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Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

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Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#31

Could this be related to the earlier reports of excessive SSD wear on M1 Macs?

No. There is no way this has anything to do with that. That's an issue with the OS swapper algorithm, and it should be fixed in macOS 11.4 according to reports.

I think the grandparent meant that if there is some leak in IOAccelerator.framework that causes excessive memory use, perhaps for some inputs this leads to swapping, leading to more SSD writes.

(Just trying to guess what they meant.)

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#32
My first thought was that each "frame" of the GIF is being expanded/rendered to its own backingstore.

GIFs are pretty optimized files — where each "frame" can be a diff from the previous. "De-diffing", converting palette-based pixels to full 24 or 32-bit RGB could really blow up fast.

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There is no way this has anything to do with that. That's an issue with the OS swapper algorithm, and it should be fixed in macOS 11.4 according to reports.

I think the grandparent meant that if there is some leak in IOAccelerator.framework that causes excessive memory use, perhaps for some inputs this leads to swapping, leading to more SSD writes. (Just trying to guess what they meant.)

Correct guess.

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just purchased my first Mac after using Linux for most of my adult life. How big of a concern is this? I am seeing mixed reports when looking around - should I be questioning my purchase if I was expecting my M1 Air to last a few years?

The latest information I have suggests it's fixed in macOS 11.4.

Do you have a link for info on this? If this is a real issue (which I still have my doubts about), Apple can’t just sweep it under the rug, after all.

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just purchased my first Mac after using Linux for most of my adult life. How big of a concern is this? I am seeing mixed reports when looking around - should I be questioning my purchase if I was expecting my M1 Air to last a few years?

With a maximum memory size of 8G it's a bit anemic so you likely wouldn't get that much life out of it anyway, hope you got the 16G version. Apple is pretty good at the planned obsolescence game, so getting the larger memory would at least help stave that off for a bit. I'm skipping these for now, I run Linux on all my machines and it typically takes a while for the wrinkles to be ironed out, and x86 has much better…

It’s 16G and I just retired my 2012 MacBook Pro because I really wanted to try the M1.

It was still going strong after almost a decade of use and got €300 as a trade-in. If that’s Apple‘s idea of planned obsolescence, I support their plan.

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said, mixed reports ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26244093 ) and not much followup since then. The most common worst-case numbers from that thread, if sustained, would indicate a 4-5 year maximum lifetime. If this actually turns out to be a widespread problem and Apple doesn't address it in a timely update you may see a class-action lawsuit and/or Apple warranty repair service in a few years.

Wouldn't 4 to 5 years of full-day usage be just fine for worst case life expectancy for a laptop? I've had one that gave up on 3 years, a couple months after warranty ended (that seemed to be quite common for that brand at the time).

There's one post that I just noticed in there reporting 10% usage after 60 days, let's assume that one's an outlier.

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#37

Could this be related to the earlier reports of excessive SSD wear on M1 Macs?

Just purchased my first Mac after using Linux for most of my adult life. How big of a concern is this? I am seeing mixed reports when looking around - should I be questioning my purchase if I was expecting my M1 Air to last a few years?

A YouTuber investigated (but no shell commands AFAIK, observing through Activity Monitor), but seems like Rosetta 2 apps might also contribute to the high disk usage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMCoQmsv-I

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said, mixed reports ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26244093 ) and not much followup since then. The most common worst-case numbers from that thread, if sustained, would indicate a 4-5 year maximum lifetime. If this actually turns out to be a widespread problem and Apple doesn't address it in a timely update you may see a class-action lawsuit and/or Apple warranty repair service in a few years.

Wouldn't 4 to 5 years of full-day usage be just fine for worst case life expectancy for a laptop? I've had one that gave up on 3 years, a couple months after warranty ended (that seemed to be quite common for that brand at the time).

MacBooks can easily exceed 10+ years rock solid. (Only battery may need a replacement)

Re: Animated GIF uses over 35GB RAM in Acorn on M1 Mac, likely due to memory leak

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There is no way this has anything to do with that. That's an issue with the OS swapper algorithm, and it should be fixed in macOS 11.4 according to reports.

I think the grandparent meant that if there is some leak in IOAccelerator.framework that causes excessive memory use, perhaps for some inputs this leads to swapping, leading to more SSD writes. (Just trying to guess what they meant.)

The people with SSD thrashing didn't experience excessive application memory usage, so that doesn't add up. By all indications it was an issue where the kernel aggressively swaps in and out under some conditions, even when real memory pressure isn't that high.

Memory leaks don't cause swap thrashing most of the time; the leaked memory gets swapped out and then just sits there, as it is unused (hence leaked).

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