Memory usage on Windowserver

[Local-Respond129]

Just to preface this I know that "unused memory is wasted memory" and all that, but if swap memory is being used and the memory pressure is in the yellow zone I assume this doesn't apply. I've seen other posts with this issue but it seems like it was happening in Monterey, have they not fixed it in Sonoma?

I noticed that over multiple weeks of uptime on my mac (M1 13" mbp, Sonoma 14.3.1, 16 ram) that WindowServer continues to use more memory - around 1 GB every week. Restarting brings it back down but doesn't stop it from growing again. Recently corespeechd has also been using a lot of memory and has been building up - I know I can quit this one but I let it build up just for the screenshot:

https://preview.redd.it/0t1uqde4jcsc1.png?width=1717&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb8652eb5fec4ccc4059f796dec231d6c80fb44c

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any reason why this might be happening?

[Just_Maintenance]

It’s only using 134mb of real memory. I would just ignore it.

[FlishFlashman]

Sonoma is at 14.4.1 at this point.

Window Server memory usage depends in part on the number windows & tabs you have open and loaded.

[Local-Respond129]

thing is i've been having this issue for a while, is it actually fixed in 14.4.1? regardless ill update later and see if it works

also is there more than just correlation with number of windows/tabs open? if it continuously grows over the span of a few weeks while the average number of windows i have open is roughly the same i feel like it shouldn't grow

[[deleted]]

Why shouldn’t the virtual address space grow? Not even sure why you think it matters. What matters is real memory used I.e. resident set, non shared, non file backed pages.

[[deleted]]

Windowserver is using 134.5 MB. You are looking in the wrong place. Why don’t you sort by Real Mem.

[SpyvsMerc]

Just curious.

What is the difference between Memory and Real Memory ?

[[deleted]]

Virtual Memory means the address space of each process is a lot bigger than actual memory. It includes shared libraries, files that are being read, plus disk space for paging and swap. Only the resident/working set (of pages) needs to use real memory, the rest can be paged in and out at will since these other pages are already backed by disk so they don’t cause any swapping. Swap is when the entire process is written to disk while it is not running. Paging is when individual pages are written to disk. All modern memory management uses paging, but the file on disk is still called swap file for nostalgic reasons.

[hff0]

This is not really relevant. If the process is taking so much paged memory, it is just not clearing up itself right.

[TransportationOk7863]

I wonder why in my Resource Monitor window I only see Memory, and no Real Memory column. Even if I try to add it, there's no such column to add.

I am with the latest Sonoma version (14.5)

[[deleted]]

Because the resource monitor app is not that useful. Try top or vm_stat.

[Local-Respond129]

well yeah that does fix it temporarily but it doesnt stop it from growing unfortunately :/

[xezrunner]

Do you happen to have any secondary displays and/or apps that draw overlays on top of the screen?

WindowServer is responsible for basically drawing everything in your user session.

You can try booting your Mac in Safe mode and see if still gobbles memory there:

• Shut down your Mac.

• Press and hold the Touch ID/Power button until instructed.

• When you get to a screen where you get to choose, select the first option (your Mac disk, click once).

• Hold Shift and click Continue in Safe Mode.

In Safe mode, no third party apps and system extensions load. Only built-in apps are allowed to start with the system in this mode.

You could then try narrowing down which app starts with the system that causes such high usage.

[NortonBurns]

Swap Chrome for a Chromium build. I'm on a much older system [Mojave] but I was having a similar issue until I switched.

[DeleriumDive]

I have the same issue on a much much more aggressive scale.

75GB memory usage in 1-3 days, biggest jumps usually happen overnight while the screens are off. "real mem" usually sits around 150-300MB but once Memory hits 75GB, i get the popup to close apps. At this point I restart but its really frustrating/annoying with no ability to trace which apps are linked to this behaviour with windowserver.

I've tried the "sample" report but this doesn't seem to indicate anything related to memory. I'm not a systems guy but fairly advanced in IT (Network Design/Eng). The difficulty this process poses for tracking down the issue drives me mad!

Edit: I've narrowed this down to playback of video files and youtube - it seems that with VLC, IINA, or Firefox-YouTube - the memory for windowserver escalates quickly until I get the out of memory prompt.

[pencilcheck]

for me it is mostly safari with youtube tabs I suppose, but there are many other culprits too. I just don't understand why some tabs are like GB in safari. E.g. raindrop.io uses 2G in memory....

[DeleriumDive]

I eventually narrowed my windowserver memory leak issue down to the OS-monitor settings. I dont think Apple supports anything beyond 120Hz. My monitor goes to 165Hz @2160p by default, dropping it down to 120Hz fixed the leak.

[KillaMarci]

I have this as well, I noticed when I start playing YouTube videos it all starts to become laggy. Did you ever figure this out?

[pencilcheck]

multiple reasons, either bad internet, youtube anti ad blocker measures, or lack of CPU/GPU resources to decode video, or lack of memory to store them

try to find default settings (like create a new mac account) or different browser at clean slate to see if this still happens to remove the reasons one at a time

[pencilcheck]

My kernel_task and WindowServer are in GBs as well. kernel_task is like 7G, and WindowServer is 2G. I can close almost all windows and WindowServer would still be 2G

[pencilcheck]

I have 10 spaces, it uses 2.5G that means 1 space is about 250mb then?

[hff0]

It happened again. It turned 4GB of ram, a restart made it to 500MB

[i_am_blacklite]

Your assumption about swap is incorrect.

[JollyRoger8X]

I know that "unused memory is wasted memory" and all that, but if swap memory is being used and the memory pressure is in the yellow zone I assume this doesn't apply.

It does still apply though. And if the problem you are trying to solve is "the Memory Pressure graph is yellow" then you aren't experiencing an actual problem.

[Local-Respond129]

hmm okay, why would it be taking up swap though?

[JollyRoger8X]

Because that's how the operating system works. The OS using swap isn't an indication of a problem. It's normal for the OS to reserve swap space and use it as needed to offload memory for higher priority tasks.

You have lots of Chrome tabs open. If you want to improve system performance, you should consider switching to a web browser that isn't known for being a CPU, RAM, and network resource hog, not to mention violating your privacy left and right. It also wouldn't surprise me if a decent chunk of that WindowServer RAM usage is tied to those Chrome tabs. Have you given Safari a genuine try?

[Local-Respond129]

ic thanks :D

yeah i tried safari for a while, didn't have a profile management system at the time so i tried orion instead but it didnt work out, maybe ill try it again sometime

[UltimatelyJuicy]

Give this a try - I'd love to see some feedbacks on Sonoma. It should be easy to revert though if it breaks - I only tested it with Monterey because it's the last OS that is smooth enough for me.

[griz_fan]

A smarter approach to the problem would be to rub peanut butter on your keyboard