7 ms·

For people who are experiencing a leak on macOS 12: Check if you have set a custom cursor color in the system accessibility preferences. Resetting the cursor co

For people who are experiencing a leak on macOS 12: Check if you have set a custom cursor color in the system accessibility preferences. Resetting the cursor color to the default may fix it. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1735345#c18 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1735345#c18 (edit: rephrased to mention macOS 12)

2bitencryption 5y ago
Good lord would I love to see the postmortem breakdown on that one
- valleyer 5y ago
  Having worked at Apple adjacent to the likely responsible teams, the relevant details are: overworked engineering teams, insufficient QA investment, and most of all a yearly macOS major release schedule that persists primarily to benefit the egos of Apple's upper management. Until you see a WWDC that doesn't announce a major release of macOS, expect more of the same. To any involved Apple folks here, I feel your pain, and I'm sorry.
  - novok 5y ago
    What I don't get about apple, with a compensation policy that is less than the other big techs, because they can't get over the late 90s, team sizes that are usually smaller and being one of the largest market cap companies in the world, why don't they hire more?
    - bogwog 5y ago
      Hiring more people isn't going to make them more money. Improving their products/services isn't going to make them more money. Providing more value to customers isn't going to make them more money. Charging $300 for a screen replacement will make them more money. Selling bluetooth headphones with non-replaceable batteries will make them more money. Collecting taxes on developers will make them more money. etc etc
      - novok 5y ago
        They got popular because of their commitment to quality. "It just works" is and in many ways still is a key to their popularity. They whittle away at their "quality credit rating" the less and less they invest in these things, until their quality credit rating becomes low enough for a competitor exploit that and make them lose market share very quickly. It does make them money.
  - city41 5y ago
    And this is why I have completely stopped using all Apple products. I used to be a massive Mac fanboy. But the software quality is absolute shit now and has been for at least the past 5 years. I don't understand why anyone puts up with it.
    - artificial 5y ago
      What do you use now?
      - city41 5y ago
        Android phone and Ubuntu on my desktop PC and ThinkPads.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        I speak only for myself, but after Catalina I started transitioning to Linux and couldn't be happier. Being able to set up my entire computer with a single Github repo is a godsend for productivity, all it takes are a few keystrokes and I've got a fully configured desktop with all my dotfiles, keybinds and applications.
        beebeepka 5y ago
        Care to explain what you are talking about?
        threeseed 5y ago
        This isn't exclusive to Linux. With homebrew you can install most applications through the command line as well.
        gizdan 5y ago
        I've been a Linux user for some 10 years, but have also had to use a Macbook Pro for a while due to work. There's nothing stopping you from fully configuring macOS through a single repository similar to how you do Linux. For a while my dot files were aimed at Linux (primarily), macOS, and Windows as I anticipated to have to use both macOS and Windows down the line, though I've since removed much of the multiplatform code.
  - test001only 5y ago
    I have always felt Macs are awesome hardware bundled with poor OS. Apple needs to up their software quality.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I can see the business side of the permanent upgrade hype, constant new features, etc. But aren't we supposed to be reaching some kind of detente with Apple where they realize that power users drive the Mac market, and the release schedule should be built around hardware and stability, rather than endless retreads and new consumer features we'll never use? I'm still on El Capitan and pretty much everything since then looks like bloat to me.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  Whatever that is, it's definitely not a binary tree inversion bug.
M4v3R 5y ago
You're right, I've just checked and when I set my cursor to be a custom color in accessibility settings suddenly my Firefox started to eat up memory as crazy :D. This went away as soon as I reset the cursor to default colors.
sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
Ah yes, our visit from Just the Magical Wizard, who in this case tells us "just set your cursor color back to default if you run out of memory", as if we should have already known :)
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
masklinn 5y ago
The author is specifically noting they're on Big Sur so they should not be affected by this.
- mstange 5y ago
  Oh, you're right. I missed that.
thih9 5y ago
That’s a nice catch, must have been satisfying to find this. Also, it seems like a relatively easy memory leak to fix, hopefully in an upcoming OS update. Looking forward to the fix.

2bitencryption 5y ago

Good lord would I love to see the postmortem breakdown on that one

valleyer 5y ago
Having worked at Apple adjacent to the likely responsible teams, the relevant details are: overworked engineering teams, insufficient QA investment, and most of all a yearly macOS major release schedule that persists primarily to benefit the egos of Apple's upper management. Until you see a WWDC that doesn't announce a major release of macOS, expect more of the same. To any involved Apple folks here, I feel your pain, and I'm sorry.
- novok 5y ago
  What I don't get about apple, with a compensation policy that is less than the other big techs, because they can't get over the late 90s, team sizes that are usually smaller and being one of the largest market cap companies in the world, why don't they hire more?
  - bogwog 5y ago
    Hiring more people isn't going to make them more money. Improving their products/services isn't going to make them more money. Providing more value to customers isn't going to make them more money. Charging $300 for a screen replacement will make them more money. Selling bluetooth headphones with non-replaceable batteries will make them more money. Collecting taxes on developers will make them more money. etc etc
    - novok 5y ago
      They got popular because of their commitment to quality. "It just works" is and in many ways still is a key to their popularity. They whittle away at their "quality credit rating" the less and less they invest in these things, until their quality credit rating becomes low enough for a competitor exploit that and make them lose market share very quickly. It does make them money.
- city41 5y ago
  And this is why I have completely stopped using all Apple products. I used to be a massive Mac fanboy. But the software quality is absolute shit now and has been for at least the past 5 years. I don't understand why anyone puts up with it.
  - artificial 5y ago
    What do you use now?
    - city41 5y ago
      Android phone and Ubuntu on my desktop PC and ThinkPads.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      I speak only for myself, but after Catalina I started transitioning to Linux and couldn't be happier. Being able to set up my entire computer with a single Github repo is a godsend for productivity, all it takes are a few keystrokes and I've got a fully configured desktop with all my dotfiles, keybinds and applications.
      - beebeepka 5y ago
        Care to explain what you are talking about?
      - threeseed 5y ago
        This isn't exclusive to Linux. With homebrew you can install most applications through the command line as well.
      - gizdan 5y ago
        I've been a Linux user for some 10 years, but have also had to use a Macbook Pro for a while due to work. There's nothing stopping you from fully configuring macOS through a single repository similar to how you do Linux. For a while my dot files were aimed at Linux (primarily), macOS, and Windows as I anticipated to have to use both macOS and Windows down the line, though I've since removed much of the multiplatform code.
- test001only 5y ago
  I have always felt Macs are awesome hardware bundled with poor OS. Apple needs to up their software quality.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I can see the business side of the permanent upgrade hype, constant new features, etc. But aren't we supposed to be reaching some kind of detente with Apple where they realize that power users drive the Mac market, and the release schedule should be built around hardware and stability, rather than endless retreads and new consumer features we'll never use? I'm still on El Capitan and pretty much everything since then looks like bloat to me.
nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
Whatever that is, it's definitely not a binary tree inversion bug.

M4v3R 5y ago

You're right, I've just checked and when I set my cursor to be a custom color in accessibility settings suddenly my Firefox started to eat up memory as crazy :D. This went away as soon as I reset the cursor to default colors.

sushsjsuauahab 5y ago

Ah yes, our visit from Just the Magical Wizard, who in this case tells us "just set your cursor color back to default if you run out of memory", as if we should have already known :)

dang 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

masklinn 5y ago

The author is specifically noting they're on Big Sur so they should not be affected by this.

mstange 5y ago
Oh, you're right. I missed that.

thih9 5y ago

That’s a nice catch, must have been satisfying to find this. Also, it seems like a relatively easy memory leak to fix, hopefully in an upcoming OS update. Looking forward to the fix.