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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > Will Apple ever fix the Safari memory leak?

Will Apple ever fix the Safari memory leak? (Page 2)
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Thinine
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Feb 21, 2007, 05:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by Kevin View Post
In conclusion you don't know what you are talking about obviously.
In conclusion, STFU. Run the leaks tool, even against shipping Safari and you'll see only a small amount of it's memory usage are actually leaks. Until recently, WebKit's caching mechanism hasn't been too smart, so that's where most of the memory usage is from. Now with the most recent WebKit nightlies that problem has been taken care of so memory usage should be much more controlled. So unless you've found a new problem with those builds, all you're doing in this thread is whining.
     
Eug
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Feb 21, 2007, 07:29 PM
 
Well, complaining about having 500MB + of memory usage isn't whining, especially when Safari offers no settings to control this. It's a real issue, especially considering it's the default browser that Apple ships with every Mac. It doesn't help that it's been like this for years either. It's so bad that I specifically tell every single new Mac user to consider other browser options.

Nightlies don't count, as they are not the release versions, but they are encouraging.
     
Catfish_Man
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Feb 22, 2007, 12:49 PM
 
Bug 12850 - Leaks >10k objects <-- there's another leak about to bite the dust

Eug: arguably release versions don't count *except* for whining, since they're ancient code. It just means there's two categories to whine about; the problem itself, and Apple's release schedule.
     
Eug
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Feb 22, 2007, 03:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Catfish_Man View Post
Bug 12850 - Leaks >10k objects <-- there's another leak about to bite the dust

Eug: arguably release versions don't count *except* for whining, since they're ancient code. It just means there's two categories to whine about; the problem itself, and Apple's release schedule.
Arguably, those who call Apple customers "whiners" on this issue are simply being condescending. Basically, it comes down to these people saying "You suck because you aren't a hardcore geek beta-tester type downloading every new nightly."
     
Catfish_Man
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Feb 22, 2007, 05:38 PM
 
By whining I merely meant complaining with no hope of actually accomplishing something. Sorry about the implied judgement.
     
webmotiva
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Feb 25, 2007, 11:07 AM
 
Possible solution:

1 - Activate Debug Menu:
Terminal: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

2 - Show Caches Window > Disable WebCore Caches

...

I just wonder if there is a way to keep it disabled.
     
Don Pickett
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Feb 26, 2007, 11:45 AM
 
I've been running the nightlies for a few days now. Although Safari's memory usage still gets to 200 megs, it does seem to release that memory when not in use, and it runs more quickly when it's using all that memory.
The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
     
Catfish_Man
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Feb 27, 2007, 06:35 PM
 
     
macintologist
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Mar 3, 2007, 06:13 PM
 
How can I tell which version of webkit I have installed? I downloaded the nightly and I opened the webkit.app

I thought it would be a pkg installer. So I'm a little confused. How do I revert back to the normal webkit so I use Pithhelmet again.
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 3, 2007, 06:20 PM
 
It doesn't replace the system webkit. WebKit.app will run with the new one, Safari.app will run with the old.
     
macintologist
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Mar 4, 2007, 12:26 AM
 
Ah, thanks catfish man
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 7, 2007, 12:03 PM
 
Archived Message - CIA

Another nice cache fix
     
tightsocks
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Mar 7, 2007, 12:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Catfish_Man View Post
It doesn't replace the system webkit. WebKit.app will run with the new one, Safari.app will run with the old.
So, to use these nighty builds that everyone is talking about, we just run the 'Webkit.app' when we want to use the test build and it won;t mess with our system?

If we want to use the standard Safari we just run the Safari.app...?
     
tightsocks
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Mar 7, 2007, 12:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by Catfish_Man View Post
It doesn't replace the system webkit. WebKit.app will run with the new one, Safari.app will run with the old.
So, to use these nighty builds that everyone is talking about, we just run the 'Webkit.app' when we want to use the test build and it won;t mess with our system?

If we want to use the standard Safari we just run the Safari.app...?
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 7, 2007, 01:02 PM
 
Correct.
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 8, 2007, 11:57 AM
 
Another sizable image handling improvement from Hyatt! Archived Message - CIA

Probably regresses large animated gif performance a bit, but somehow I doubt that's a problem.
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 11, 2007, 02:08 PM
 
Boom! More memory improvements: Archived Message - CIA

(One of the changes there was discovered while debugging a bug I filed; I feel all useful now )

<edit>

Is this running commentary on memory improvements at all interesting to folks? I may as well not spam this thread if not.

</edit>
( Last edited by Catfish_Man; Mar 11, 2007 at 05:06 PM. )
     
tightsocks
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Mar 16, 2007, 05:09 AM
 
It doesn't seem like any of the memory fixes made it into the recent 10.4.9 update...
     
Kevin
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Mar 16, 2007, 05:11 AM
 
The nightly builds always crash on start for me.
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 16, 2007, 05:13 AM
 
tightsocks: as far as I know webkit was not updated at all (or at least not in any major way) in 10.4.9

kevin: do you have saft/pithhelmet/safaristand installed?
     
tightsocks
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Mar 16, 2007, 05:27 AM
 
So, I guess the original title of this thread still holds...
     
Thinine
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Mar 16, 2007, 04:06 PM
 
Not really. The latest WebKit nightlies have massively improved memory usage.
     
sushiism
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Mar 16, 2007, 04:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by watashi View Post
Keep in mind a "standard" user who purchased a Mac for the ease of use and has NEVER opened Activity Monitor or looked at the preferences of the pre-installed browser.

My wife has recently started complaining about her system slowing down. It is an eMac with 640MB RAM. She has been using this system for three years to run her web business. She has a bad habit of never closing an application after closing the last window of that application even though I've tried to explain that it leaves the application running -- it's not that she's coming from a Windows environment where that does end the application -- it is because I from the System 7-9 era and you had to close everything to have enough memory to open something else. In that sense, X has allowed non-technical people to enjoy multi-tasking without having to manage memory. And leaving an application open, but idle, really shouldn't bother other applications.

But, it seems in the last three or four months, some of the blogs or sites she visits are bloating Safari's memory. I'm not sure which site or sites are causing it -- I've not looked, but FireFox does not have this problem. I only figured out that it was Safari by looking at Activity Monitor. I missed it at first glance -- never thinking Safari would be taking up 400MB+ -- I read it as 400KB+. After shutting down Safari and restarting it, that fell to 20MB or so.

This is a problem. I encourage people who are frustrated with other platforms to look at the Mac platform. They should not be expected to have to investigate this sort of thing -- especially on pre-installed, default software from the manufacturer. Those of us who understand where to look to solve these problems, are probably avoiding them all together by using alternative browsers -- so the problem does not seem that important.

Looking this up today, I've found this problem has been documented since Safari first came out -- yet there is still a problem today -- that is very hard, and discouraging, to believe.

She is slowly using FireFox more and more -- and I'm sure she'll now remember to turn off Safari every once in a while, but when I sat down just now, it was open from this morning and was using 248MB -- with no windows open.

eMac 1GHz
640MB RAM
OS X 10.4.7 (Build 8J135)
Safari 2.0.4 (419.3)
Some blogs she visits might have started using that SIFR crap which changes blog post titles into flash movies to display them in a specific (usually a very ugly) font. so each blog has like 12 flash movies on a page which is really bad
     
- - e r i k - -
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Mar 17, 2007, 01:36 AM
 
SIFR is the only viable solution we have for web typography. Not all flash is bad.

[ fb ] [ flickr ] [] [scl] [ last ] [ plaxo ]
     
tightsocks
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Mar 17, 2007, 06:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by Thinine View Post
Not really. The latest WebKit nightlies have massively improved memory usage.
Then how come it wasn't included in the 10.4.9 update??
     
JKT
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Mar 17, 2007, 07:27 AM
 
Because they aren't yet stable enough to ship and/or they are working more on Safari 3.0 for Leopard rather than spending most of their time on Safari for Tiger.
     
Thinine
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Mar 17, 2007, 03:25 PM
 
Yeah. Despite the day-to-day stability of WebKit, Apple is still pretty conservative when it comes to shipping official versions.
     
Catfish_Man
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Mar 18, 2007, 12:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by tightsocks View Post
Then how come it wasn't included in the 10.4.9 update??
Most .x.y updates do not include major revisions to anything, let alone major revisions with 61 (as of this post) open priority 1 bugs: http://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?q...-0-0=%5BS60%5D

If there is a 10.4.10 (I know some people say that's never going to happen, but we'll see), I wouldn't be surprised to see it released almost at the same time as 10.5, and with a very similar webkit to the one in Safari 3. The reason I suspect this might happen is because that's what they did with 10.3.9, and it was very successful.
     
tightsocks
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Mar 19, 2007, 06:35 AM
 
Yes, I hope that they do that too.

ps.I just gave the latest build a try and it seems that there is no keychain support...is that normal?
     
Thinine
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Mar 19, 2007, 03:56 PM
 
Yes. They've changed the way they render text fields so current Safari doesn't see them and so can't autofill them.
     
 
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