[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by hldan 

When memory goes into inactive state that's memory reserved for apps that already used it prior. Any new apps open rely on "free memory".

That's not correct. Newly launched apps will take from the inactive memory as well.

[nemanirc]

The sound on my MacBook (Core Duo) sucks a lot less! I don't have to max out the sound anymore to hear things. I am STUNNED!

[maximeguilbot]

Originally Posted by frdmfghtr 

The only thing I can think of would be to check your screen resolution setting to make sure it matches the actual LCD pixel dimensions.

I have a powerbook g4 17" and the resolution is setup to 1400 x 900 which is the same as the lcd resolution. But the effect is quite the same, it looks like the resolution is 1399x400...

Also, my powerbook crashes once (black screen that says that I have to restart in 5 languages) and it only happens to me with bad RAM once...

Maxime.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by hldan 

Um I don't think that's completely correct. When memory goes into inactive state that's memory reserved for apps that already used it prior. Any new apps open rely on "free memory" and if there's not enough free memory available then the application heads to the HDD for virtual memory. There would be no need for the new app to search the HDD for virtual memory if the inactive was available. That's why tons of ram is a necessity.

No, that's not correct. If an app needs memory it will get it from free memory and then from inactive memory before the system starts to page out.

People need to start to understand that a Mac isn't Windows - especially when it comes to understanding memory. There is no reason to try to have a lot of 'free memory'. Free memory is wasted memory. Free memory is RAM you paid for that's not being used. Having zero free memory but a ton of 'inactive memory' is nothing to be worried about - it's absolutely fine. Only once you've used up all the active memory you'll start to see lots of page-outs. And that's what you want to avoid.

[rubaiyat]

So the massive slow downs, weird behaviour and hashed directories are not really happening, in theory?

[Simon]

Was that a reply to my post? Because I really don't see what that has to do with the 10.4.9 update or OS X's memory management.

[rubaiyat]

Sorry if I am getting it wrong, but you seem to be in denial of Safari's memory leak.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

So the massive slow downs, weird behaviour and hashed directories are not really happening, in theory?

Not on my machine, anyway.

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

Sorry if I am getting it wrong, but you seem to be in denial of Safari's memory leak.

Just ran the "leaks" tool on my copy of Safari, which according to top has been running for 35 hours, 15 minutes, and 53 seconds. During that time, I've used the "Open in Tabs" menu item a few time, to open about 35 tabs each time.

Here's the output:

Code:
$leaks 5299
Process 5299: 317805 nodes malloced for 147286 KB
Process 5299: 290 leaks for 8864 total leaked bytes.

8864 bytes - I can live with that.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

After some period of intensive usage, creating lots of tabbed windows for example, it consumes almost up to a gig of RAM then starts grabbing Virtual memory till there is almost no space left on my boot up hard drive.

This is a known issue and has been well covered in this and other forums.

This so screwed up my directory files I had to run DiskWarrior twice over it before I could get it fixed.

btw Repairing permissions on my iMac repeatedly wipes all my custom shortcuts in the window's sidebar, which means I have to take a screen snap before repair and try and find all my links again after.

As I said these are all GUI annoyances we could do without.

Another is the sometimes interminable delay and spinning beachball when passing over a submenu with multiple submenu options.

None of those is a GUI annoyance other than the last one, which is funny because this is something that I remember the classic OS suffering from even more than OS X (however, it is annoying that it still happens in OS X and I really wish it didn't too). As for the sidebar resetting itself when you repair permissions - that is completely abnormal behaviour and shouldn't be happening. It suggests that your Finder preferences are corrupt and I would delete them and start from scratch.

[rubaiyat]

Originally Posted by JKT 

None of those is a GUI annoyance other than the last one, which is funny because this is something that I remember the classic OS suffering from even more than OS X (however, it is annoying that it still happens in OS X and I really wish it didn't too).

Except in classic OS it didn't go on for several minutes at a time. Sometimes I just force quit the Finder to get on with my work. Ofcourse if you do that via the Apple menu you pass the Recent Items/Applications/Documents/Folders submenus… ladedadeda.

More Fun with Dick and Jane

The column preview kicks in on a scroll past a large image/movie file stored on a server. Can't be stopped with a simple cmd-period. In fact hardly anything can be.

File names copy out of order in Finder List View.

The Dock intermittently pops at the bottom of window scrolls.

Finder fails to remember view states and positions. I've tried to discover the logic behind its behaviour and come to the conclusion, there is none.

As there is none that I can see as to the contents of Open/Save's recent folders list.

"Guess Where The File Is" when going "Find original". OSX may, with luck, open the correct window but confuses the user by keeping the actual file out of sight above or below.

Vanishing file when relocating files within open folders in list view.

Incorrect folder and file size in list view.

"No such file" in Spotlight. I have done tests where I copied and pasted the file name into Spotlight and it still can't find it.

Open-Save dialog box truncates file names but never remembers that you stretched out the dialog box & column everytime to see it.

Windows do not expand to fit in screen, nor contract to fit around icons of files as in OS classic. I have to perpetually flick between list view and Icon view to locate files.

A selected file does not stay centred in window when changing views.

Printer settings need constant checking.

Page sizes fail to correctly convert to metric sizes. I've posted Apple as to the correct formula for conversion from points to millimetres, something else they have ignored.

Fonts are a total disaster and require a thread all to themselves.

Just a few GUI gotchas off the top of my head....

As for the sidebar resetting itself when you repair permissions - that is completely abnormal behaviour and shouldn't be happening. It suggests that your Finder preferences are corrupt and I would delete them and start from scratch.

I have, repeatedly, and am tired of doing so. Deleting Preferences has become the OSX equivalent of Extension Conflicts in the Classic OS.

This could go on forever, but nothing is going to change at Apple.

"Features" sell, even if they are crap, so features are what we get and the bugs are just left to annoy us.

[hldan]

Originally Posted by Simon 

No, that's not correct. If an app needs memory it will get it from free memory and then from inactive memory before the system starts to page out.

People need to start to understand that a Mac isn't Windows - especially when it comes to understanding memory. There is no reason to try to have a lot of 'free memory'. Free memory is wasted memory. Free memory is RAM you paid for that's not being used. Having zero free memory but a ton of 'inactive memory' is nothing to be worried about - it's absolutely fine. Only once you've used up all the active memory you'll start to see lots of page-outs. And that's what you want to avoid.

Oops, just read the Apple support pages and I apologize for the misinformation. Simon is right, inactive memory is just like available memory.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

Sorry if I am getting it wrong, but you seem to be in denial of Safari's memory leak.

Not really.

In your post, you claimed Apple is ignoring your 'bug report'. I had this hunch that that might be because your 'bug' isn't the memory leak you think it is.

I'll try to explain it again: if the 'leak' you're observing is nothing but a decrease of free memory at the expense of an increase of inactive memory, then you are not really observing a memory leak. That is perfectly normal behavior and you can actually observe that with many apps (try for example copying several GBs of files to a remote server in the Finder). And therefore Apple will disregard a 'bug report' on that 'issue'.

[rubaiyat]

Call it what you might, when it has cumulatively sucked all my available 1.5Gb of RAM and used up the remaining space on my boot volume I get severe slow downs, quirky behaviour and damaged directories.

Just closing Safari is not enough to clear it. I have to restart.

If that is perfectly normal behaviour, the problem is with the definition.

Certainly I will describe it as extremely unwelcome behaviour.

[chabig]

I simply don't believe you when you say that Safari has filled up your entire hard drive.

If true, you need to reinstall OS X. Stop complaining about OS X when your installation is broken.

[Simon]

Rubaiyat, my Safari has never ever behaved like you indicate. And I do use it a lot, have long uptime, and of course I use many tabs. I suggest you check your installation. What you describe does not at all sound like a Safari bug (if it were you'd hear many more reports about it). It sounds much more like a screwed up OS X installation to me.

[Chuckit]

Safari has never sucked my entire memory pool and filled my hard drive, for what it's worth. I've had Safari open for about 48 hours now, probably, and I have only about 10 MB less free space than when I opened it. So yeah, definitely not normal.

[rubaiyat]

Do you have your Hard Drive partitioned? I do.

I wish I didn't but it is hard to back it all off and start again.

I allowed 30Gb for the system and applications. Unfortunately IPhoto amongst others ate a lot of the free space. Generally I have 3Gb free before a long session with Safari. It is particularly hungry when DLing pdfs or large images of any description, either creating caches for each one or paging them to the drive after consuming all available RAM.

We all have different patterns of usage. I am sure there are some things you do that I never do. Doesn't mean they don't happen.

I just had to restart again after DLing a swathe of travel brochures and am back to 2.33Gb free on my boot volume after again having run out of VM. So Safari has taken most of the 1.5Gb RAM available (not all, I had other apps open) then went on to take over 2Gb of HD space.

btw The DLs are not going onto the boot volume they are going onto an external FW drive.

Check out the thread I gave above. You may not be encountering it but others definitely are.

[JKT]

If iPhoto is taking up so much space, why not put your Library on your external drive to free it up on your main volume? Alternatively, obtain an external drive that is an adequate enough size to allow you clone your internal so that you can wipe the internal and get rid of the partitions. It is self-evident to you that having only 3GB of disk space left on your boot partition is not enough for the way you use your Mac. Solve your problems by giving yourself more room.

[- - e r i k - -]

Why did you partition in the first place?

[rubaiyat]

I partitioned because I have 1 partition for System and Apps, 2 for Scratch disk and 3 for my Work Files. This keeps a clean contiguous space for Photoshop and Illustrator to run their files to and hopefully makes backup of actual work easier.

Unfortunately OSX really screws up most attempts to make this work. The early versions of iPhoto didn't allow alternative libraries. The iPhoto library had already grown large by the time it became possible to move to another drive.

When I tried to relocate the iPhoto library to the work partition it moved the initial set and then returned to stashing them on the boot drive. By the time I discovered what it was doing it had saturated the boot drive. That combined with my Canon's software meant I now had several libraries with multiple copies of diferent versions of photos scattered amongst my drives.

Untangling it is a major job. I currently do not have large enough free space anywhere on my drives to resolve the different iPhoto libraries. I would have had enough on my external drive but I had to install another copy of OSX onto that so I could run DiskWarrior on my boot drive.

The whole issue of backups and cleaning up damaged systems in OSX is extremely clumsy and neglected by Apple. Compared to OS9 where the system was by comparison tiny and there were few requirement to place applications and files anywhere except where you wanted them. Running a system repair meant just booting off the DiskWarrior CD and going for it.

Apple has even put pressure on Toast so that you can't even build a bootable rescue CD/DVD now.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

The whole issue of backups and cleaning up damaged systems in OSX is extremely clumsy and neglected by Apple.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

OS X comes with a built in cloning tool. Hook up any external FW or USB HDD and clone your stuff. Do with the internal HD whatever you like. Copy back from clone. Simple and fast. Free too.

BTW, these clones are bootable. No matter how screwed up your Mac is, attach the disk with the clone, boot holding option, select the clone, boot from it. Continue to work, repair a screwed up volume, and/or copy back everything from the working clone. Simple and fast. Free too.

Similarly, Archive and Install lets you install a fresh System and apps w/o touching your ~/. If your system is fubar this is a very easy way to get back up and running w/o losing any of your documents or settings. Simple and fast. Free too.

The Install DVD can always be used to boot your screwed up Mac. You can run DiskUtility form the install disk. You can copy back cloned volumes form the install disk. It's all right at your finger tips. Simple and fast. Free too.

All these options are available to anybody who has an extra disk around. Disks are cheap nowadays. And since you should back up in any case (regardless of the OS or your proficiency with computers) you will have one lying around anyway. There is no reason not to make use of these simple and free techniques. It is just as simple as with OS 9 with the single exception that you have to do the cloning in Disk Utility rather than by copying in the Finder. [However, if I recall how many people didn't manage to copy over properly in OS 9 because they forgot the system enabler file or this and that extension, I actually prefer the present method].

[rubaiyat]

Free too.

How much stuff do you have on your Hard Drives that you can "simply" clone it to another "Free" hard drive? I'd like a few of these freebie hard drives, they make me pay for mine.

All you are doing is cloning your problems, then have to sift through 100 Gbs of stuff to find what is good and what is not. Having to go thorough multiple reinstalls in earlier versions of OSX, I found myself drowning in copies of Systems "gone wrong". In fact that's how I lost my accounts and a whole portfolio collection.

Disk Utility is near useless. Any real problems and it gives up, especially if they are on the boot volume. Disk Warrior and Tech Tools Pro are useful which is why I want them on a separate bootable Rescue CD/DVD.

Apple's contribution is to stop you creating those bootable CD/DVDs.

btw Copying in OSX requires following detailed instructions, with innumerable gotchas. In OS9 it was a really difficult drag and drop of the system folder. In fact you could have multiple Systems on the one volume and "bless" whichever one you wanted to use. I kept a golden one on CD for both installations and backup.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

How much stuff do you have on your Hard Drives that you can "simply" clone it to another "Free" hard drive? I'd like a few of these freebie hard drives, they make me pay for mine.

Obviously the HDD is not free. Of course I never said that, so I have no idea what your point is. What I said is that you probably have one around for backups anyway. And if not, well trust me, you should.

All you are doing is cloning your problems, then have to sift through 100 Gbs of stuff to find what is good and what is not.

Absolutely wrong. A&I will take care of all those system issues. If you still have trouble after A&I it's something in your ~/ and that's easily diagnosed by creating a new account. Actually, you first check that and then use A&I.

Disk Utility is near useless.

I have never encountered a volume problem I could not solve by booting from the install DVD and running DU from there. If the disk has a hardware issue however, obviously software can't help. Again: cloning (or MA for that matter) will help you migrate to a new one.

Apple's contribution is to stop you creating those bootable CD/DVDs.

The install DVD is bootable and holds diagnostic as well as recovery software. True though, you cannot make a custom 10.4.9 bootable DVD with BootCD yourself - presently at least.

btw Copying in OSX requires following detailed instructions, with innumerable gotchas. In OS9 it was a really difficult drag and drop of the system folder.

It's still drag and drop. You drag onto 'source' and onto 'destination'. Then you click 'restore'. How hard is that? The only difference to OS 9 is that you do it in DU rather than in the Finder. And if that gives you such a headache, well then, my condolences.

I get the impression that you have a screwed up setup and you're rather quick to blame OS X. When actually you just seem to not know how stuff is done properly in OS X. It is indeed different from OS 9, but does that make it worse? No. It's just different. OS X has so many advantages, it's a no-brainer to just give up on 9 and learn how to do stuff right in X. That will get you much further than bickering on a forum about a wasted install.

[rubaiyat]

I have a number of machines and they all exhibit more or less similar problems.

As an administrator of a studio set-up I do pay attention to "issues", large or small, with all installations not just the current OSX ones. They existed under Mac OS, particularly OS9 (although OS 8.6 was "golden"), they exist in OSX as well as W2K, WXP and now Vista.

There were a lot of real shocker problems in the earlier versions of OSX which only got out of beta IMHO with OSX 10.2.3. I received the same "no problems", rebuttals then as now.

In the many years of using Macs and Windows I've noticed there always is a solid clique of denialists. The editor of a publication I used to run, vehemently said his Mac "never bombed". Something his secretary said was total and utter BS.

The principle role of the denialist is to say that there are no problems now, just in the past, where these past problems materialise from mystifies me. The expense, disruption, poor solutions or absurd run arounds to fix issues are always "minor", until a real fix comes. When it suddenly becomes in the past and is safe to talk about it.

I look forward to Leopard, hopefully, fixing some of the issues I raised so you can tell me that they "used" to be the problem.

[- - e r i k - -]

Well put Ruba. I might not agree with all you said, but that was poignant.

[rubaiyat]

btw I do have backup Hard Drives. They contain back-ups.

What you are suggesting is I have a back-up of the back-up or a HD with nothing on it. Unfortunately in practice that rarely stays that way. Particularly when each new larger HD has to swallow the previous smaller one.

I have a huge collection of duplicated CD and DVD backups but they worry the heck out of me. I had to recover some material from one the other day to find a largish portion of the foil had rubbed off.

When TimeMachine comes along it will be interesting to see the response when people start realising just how big and expensive these back-up drives are going to be when to be truely effective they need to have redundant RAIDs.

Knowing Apple I'll put money on them introducing the software "solution" that is TimeMachine with the lack of a ready hardware solution, such as the absence of multiple drives in the iMacs. Just as they put early adopters of OSX such as myself, who had Macs without writable media drives, in a terrible position when the inevitable problems struck. When I hit system/hardware/network problems, one lead to the other, I was really up Sh!t Creek without a paddle.

Steve Jobs has always done this. From constantly having to swap floppies in the first Macs, the early opposition to internal HDs, oddball incompatible optical drives in NEXT machines, no writable drives in iMacs and early G4s, and no CD-RWs until Mac users went on a virtual consumer's strike.

His last shot was delaying USB 2 until the inevitable struck and introducing FW800 with no backward compatibility so it could become a huge flop.

Then he dropped FW from iPods.

[rubaiyat]

Hi erik, hows it up the ' Coast?

Pissing down here in the Heart of the Nation. Autumn is just starting to bite.

Good to sleep in, in the morning though. Especially with the good woman by my side.

[- - e r i k - -]

Hot as ever. No sign of autumn here. Good woman arriving today after three weeks absence. I'm excited.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by rubaiyat 

I look forward to Leopard, hopefully, fixing some of the issues I raised so you can tell me that they "used" to be the problem.

If Leopard 'fixes' issues you but nobody else had, chances are it wasn't Leopard but your fubar'ed install.

Look, you can call me a 'denialist' and attack me all you want. I hardly find that warranted. Regardless, in the end you can either come here and ask for help with your issues and you will likely find more experienced people who are willing to help you. Or you can come here to vent and rant. While the former would actually help you, you unfortunately chose the latter. Your call. I'm done here.

[rubaiyat]

Hoowee!!!!

[rubaiyat]

Trouble Simon is the forums are full of "nobody else"s. I gave you the link for the Safari problem.

Honestly I am not having a go at you personally, but the denialism stands. Your solutions are not as neat, simple or "Free" as you make out. OSX is complex, ever shifting, short on consistency and requires far more techno savy than the older OS.

Whilst I am happy with its stability and occassional power, I am very aware of the shortcomings in its GUI and demands on the user. It is bloated, with a lot hidden from the user, causing many of the problems because they invite concern over unforeseen consequences.

The exact opposite of the model for the traditional Macintosh which aimed at graceful simplicity and consistency. I uphold that original vision as worthwhile even if the current Apple just gives it lip service, whilst delivering up not dissimilar gruel to Microsoft.

[onlyone-jc]

Has anybody noticed their Mac acting a little strangely after the 10.4.9 update?

Mine has started to slow down a little, and strange little things like my screensaver is now activated, even though it is set to 'Never', and my screen dims before it sleeps, while I've set it not to.

Seems a little strange.

Any ideas?

[waitingfor970]

I updated from 10.4.8 to 10.4.9 via Software Update about a week after the update was released. No problems on my Macbook Pro, but my Dual 2GHz G5 started locking up, fans spinning wildly up during sleep, etc ...all of which appeared to be kernel panics. (I managed to actually witness only one kernel panic screen dump, however -- something about IO errors.) To resolve (or at least diagnose) the problem, I tried zeroing out the drive, reinstalling 10.4.0 and doing various combinations of complete and partial updates, unplugging various suspect peripherals, etc, all to no avail. It's a pretty stock machine, too: I've filled the extra drive bay with a 300 GB SATA drive (Maxtor), which has run like a champ, and the machine has extra memory (purchased at an Apple Authorized Dealer and certified for the G5).

Anyway, the upshot is that the Apple repair shop I use -- which I've found to be very reliable -- has determined that the logic board needs replacing and, further, that certain other machines' firmware appears to be adversely affected in this way by the 104.9 update. Whatever the cause, I'm sure glad I buy Applecare with all my machines. Updater beware, I guess!

[lpkmckenna]

I've been enduring a great many kernel panics in the last week. I'm not sure of the cause yet. But I've had more panics in the last week than in the last 3 years.

[osiris]

My MBP has been doing weird stuff - the mouse jitters, beachballing, menus moving in slow motion... it has happened twice since the update.

[Thinine]

Originally Posted by waitingfor970 

Anyway, the upshot is that the Apple repair shop I use -- which I've found to be very reliable -- has determined that the logic board needs replacing and, further, that certain other machines' firmware appears to be adversely affected in this way by the 104.9 update. Whatever the cause, I'm sure glad I buy Applecare with all my machines. Updater beware, I guess!

What? 10.4.9 didn't affect the Firmware of your, or anyone else's, machine.

[kick52]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Not on my machine, anyway.

Just ran the "leaks" tool on my copy of Safari, which according to top has been running for 35 hours, 15 minutes, and 53 seconds. During that time, I've used the "Open in Tabs" menu item a few time, to open about 35 tabs each time.

Here's the output:

Code:
$leaks 5299
Process 5299: 317805 nodes malloced for 147286 KB
Process 5299: 290 leaks for 8864 total leaked bytes.

8864 bytes - I can live with that.

i've got more here..

iBook:~ Tim$ leaks 8228
Process 8228: 700170 nodes malloced for 389960 KB
Process 8228: 44694 leaks for 2235184 total leaked bytes.

[Thinine]

For a grand total of 2MB.

[Catfish_Man]

I'm amazed anyone is still arguing about Safari memory leaks. It's not a leak under the strict definition (even the one in the post above is only 2.2MB), but there are multiple issues that cause it to consume more memory than it should. A small sampling:

1) The cache does not evict old items correctly
2) Image size in the cache is calculated based on downloaded size rather than decoded size, and iirc only takes into account the first frame of animated GIFs

So yes, Safari uses way more memory than it should, no it's mostly not a leak, yes it's much improved for the next major version.

<edit>
And if anyone feels like arguing this point I can link you to the exact code involved.
</edit>

[hldan]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

That's not correct. Newly launched apps will take from the inactive memory as well.

...

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Catfish_Man 

I'm amazed anyone is still arguing about Safari memory leaks. It's not a leak under the strict definition (even the one in the post above is only 2.2MB)...

I tried to point that out already on page 5 of this thread. Unfortunately there are people here who have made up their minds that Safari had, has, and always will have a memory leak. Whatever.

[angelmb]

My merlin gerin UPS ellipse 800 USB is no longer recognized by OS X, while I am not 100% sure about the reason I wonder if anyone has one and did notice it since upgrading to 10.4.9, before that you didn't need drivers at all, just plug the USB wire and the UPS option appears inside Energy Saver preferences pane.

[onlyone-jc]

I heard that 10.4.10 was out, or was I just imagining it? I ran Software Update, but it doesn't find it. Or, is it only applicable to certain configurations?

onlyone-jc.

[kick52]

Originally Posted by Thinine 

For a grand total of 2MB.

yeah, a whole 2mb! WOW!

i thought i'd just post it.

[waitingfor970]

Originally Posted by Thinine 

What? 10.4.9 didn't affect the Firmware of your, or anyone else's, machine.

Who knows. I can only assume it's a firmware issue when, after wiping the boot drive and doing a completely clean install (to 10.4.0 and 10.4.8, even), the issues that suddenly appeared after the update persist. Seems an odd time for hardware to start failing, too...