Is your Apple Mac running macOS Monterey leaking memory? It may be due to mouse cursor customization

Apple's macOS Monterey, the iGiant's latest desktop operating system release, turns out to have an insatiable appetite for memory if you use certain apps. Shortly after the OS update was released on October 25, Apple customers – at least those who avoided installation woes – began to notice that certain apps gobbled an …

[Anonymous Coward]

Because QA is for customers?

This is what happens when you spend a decade cutting coverage of test cases in your QA processes. Though clearly whatever team is handling the cursor input and touch pad on the new OS has been sipping the electric koolaid for a while now. Hopefully after they patch this memory leak they can roll back the touch pad defaults so that drag and drop file operations aren't akin to the three stooges juggling bars of wet soap.

God forbid one of my users on the new M1's has to drop a bad email attachment in the trash.

[DS999]

Re: Because QA is for customers?

Memory leaks take a while to appear. It is perfectly possible Apple's QA did test the mouse cursor customization and found it worked perfectly. They just didn't run it long enough for memory leaks to be large enough to be noticeable. It isn't possible to test everything and test it all for long enough that flaws that only become a problem under sustained use are found.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Because QA is for customers?

Today tests can (and should...) be automated and left running for days, if needed.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Because QA is for customers?

I don't remember any information about Apple cutting back on automated testing. But I think they're still struggling with to manage their release cycle and merging of MacOS ad IOS, with the integration IOS code in MacOS along with some of the supposed security features the biggest culprits.

Apple still has a poor record with bugs but, again, there's no suggestion they're not writing and running tests.

[sreynolds]

Who still uses swap/vm these days?

Doesn't everyone set vm_compressor=2 and disable swap? If you run out of RAM then you probably should just buy some more.

[Ayemooth]

Re: Who still uses swap/vm these days?

Buy more RAM? In a non-upgradable machine?

[John Robson]

Re: Who still uses swap/vm these days?

Kind of surprised that Apple haven't released thunderbolt ram packs.

[Richard 12]

Re: Who still uses swap/vm these days?

I'd love to, but 16GB is the absolute maximum physically possible.

Shared with the GPU, too, so it's actually 4GB less than my previous Mac.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Re: Who still uses swap/vm these days?

Here's a test for you - find an M1 iMac and add try to add extra RAM.

[DS999]

Using swap is more practical these days

You're looking at swap as this horrible slow thing, from back in the day when swap space was on spinning rust that could barely sustain 10 MB per second on random 1MB I/Os. The M1 Macs have one of the fastest SSDs around, capable of several gigabytes per second on the same random I/O test, so swapping (especially from a memory leak which is all writes and no reads, so basically no waiting at all) is hardly noticeable.

[T. F. M. Reader]

The Register asked Apple for an explanation, and the biz giant hasn't responded.

That institutional memory will never be released...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The Register asked Apple for an explanation, and the biz giant hasn't responded.

El Reg has to rely on leaks from Apple...

[bazza]

If the problem is because they've gone from Objective C to Swift, doesn't say much for Swift...

[Charlie Clark]

Other mouse problems

I was trying to screen share via WebRTC on my Mac the other day and hit a roadblock with the mouse as well: slowed down to complete uselessness in Firefox, Safari and Chrome using different services. Worked fine in my Windows VM so definitely a MacOS bug.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just accessibility settings

I swapped to Apple for the first time with the 2021 MacBook Pro (MBP), with 32Gb of memory. When I contacted Apple after my MBP restarted losing work, I was informed that the problem was 3rd party software. I had not changed any accessibility settings, but I reinstalled with Apple only products and Safari is currently using 3.95Gb, Control Centre is also using over 2Gb.

All my Apple friends told me they rarely had to restart their computers, that is a barefaced lie! I am currently restarting twice a day and for anything that is important I use my Windows machine.

Also there is an issue with HDR viewing YouTube video, but YouTube switched off HDR for all but Chrome browsers last Friday so this may be a problem with YouTube.

I'm posting this anonymously as my Apple username is too similar to my name here.

[Mishak]

That is a barefaced lie!

I doubt it, as both of mine only get restarted when required by an update - and I use lots of third party software that is memory heavy.

There must be something going on with your setup.

[Gorio888]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

I assure you I am not lying, please look on the MacRumors forum to see how many of us with the new MacBook Pro have this problem. Are you using the new MacBook Pro? If you are not then please think carefully before calling me a liar. If you are then you are one of the lucky few without this issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

When Mishal says that it must be a problem with "your setup" he's using the word "your" in its plural form: i.e. you and the others on the forum must have something in your setup that triggers the problem. Remember, there are thousands of MacBook Pro owners who are not on the forum because they don't have a problem because they don't have your setup.

That's not to say that it's your fault - you may all have a model from a defective batch - or have a certain combination of software with a certain combination of settings. This is why Apple and other manufacturers ask for telemetry feedback.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

I should not have used such a blanket term; for that I am sorry.

My experience on the new MacBook Pro is that I, and many others with the same machine, do have to restart regularly. I was feeling a bit pissed off when I posted as Apple had just told me this is not an issue. I had hoped to sell my Windows notebook, but because of this problem I have been unable to. That is my problem and I should not write comments after coming off the phone angry. Sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

I'm on the new Arm Macbook Pro - have been for about 10 days now, and I migrated from an older Macbook Pro (Intel) running 11.0.3, the latest in a sequence of Macs for the last 15 years.

I had a few concerns initially with macOS 12, in particular I had to force quit some of the processes insisting I verify my login with Apple - it was all looking a bit shaky. The upgrade to 12.0.1 helped, as did manually installing Rosetta (with “softwareupdate --install-rosetta”) as for some reason that had got itself in a state and I couldn't run any Intel code.

No issues since then, and no reboots - in fact for me, the M1 is the biggest jump in speed I've experienced since the 90s. I know that won't help, but as you asked an earlier poster if we was using it, it seems relevant.

I have gone through the cycle of phone-support pain and I know what two hours on the phone to Apple (for you) or Adobe (for me) can do to a man's soul, so you have my sympathy. Bon chance.

[Gorio888]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

Thank you. I am sure it will be fixed with an update.

[jmch]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

"I assure you I am not lying, please look ..."

and there's the AC mask gone!

[Gorio888]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

Yup, I shot myself in the foot (add emoji of choice). Not my best day. I was not trying to intentionally wind up any Apple fans, I liked the look of the new MBP to splash £3K on one. Apologies once again.

[Claverhouse]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

With regard to your previous reason for anonymity, you may wish to edit this to substitute the Anonymous Coward for your handle here.

If that's possible.

[Gorio888]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

Worth an upvote! Thanks for the suggestion; but I think I'll just crawl back under a stone for awhile.

[Aussie Doc]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

"I'm posting this anonymously as my Apple username is too similar to my name here."

Does this mean your cover is blown now?

[Mishak]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

Sorry, I wasn't calling you a liar, just quoting what you had said ;-)

I should have used "..." to make that clear!

[TheFifth]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

I'd agree with this. My MacBook Pro (2020 Intel) gets restarted once in a blue moon. Dependant on updates, it can go weeks without a restart. It's my main work machine (plugged into two external monitors) and it's running 8-10 hours a day, every week day. I just put it to sleep at the end of each day. I also use stacks of third party stuff and am constantly running a MAMP stack for web development.

I have noticed a few 'sticky' moments in Monterey though. Sometimes the machine will hang for several seconds and then free up. I guess this could be the memory leak issue and there's some swapping going on in background. When this happens I normally perform a restart just in case and all is well for a good couple of weeks after that.

If you are having to restart multiple times a day, there is definitely something in your configuration that is causing this issue (same for the others who have this problem). Finding out the common denominator is going to be very tricky I'd guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That is a barefaced lie!

> I have noticed a few 'sticky' moments in Monterey though. Sometimes the machine will hang for several seconds and then free up. I guess this could be the memory leak issue and there's some swapping going on in background.

I get that occasionally with no obvious pattern. I'm blaming a dodgy bit of single threaded code that is waiting on a network response for something or other.

[tip pc]

THE ECLECTIC LIGHT COMPANY

THE ECLECTIC LIGHT COMPANY

not

THE electric LIGHT COMPANY

Its a great read though, thanks Howard for posting stuff that's fixed many a fault :)

[Easily Distracte]

Re: THE ECLECTIC LIGHT COMPANY

Came here to say this: The Eclectic Light Company

[Dan 55]

"What is most likely is that, when the pointer has been customised using the settings in that pane, the memory used by the previous pointer isn’t freed following a change in pointer type."

79GB for a mouse pointer is a bit much... even for today's bloated OSes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Facepalm

Someone far smarter than me wrote some time ago on this lovely site, that all general purpose software, very much including operating systems, was essentially finished around 2010 or so and everything added since then has been about job creation and retention.

Some twat, or even worse, a large team of twats at Apple has tried to prove their worth by fiddling with (sorry, 'optimising in an agile fashion') cursor code that will have worked just fine for two decades. See also: printer subsystem, indeed every subsystem in Windows.

The best way Apple and Microsoft could improve their ever worsening software quality would be to sack 90% of their staff right now, and agree to stop all work on their products after a year of bug fixes.

[Androgynous Cupboard]

Re: Facepalm

In 2010 the internet was made with Flash and viewed in IE, so you might want to consider revising that assessment. Halcyon days they were not.