3 ms·

I’m probably dumb and wrong, but that 80GB is likely virtual memory and not a great indication of actual RAM used.

• alin23 5y ago
  It is virtual memory, the real memory size is usually sub 1GB. But I just can’t find any other culprit, and killing WindowServer is the only thing that helps. I have no idea how to troubleshoot this and don’t really have time for it when working on hotfixes, I just want to get back in a state where I’m not facing an imminent system lock up where I can’t even save my recent work.
  • MauranKilom 5y ago
    This is a windows technique, but presumably something similar might be available on mac too: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/zombie-processes-are-eating-your-memory/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/zombie-processe...
  • matthew-wegner 5y ago
    Do you tint your mouse cursor (new Monterey accessibility setting)? I noticed this in the last handful of developer betas, and it definitely shipped out in 12.0.1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1735345 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1735345 Although that particular issue will show in application footprint, not WindowServer. I see WindowServer buildup on one of my M1s still, even in 12.1 beta :(
    • alin23 5y ago
      Nope, never used that setting. I just opened Accessibility and hit reset on the pointer colors again just to be sure.
• saagarjha 5y ago
  Activity Monitor shows a "memory footprint", rather than just a simple sum of virtual memory usage. Among other things, this number splits memory usage for resources shared across multiple processes (e.g. system libraries) and attributes a fraction to each of them.