[kelesh]

Hi. I have a new 1ghz powerbook with 512m b ram. I opened my powerbook today from sleep mode, and told Backlight to run a screeensaver in the background of my desktop to show a friend. it just made a black screen and did nothing, then i tried to open iTunes, and it took forever. all i'm running is 2 transparent terminals, textedit, and camino with 3 tabs open. Why do i have 20479 pagein and 50387 pageouts. This seems high. Backlight works perfectl now, as does iTunes. What the heck is going on here? I have 10.2.5, i hate restarting so i haven't bothered to get 10.2.6 yet.

[philzilla]

Originally posted by kelesh:
... i hate restarting so i haven't bothered to get 10.2.6 yet.

hmm. until you'd said that, i was going to refer you to this thread. still, there might be some useful information there for you

[kelesh]

[powerbook:~] kelesh% ps -auxc
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
kelesh 358 6.3 2.8 645524 14884 ?? S Sun07AM 4:29.87 Terminal
kelesh 170 3.0 41.8 1049836 219104 ?? Ss Sun07AM 38:59.50 Window Manager

Windowmanager is using 41% of my memory? WTF? I am using the Brushed Metal theme with WindowShadeX(by insanity) installed. Any ideas?

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by kelesh:
Windowmanager is using 41% of my memory? WTF? I am using the Brushed Metal theme with WindowShadeX(by insanity) installed. Any ideas?

remove the hacks and see if the memory useage goes down

[kelesh]

is brushed metal theme really a hack? I will try removing windowshadeX first I guess.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by kelesh:
i hate restarting

I found your problem! It's amazing what a simple restart will do.

[kelesh]

if i wanted to restart all the time, i would have bought an intel laptop and installed windows 98. OSX is supposed to be incredibly stable. it better be since the damn startup time is like 5+ minutes. sigh

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by kelesh:
if i wanted to restart all the time, i would have bought an intel laptop and installed windows 98. OSX is supposed to be incredibly stable. it better be since the damn startup time is like 5+ minutes. sigh

Yah, I feel you pain. When I got 1 GB for my iMac I thought it would be goodbye to pageouts. Well, 20000 isn't uncommon after it's been running for a few days for me. I figure, at least it can run a few days, unlike OS 9 and you mentioned, Windows 98.

[Graymalkin]

OSX gives a lot of memory space to processes and retains that space even after they're shut down so they can be relaunched quickly. The retained memory paged out but available for use by other programs. If a process has a lot of memory allocated to it but doesn't need it OSX will give that memory to another process that DOES need it. Don't worry too much about massive memory allocations to programs.

That being said, it pays to shut non-daemon processes down after they've been used for a while. Memory leaks are a problem with all complex programs. I suspect Window Manager hogging 40% of your memory is due to WindowShade X running inside of its process space. That effect could be WSX not releasing memory properly (a memory leak) or it could be an artifact of its operation. Your first action ought to be documenting what you did. Figure out how long Windows Manager was running and what you've been doing while it was running. Next write up a description of what happened and the problems you encountered and e-mail it off to the Unsanity guys. They'll know pretty quick if it is a problem with WSX or something else entirely.

Also, you don't need to restart your computer to kill long idle processes. For something like Windows Manager all you need to do is log out and log back in. You can also try kill -HUP pid and it will kill and restart the process. That may or may not work correctly with Windows Manager as other processes depend on its operation.

Remember you're not running OS8, you're running a Unix system. Not only is memory management way more complex but process control is an available feature. Utilize the tools that are there. Also don't blame OSX for something happening whilst running a hack for it. No matter how well a hack is written you're running third party code which is affecting the base system.

[Telusman]

Ur new Ghz PB takes 5 minutes to start up? Sheesh, mine takes 45 seconds to get to the login screen... (667Mhz, 768mb of ram) After a week of uptime, i had 0 pageouts, so your obviously doing alot of disk and memory intensive tasks, or theres something wrong.

As for the Window manager using 41% of ur ram, well i'd say thats from hacks or some silly theme.

Try using it as Apple intended for a while and you might find thats going to down, as buddy said earlier, its 3rd party code, and the results could be unexpected. Also, stuff like Windowshade X make windows transparent, etc.

Remember every window on your screen takes up ram, and it will take up more if its alpha-blended and having to be re-rendered. You'd be surprised how a single transparent terminal window can effect it, let alone entire finder/browser/ and app windows going into a semi-transparent state.

[suthercd]

Pageins reflect info read from disk to RAM- every machine does this at startup as well as when accessing files and apps. Your numbers are typical from what I have seen. Pageouts are obvioulsy the opposite and the number depends on a lot of possible factors.

I have the same PB you do and have had the cpu at max for about 5 hours compiling some source code from fink. During this time, Mail, Safari, Terminal, Launchbar, X11, Disk Copy, several haxies and others have been running also. The compile process grabs all the resource it can to get the job done. So pageins and pageouts reflect that high activity.

I show-

Code:
Pages free:                   115220.
Pages active:                  42085.
Pages inactive:                84347.
Pages wired down:              20492.
Pages reactivated:            295829.
Pageins:                       63929.
Pageouts:                      72252.
Object cache: 4119404 hits of 4617109 lookups (89% hit rate)

Again your numbers are typical from the little bit I have learned. The high hit rate is because the compiling is doing the same process over and over again and can find the info needed in a cached page.

HTH
Craig

[moreno]

i hate restarting so i haven't bothered to get 10.2.6 yet.

Restart! Due some bugs (i think) in OS X... After sleep the system becomes unstable (like my PB).

if i wanted to restart all the time, i would have bought an intel laptop and installed windows 98. OSX is supposed to be incredibly stable. it better be since the damn startup time is like 5+ minutes. sigh

[Manuel-Morenos-Computer:~] moreno% date
Thu May 22 06:29:55 WEST 2003
[Manuel-Morenos-Computer:~] moreno% can i buy dell laptops with windows98?
can: No match.

see! even terminal is more smart than you..

[kelesh]

listen moreno, i could just install windows 98 myself(though this is obviously a deathwish). Anyway, I could buy the laptop used(ebay or locally) with windows 98 on it, so HA!

Anyway, I logged out and logged in, and windowserver was using 28mb of ram. I let the powerbook idle while plugged in(not going to sleep), and when I came back it was at 158mb ram usage for windowserver.

I logged out/logged in again, and this time disabled screensaver(I was running some matrix screensaver before), and let the computer idle. when i came back it was at 28mb. I'm not sure if it was the matrix screensaver in particular, or just ANY screensaver that caused the problem, so I just won't be using screensavers anymore. Though I don't think flurry caused the problem, I'm not exactly sure. Anyway, this is some weird bug, perhaps with transparent Terminals and screensavers, or perhaps just with this stupid matrix screensaver.

[Esquare]

Still leaves the startup time of 5+ minutes, which is even weirder....



EE

[Cipher13]

You don't update your system, because you "hate restarting"?

[kelesh]

you've never heard of people taking Pride in their uptimes? If i liked restarted, I would have stuck with windows(though win2k and winxp have great uptimes. i got 6 weeks on my winxp machine once, with heavy use).

[philzilla]

Originally posted by kelesh:
you've never heard of people taking Pride in their uptimes? If i liked restarted, I would have stuck with windows(though win2k and winxp have great uptimes. i got 6 weeks on my winxp machine once, with heavy use).

you'd rather have a big uptime, than an unstable machine?

okay.

[Axo1ot1]

Help! my computer is messed up because I'm a moron! What do I do?!

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Axo1ot1:
Help! my computer is messed up because I'm a moron! What do I do?!

Call kelesh.

You are not your uptime. Restart and give yer baby some fresh memory. I thought restarting didn't reset your uptime anyway?

[kelesh]

oh please, i only installed one haxie, one theme, and a desktop-screensaver program. i did nothing stupid that should cause a memory leak.

perhaps the morons are the programmerss whose app causes a memory leak, or perhaps the morons are the stupid mac users like you who have no problem accepting memory leaks and restarting daily. but not me, i want a rock solid stable machine that does whatever i tell it to do (within reason). restarting is not a good solution to problems.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by kelesh:
oh please, i only installed one haxie, one theme, and a desktop-screensaver program. i did nothing stupid that should cause a memory leak.

perhaps the morons are the programmerss whose app causes a memory leak, or perhaps the morons are the stupid mac users like you who have no problem accepting memory leaks and restarting daily. but not me, i want a rock solid stable machine that does whatever i tell it to do (within reason). restarting is not a good solution to problems.

I agree. I have an uptime of 16 days on my dual 867 and I'm quite happy with it (previously it kernel panicked frequently and I was going to go in and bitch about it until it was replaced). I have 44,000 pageouts (roughly). Interestingly I've found that faster computers tend to have more pageouts with the same amount of ram. I'm not quite sure why (I had a G3 233 with 384MB that almost never had any pageouts).

[chabig]

At least get rid of the Haxie. We all knew system extensions could cause problems in Mac Classic OS. Haxies are like extensions for OS X. I don't trust them.

[Superchicken]

Dude you mouth off at people on a forum when you're complaining and comparing OS X to win 98, when these people tell you the problems YOU CAUSED with installing apps, and told you why they were doing what they were doing you start yelling at these people... and you expect them to not call you a moron!?

I'm sorry but while i don't normally like reffering to boarders as morons... I gota agree with the rest of the people.

[kelesh]

Superchicken, your opinion of this thread is somewhat incorrect, but i don't really care enough to pick it apart. i have to listen to MAC OSX USERS telling me that restarting is the answer to my problems, then I have to listen to Axo1o1 childishly calling me a moron.

Apparently, the problem I CAUSED was just from running a simple screensaver. If a screensaver(matrix) causes a memory leak, then the problem is something to do with OSX or the screensaver(I think its OSX).

its late and i have a final tomorrow, so i'm going to sleep. thanks to the most of the members in this thread who actually offered useful advice.

[Graymalkin]

You're entirely unqualified to determine that there is in fact a memory leak in OSX or the screensaver for that matter. Most of the people here are unqualified to determine if there is a memory leak in either OSX or the screensaver.

The fact remains however that you're seeing an unacceptable amount of memory usage (front your point of view) from Windows Manager. Restarted Windows Manager (by logging out and back into your account) and found that the memory usage skyrocketed when the system was left idle. My system's been idle for a couple hours no running only the Flurry screen saver.

% ps cux | grep Window
puck 178 12.0 6.7 109972 26184 ?? Ss Wed01PM 21:13.96 Window Manager

Nowhere near the ?40% usage you're seeing. I am not using any Haxies nor am I using the Matrix screen saver. I grabbed the Matrix screen saver I think you're using and I let it run for a couple minutes, Window Manager's memory usage started climbing pretty high.

My theory for this? Window Manager has to maintain view buffers for every view both on and off the screen. Running apps that aren't even on screen are being buffered by Window Manager, typically the window buffers are 32 bits in depth which means a 400x400 pixel window is going to need a 640KB buffer. My desktop when plugged into my monitor while at home is 1280x960 which translates into a 4.8MB buffer just to hold the desktop. Your Powerbook is running at 1280x854 which is about a 4.3MB buffer just for the background. An app like Camino with multiple tabs open takes about as much display buffer memory as having several windows open. I've got two 819x724 pixel Safari windows open right now, those two buffers alone add up to just about 5MB of buffer space. All told Safari is probably eating almost 7MB worth of RAM just buffering the display. If you're running a screen saver, even in the background that is another desktop sized (1280x854 pixels at 4 bytes per pixel) window being buffered.

Regarding your original post. Waking up from sleep always takes a few seconds to wake up from even if the system looks like it is fully up and running perfectly. Besides the fact you'd woken the system up from sleep you were using a "hack" in the form of Backlight to launch your screen saver in the desktop background. There's no telling if Backlight was working properly or not. As for iTunes if you've got a large music library it always takes a long time to load the library file, parse it, and spit something out to the display. There's lots of factors that contribute to a program loading or acting slow on any system no matter what OS and how fast it is.

[eno]

I think this thread (http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=161430) is still worth switching to, even though it is focussed on 10.2.6.

I've seen a definite degradation in performance since upgrading to it, although I can't pin down the exact source....

[Appleman]

I really don't understand why people want to have this uptime.
I simply prefer a nice, clean system that works, instead of showing off my crawling system to a friend: crawling due to my uptime.
Jees.

O and the explanation of Graymalkin is simply nice.

Did you have to use your PowerBook for your final?

[P]

Originally posted by philzilla:
you'd rather have a big uptime, than an unstable machine?

okay.

Actually... yes, I'd rather have a big uptime than an unstable machine. I'd even rather have a stable machine, though...

[wadesworld]

Still leaves the startup time of 5+ minutes, which is even weirder....

Anytime someone has an excessively long startup time, it's almost always some sort of DNS problem.

Wade

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Appleman:
I really don't understand why people want to have this uptime.
I simply prefer a nice, clean system that works, instead of showing off my crawling system to a friend: crawling due to my uptime.
Jees.

The point is that OSX is SUPPOSED to have both. There's nothing about a big uptime that should inherently slow things down. If it does, that's a bug.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
Interestingly I've found that faster computers tend to have more pageouts with the same amount of ram. I'm not quite sure why (I had a G3 233 with 384MB that almost never had any pageouts).

Because you do more

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Because you do more

Not really. I often had Bryce, Camino, Photoshop 7, and terminal going at the same time on the G3. The only big app I use now that I didn't then is Warcraft III and I haven't been playing that lately.

[Graymalkin]

Kelesh's problem is apparently the Matrix screensaver despite his insistance in the problem being OSX. Because I'm such a nice freaking guy I downloaded last night when I was responding to the thread to see for myself what it was doing. Just running it for a few minutes caused Window Manager's memory usage to increase more than would be expected, certainly more than when Flurry runs.

Today I let the Matrix screen saver run for a while and when I turned it off Window Manager's memory usage was 50.4%, after a few minutes the usage is back down to the typical ?6-7% I get when running Terminal and a single Safari window. I'm by no means qualified to make determinations about a particular program's memory retention status but I can say that running the Matrix screen saver as Kelesh resulted in Window Manager eating 50.4% of my available memory (384MB on a 12" Powerbook). In my estimation it is entirely likely the Matrix screen saver is the source of his problems with sluggishness and memory usage.

OSX is a stable system but the third party user applications you run on top of OSX are not necessarily stable nor well written. It is not a good idea to expect such programs to work perfectly all the time. When something does go wrong and a program abuses system resources you need to shut the program down, either by Quitting it, logging out of the system (killing all user processes), or restarting the system. You can easily have long uptimes and decent system performance as long as you're not letting processes run away with all of your available system resources. Close long running processes when they're not being used, make sure your system is running when the weekly and monthly cron scripts run or install anacron to make sure they GET run. Log out of the system when you go out for a while (assuming you do).

Computers, even Macs, have finite resources to spread around to all the programs you are running on them. Avoid Linux Screen Shot Syndrome, running ten trillion applications just to fill up screen real estate, if you want a system to be all snappy and quick. If you run so much junk the system using swap space you can't avoid performance problems. If you want to run a metric buttload of applications invest in some more RAM for your computer.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by kelesh:
Axo1o1

Yeah! Say my name, bitch!


There is no such thing as a perfectly stable computer. Get over it. The programmers aren't morons. Do you know how freaking hard it is to develop software? Running screensavers in the background of your desktop has never ever been a good idea. It's a really good way to kernel panic your machine. Nobody is saying that rampant system instability is okay, but not installing a provided system update because you don't like restarting? That's just silly and elitist. Everyone has to turn their computer off. It's teh fact of life, d00d.

[Appleman]

Coming home after a good drink, my TiBook is on running nothing else than the screen saver Matrix.

The fan is running. That means to me that the screen saver is **** written, since it takes all processor capacity: otherwise the fan isn't running.

i deleted the Matrix.

[someone_else]

Don't forget that the pagein/pageout numbers include memory mapped files. So some (and probably most with 512MB) of those pageout's are not due to VM swapping. Memory mapping is a common occurence in programs that need to deal with large files. For instance Mail will mem. map it's mailboxes once they reach a certain point. To correlate pageouts to VM swapping, check how many swap files you have (ls -l /var/vm). If there are more than 3 or 4, then I'd say you may have a memory shortage (which may have been temporary; swap files will grow, but never shrink).

Finally, the window manager memory stats include all windows for all programs. Programs don't allocate windows, the win mgr. does. So if your win mgr. is at 40% mem then you have a lot of windows or a few windows taking a lot of mem (such as a desktop screensaver). Shutdown the screensaver and just incase, get rid of WindowShadeX. Give the system a few mintues to settle down, and if you still see high mem usage in the window mgr then logout and log back in (no restart).

It's very unlikely you have found a leak in the win. mgr. itself. If you are really interested in the gory details of every single window and it's memory usage, get the Developer Tools and open "Quartz Debug". It will tell you exactly how many windows are open (including invisible ones) and how much memory they are using.

HTH.