[crypt0]

Does anyone have this issue? If I leave safari up for a long period of time, it will keep using up memory until I exit it.

Right my safari's using up like 200M. Every time I exit safari I claim back bout 200M.

I assume this is not normal. Thoughts?

PB12, 640MB, 10.3.2, safari 1.2

[alphasubzero949]

Same problem under 10.3.2.

[neilw]

It has always done this for me, though I'm not sure I've ever cracked 200 MB. Generally it ranges up to about 160 MB or perhaps a bit more, and stays there.

Most annoying...

[chabig]

It does use memory. It's not a problem. The operating system manages memory efficiently, assigning it to whatever applications need it. It's fully automatic and is nothing to worry about, unless you're a kernel programmer.

Think about how upset you'd be if you bought all that memory, gave it to the OS, and the OS didn't use it.

[andrew davidoff]

Originally posted by chabig:
It does use memory. It's not a problem. The operating system manages memory efficiently, assigning it to whatever applications need it. It's fully automatic and is nothing to worry about, unless you're a kernel programmer.

Think about how upset you'd be if you bought all that memory, gave it to the OS, and the OS didn't use it.

aren't you're assuming safari is behaving correctly? if safari doesn't want to let any memory go and wants to keep grabbing more for some reason, it could easily eat up all your available memory, just like anything else, could it not?

that's my experience generally speaking at least. yeah, if things get too far out of whack the kernel will take over, but that's usually very extreme in my exprience.

i mean, if the kernel always handles memory allocation and garbage collection perfectly, then why do memory leaks in application level software exist?

not trying to say you're wrong, just sharing my experiences.

andrew davidoff

[chabig]

Hi Andrew,

You're right. There could be a memory leak causing the memory use to keep increasing. In this case, nobody is observing that. The observation is simply that Safari uses memory. My guess is that Apple's developers would have caught any memory leaks during development and testing. Safari is, after all, fairly mature.

Chris

[warpmoon]

Originally posted by chabig:
Hi Andrew,

You're right. There could be a memory leak causing the memory use to keep increasing. In this case, nobody is observing that. The observation is simply that Safari uses memory. My guess is that Apple's developers would have caught any memory leaks during development and testing. Safari is, after all, fairly mature.

Chris

I am and it doesn't stop.

In the end, I have to quit and relaunch Safari to force it to give back 80%+ of the wasted memory it has accumulated. Otherwise, disk trashing will start as MacOS X begins to page in and out due to lack of real memory.

That is not acceptable behaviour and Apple needs to work on that.

To say that the kernel will take care of it is just a bad excuse for sloppy programming.

[chabig]

How are you measuring the memory being used? I run Safari as hard as anyone, never quit, never shut down, and at this moment it's using 55MB of real RAM, as reported by Activity Monitor. You can see this by running Activity Monitor, selecting Safari, and then noting the value in the Real Memory column.

My machine is a 12" Powerbook 867 with 640 MB of RAM. My history covers 1000 pages in the past 6 days.

Chris

[warpmoon]

Originally posted by chabig:
How are you measuring the memory being used? I run Safari as hard as anyone, never quit, never shut down, and at this moment it's using 55MB of real RAM, as reported by Activity Monitor. You can see this by running Activity Monitor, selecting Safari, and then noting the value in the Real Memory column.

My machine is a 12" Powerbook 867 with 640 MB of RAM. My history covers 1000 pages in the past 6 days.

Chris

Here's a screenshot of Safari using 130MB without any Safari windows open, other than the Downloads window. No downloads were underway.

Just before taking this screenshot (it was at 130MB then too) I emptied the cache for good measure. No difference what so ever. I estimate starting Safari 12 hours ago, and using it on and off for 2-3h. I left Safari alone during the rest of the time, together with the rest of the computer.

The problem is that the memory usage continues to grow and if I were to leave Safari running now, by tomorrow it would probably be up to 200MB.

This happened pre-1.2, and it still happens.

[chabig]

You're right. Safari is using 130MB or memory...memory that's not needed for anything else! You have to grasp that critical distinction. Although that memory is assigned to Safari, it's available to any other process on the machine that needs it, and the OS will dole it out as necessary. The fact is, you should not worry about this at all.

Chris

[Love Calm Quiet]

I watch Memory Monitor for graphical display of Active and Inactive memory usage. As I do a lot of surfing with Safari (or IE for that matter), the INactive memory keeps building up (at a slower pace when I'm closing pages after their having been opened), and the ACTIVE memory builds to a degree. Closing windows does not prod Safari to give back ALL the memory.

So, if I'm using another app poor at releasing memory (e.g., Dreamweaver MX or FileMakerPro), over a few hours, I can go from having 300MB of free memory to having ZERO MB - and starting to see page-outs. A bunch of it I can reclaim by using MacJanitor to run the "Weekly" cleanup tasks. Macjanitor will reclaim even more if I QUIT Safari. And I always find that a Restart gives me back even more than quitting all apps and running MacJanitor.

I read constantly in these forums, that "memory usage doesn't matter because the system releases it as needed". Well, I find that the release is INcomplete - in the manner described above. -- on either my TiBook or Icebook.

TiBook 667MHz 768MB OS 10.3.1 (has been observed throughout OS 10 usage since 10.2 )

[Love Calm Quiet]

PS: An quick way to experience this with Safari is to go to a couple of huge bookmarks bar folders and choose "Open in Tabs"