message.

OP: The consensus is that anti-virus/anti+malware stuff isn’t necessary. But if you’re going to run any, pick one. Running more than one at the same time ClamX and Sophos) seems like it ought to be problematic. Also, are you running multiple torrent apps?

 

[northernmunky]

Is this message from Mac OS or from an application?

Its from MacOS.
From the screenshot of your activity monitor my guess would be lots of small applications (and likely some crapware) running in the background that are adding up and thus your OS is running out of memory.

Its happens to my Macbook Pro with 16Gb RAM too on occasion.

I'd agree that a system cleanup is probably on the cards, uninstall any of those apps that you dont use anymore, go to System Prefs > Users & Groups > Login Items and remove anything that doesnt need to be running all the time.
Go to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and disable any app in there that doesnt need to run on startup.

 

[iWillNeverUnderstandMac]

OP Here, thanks guys much appreciated. I deleted Sophos, and the others that were suggested, got hold of Apple Support and they suggested I reinstall the OS. So Far So Good, will keep fingers crossed. Hopefully that fixed it.

Before that I did a Apple Diagnostic and everything checked out, I created a new user, and opened Activity Monitor, everything looked the same, Restarted in Recovery Mode and ran Disk Utility, did First Aid and every thing checked out

Hope every thing is alright now, but will let you know

Hope it doesn't come back

 

[Fishrrman]

My advice: turn stuff off that you don't need.

Get rid of the anti-virus software. Don't just quit it, DELETE it.
Download MalwareBytes and run that once or twice a week.

Cut down on the number of tabs open in Chrome.
Better yet, get rid of Chrome altogether.

Get rid of CleanMyMac.
Get rid of Checkup for Mac.

Turn off the torrent software unless you're using it.

Quit any apps you're not using at the moment.
There's no need to have them open if they're not used.

I purposely run with as few apps as possible.
This is with 10gb of RAM and I have VM disk swapping turned OFF, so everything runs in the physical RAM.

 

[kohlson]

Is this message from Mac OS or from an application?

I ask this because I vaguely remember getting similar messages (I think from copying and pasting large things in Office), but I don't recall getting them from the OS. In some quick research on this, it seems something like this was a bug in Mac OS, so that could be the case here. Are you running something close to the latest? If not, consider installing a newer version of Mac OS, rather than re-installing what you have.

I also agree with the comments above with respect to the utility apps you're running. Of the ones shown in the pic, there seems to be some overlap. Sophos, Filezilla, Tuneup, CleanMyMac, Little Snitch, Folx, Downie, BitTorrent.

 

[lemonkid]

I had the same message recently on 10.13.5. I had it once. On a moment that I was not at my Macbook Pro. But I could detect that it had just finished a syncing task with Goodsync.

Today I downloaded the combo update to see if this would make the problem go away. But I think it is a bug in MacOs rather than something with your computer. I do have one 32bit app Synology cloud drive. I think that this could trigger the problem. But why I think that, or what my arguments are for this idea has not been revealed to me.... yet......

 

[TokMok3]

I recently had my Mac upgraded from 8GB of Ram to 16GB of Ram

Ever since than, I am getting "Your system has run out of application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using"

Out of a 2TB Hard drive, I have 1.13TB free, I have got this error doing multiple things at once (normal usage) multiple tabs open in Chrome, watching videos on VLC, converting movies to MKV, browsing online, moving files around... To the complete opposite only yesterday of doing a Time Machine Backup and Running ClamXav, that was all I was running and it still gave me the error

I can understand using the computer like I normally do, I was potentially asking way too much of it, with only 8GB of Ram, but now that it has 16GB it's still giving me the error

I have reset the NVRAM/PRAM multiple times, and it's fine for awhile but noticeable things (gremlins) start happening, and then I have to reset all over again.

What am I able to do, from my end, without taking it in to a Apple Store, to diagnose what is really going on/potentially fix

P.S does anyone use remote login programs, I use LogMeIn and it's great, but one of the gremlins will be it will let me use it like once or twice, then won't let me even turn it on, the program will be running but I can't login to my computer, a reset is required and if it wasn't for Chrome having a remote login ability built in, I wouldn't be able to login at all, and even resetting the program doesn't help

If your are running High Sierra, that's normal, it will eat all your memory and slowed down your computer.

 

[chabig]

If your are running High Sierra, that's normal, it will eat all your memory and slowed down your computer.

No it's not. He's got some weird application issue going on. He even showed us the Activity Monitor memory tab and his memory use and memory pressure looks pretty normal.