Memory leak in Office 2008?

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

SITUATION: I'm running OS 10.5.1 on a Dual G5 2.0 with 2.5 GB RAM. Office
2008 is installed on a 40 GB boot volume of which 21 GB is free. I have no
haxies installed.

PROBLEM: Since upgrading from Office 2004 to 2008, I've experienced a memory
leak that may be coincidental with the upgrade but, then again, might be
caused by it alone or in combination with other software. I verified that
extensions are causing the memory lead booting with shift-down; there is no
memory leak when Leopard is booted in shift-down mode.

SYMPTOMS: With no other applications running than the Activity Monitor
utility, the kernel task grows exponentially and free memory is exhausted
and then at a few hundred MB left out of 2.5 GB, a "Force Quit
Applications" dialogue box appears: The text starts with "Disk has no
more space available for application memory . . . ." and then it says to
quit applications and close windows. I don't understand many of the names
of processes but when I did force quite those that I did understand and
closed open windows, the Activity Monitor ³free² and ³used² memory meters
continued to run in the wrong directions. I noticed also that a Get Info on
my boot volume revealed the eating up of 600,000 bytes of space in less than
an hour.

QUESTIONS:

1. Has anybody else experienced a memory leak with Office 2008?

2. If so--or--if not, what is the best way of isolating and removing the
cause of a memory leak? Before answering, please see what I¹ve already
tried.



FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the
memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive
(which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all
caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I
knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn¹t fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an
archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1
updater.

Your counsel would be very much appreciated.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[John]

Memory leak in Office 2008?
SITUATION: I'm running OS 10.5.1 on a Dual G5 2.0 with 2.5 GB RAM. Office 2008 is installed on a 40 GB boot volume of which 21 GB is free. I have no haxies installed.

PROBLEM: Since upgrading from Office 2004 to 2008, I've experienced a memory leak that may be coincidental with the upgrade but, then again, might be caused by it alone or in combination with other software. I verified that extensions are causing the memory lead booting with shift-down; there is no memory leak when Leopard is booted in shift-down mode.

SYMPTOMS: With no other applications running than the Activity Monitor utility, the kernel task grows exponentially and free memory is exhausted and then at a few hundred MB left out of 2.5 GB, a "Force Quit Applications" dialogue box appears: The text starts with "Disk has no more space available for application memory . . . ." and then it says to quit applications and close windows. I don't understand many of the names of processes but when I did force quite those that I did understand and closed open windows, the Activity Monitor "free" and "used" memory meters continued to run in the wrong directions. I noticed also that a Get Info on my boot volume revealed the eating up of 600,000 bytes of space in less than an hour.

QUESTIONS:

1. Has anybody else experienced a memory leak with Office 2008?

2. If so--or--if not, what is the best way of isolating and removing the cause of a memory leak? Before answering, please see what I've already tried.



FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive (which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn't fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1 updater.

Your counsel would be very much appreciated.

Respectfully, Norm











Microsoft is known for releasing software with lots of bugs. I would be very surprised if Office 2008 DID NOT have a memory leak.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

SYMPTOMS: With no other applications running than the Activity Monitor
utility, the kernel task grows exponentially and free memory is exhausted

FWIW, I can't reproduce that with my MacBook Pro, 2.4GHz, 4.0 GB RAM, OS
X 10.5.1...

No increase in kernal_task at all.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

FWIW, I can't reproduce that with my MacBook Pro, 2.4GHz, 4.0 GB RAM, OS
X 10.5.1...

No increase in kernal_task at all.

Thanks so very much for trying to replicate the issue, J.E.! You are,
indeed, most generous and thoughtful--as I've seen in your responses to so
many posts in these newsgroups.

After I posted and a lot more un-installing and re-installing of
applications and the OS tonight, whatever corruption existed for the past
couple weeks was no longer there.

I should have taken more notes in handwriting and checked more frequently,
but--for the timebeing, at least--the memory leak is not happening. Then,
again, I had a trouble-free 12 or so hours a couple days ago and without any
new installations, the memory leak resumed.

As I said at the start of this thread, the memory leak "may be coincidental
with the upgrade." If you don't hear back from me in this discussion in the
next week or so, you will know it was coincidental.

I'd still love to know what might have caused it, and if I did fix it
permanently, which of the troubleshooting did the trick.

In the meantime, I'll look forward to the release of the Leopard-compatible
DiskWarrior 4.1 (which Alsoft's website on Jan. 21 said would be "soon"),
the release of OS 10.5.2 (which MacRumors said could be as early as this
Friday) and, ahem, the release of the first update of Office 2008 based on
the experiences of a public with wildly different hardware and software
configurations.

Thanks, again, J.E., for your service in these newsgroups.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Norman:

Yes, there is one large memory leak. It's in the Entourage Progress Window.
If you leave the progress window running for a few hours, it will gobble all
the available memory and CPU cycles over three or four hours.

There's an urgent patch on the way. In the meantime, close the Progress
Window and everything else will run for days without complaint

Cheers

SITUATION: I'm running OS 10.5.1 on a Dual G5 2.0 with 2.5 GB RAM. Office
2008 is installed on a 40 GB boot volume of which 21 GB is free. I have no
haxies installed.

PROBLEM: Since upgrading from Office 2004 to 2008, I've experienced a memory
leak that may be coincidental with the upgrade but, then again, might be
caused by it alone or in combination with other software. I verified that
extensions are causing the memory lead booting with shift-down; there is no
memory leak when Leopard is booted in shift-down mode.

SYMPTOMS: With no other applications running than the Activity Monitor
utility, the kernel task grows exponentially and free memory is exhausted
and then at a few hundred MB left out of 2.5 GB, a "Force Quit
Applications" dialogue box appears: The text starts with "Disk has no
more space available for application memory . . . ." and then it says to
quit applications and close windows. I don't understand many of the names
of processes but when I did force quite those that I did understand and
closed open windows, the Activity Monitor ³free² and ³used² memory meters
continued to run in the wrong directions. I noticed also that a Get Info on
my boot volume revealed the eating up of 600,000 bytes of space in less than
an hour.

QUESTIONS:

1. Has anybody else experienced a memory leak with Office 2008?

2. If so--or--if not, what is the best way of isolating and removing the
cause of a memory leak? Before answering, please see what I¹ve already
tried.



FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the
memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive
(which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all
caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I
knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn¹t fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an
archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1
updater.

Your counsel would be very much appreciated.

Respectfully, Norm

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks very much, John, for the heads-up on the Progress Window.

I wonder whether there might be a *second* memory leak? I don't use the
Progress Window and I just checked and re-closed it. Could there be
another Office 2008 process that takes hours and hours to develop a memory
leak?

My memory leak returned this morning. (I got everything working with
absolutely no memory leak for several hours last night as I reported in my
response to J.E. This morning, when I restarted my G5, the memory leak was
back.)

Because I had un-installed other recently installed applications, my strong
hunch is that it's a Leopard 10.5.1 bug and/or an Office 2008 bug.

I was just about to do an erase-and-clean install of Leopard and re-install
each of my applications and create all the preferences from scratch (a
couple days of tedious exercise) when I read your advisory on the urgent
patch being on its way. Thanks to your message, I think I¹ll hold off on
the drastic stuff and see if that patch and the imminent OS 10.5.2 update
release will plug my leak.

*Question*: If the memory leak occurs when I am in normal startup mode but
does not happen when my PowerPC is in shift-down startup mode, could that
rule out an OS 10.5.1 bug?

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Thanks very much, John, for the heads-up on the Progress Window.

I wonder whether there might be a *second* memory leak? I don't use the
Progress Window and I just checked and re-closed it. Could there be
another Office 2008 process that takes hours and hours to develop a memory
leak?

My memory leak returned this morning. (I got everything working with
absolutely no memory leak for several hours last night as I reported in my
response to J.E. This morning, when I restarted my G5, the memory leak was
back.)

Because I had un-installed other recently installed applications, my strong
hunch is that it's a Leopard 10.5.1 bug and/or an Office 2008 bug.

I was just about to do an erase-and-clean install of Leopard and re-install
each of my applications and create all the preferences from scratch (a
couple days of tedious exercise) when I read your advisory on the urgent
patch being on its way. Thanks to your message, I think I¹ll hold off on
the drastic stuff and see if that patch and the imminent OS 10.5.2 update
release will plug my leak.

*Question*: If the memory leak occurs when I am in normal startup mode but
does not happen when my PowerPC is in shift-down startup mode, could that
rule out an OS 10.5.1 bug?

Respectfully, Norm

Yes it could. And remember that uninstalling and reinstalling ANY Mac
application will rarely do anything. Unlike windows, Mac programs do not
seem to get corrupted. Such drastic steps are rarely necessary Watch
carefully what goes on here, most often it is just a file or 2 that needs to
be deleted. If everything else is working pretty much OK, wait for a fix.

And, I've been following this thread, but am confused about the memory leak.
Are you seeing RAM getting consumed? In an earlier post I thought you
mentioned that disk space was getting consumed. My second set of advice is
to put Activity monitor away, and don't worry about things until there is a
definite problem.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks for your thoughtful counsel, Bob.

Yes it could. And remember that uninstalling and reinstalling ANY Mac
application will rarely do anything. Unlike windows, Mac programs do not
seem to get corrupted.

Does that apply to the applications' processes that operate in the
background?

Such drastic steps are rarely necessary Watch
carefully what goes on here, most often it is just a file or 2 that needs to
be deleted.

Ah, there's the rub!, to plagiarize a phrase from Shakespeare. I agree with
you but I can't figure out how to determine which file or couple need to be
deleted.

And, I've been following this thread, but am confused about the memory leak.
Are you seeing RAM getting consumed? . . .
My second set of advice is
to put Activity monitor away, and don't worry about things until there is a
definite problem.

I have had a Force Quit Applications dialogue appear a number of times over
the last couple weeks that says not enough memory. That's when I started
watching Activity Monitor and noticing the "free" and "used" memory meters
moving in the wrong direction up to the point of 30 to 70 MB of memory left
and then not enough to shutdown except with Mac tower power button. On a
couple occasions, I've left the machine alone running a diagnostics or
cloning operation with more than 1 GB "free" showing in the Activity Monitor
to return an hour or couple later to find that the machine had apparently
drained the last of the memory and turned itself off. There is no memory
leak whatsoever when I operate in shift-down startup mode.

In an earlier post I thought you
mentioned that disk space was getting consumed.

That, TOO. I just noticed in the last couple days Get Info on the boot
volume is showing hundreds of thousands more "used" bytes each day. (Its
capacity is 39.88 GB of which 12.25 GB is used.)

I just checked and a Retrospect Duplicate clone on an external hard drive I
made 2 days ago, shows 11.99 GB used. A clone made a day before that shows
11.002 GB used. Something is doing a lot of writing to the boot volume on
my internal hard drive. I wish I knew what. It is NOT documents because
all of them, including the MUD folder, are aliased from a 2nd/OS-free volume
on my hard drive.

I'll be patient, but it's a pain to have to re-start in normal startup mode
or operate without the convenience of some extensions, as I'm now doing, in
shift-down startup mode.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Norman:


Of course, there "could", but I don't think there "is". However, I am on
Intel, so your case will be different.

Does that apply to the applications' processes that operate in the
background?

Bob was trying to save himself some typing

Re-install never fixes anything on a Mac. There are two reasons for this:

1) The files that corrupt are "generated" files that are not on the
installation media. They are generated when the application first runs. So
if you re-install, you simply overwrite existing files that had nothing
wrong with them.

But when the application re-starts, it looks, sees that the generated files
are already there, and "uses" them, instantly restoring the problem

2) If you use the Installer, the installer checks to see if each file it is
about to write exists. If it does, the Installer checks the date to see if
the file on your disk is newer than the file on the CD. If it is, the
installer skips writing that file.

That prevents the re-installation overwriting patched or upgraded
components.

It also prevents it fixing any problems if they exist

On Windows, the damage tends to happen in the Registry (Windows' version of
the Preferences) and the Windows installer is a bit smarter than the Mac
one: it not only checks that the registry entries are present, it checks
that they make sense. And re-writes them if they don't. So a re-install on
Windows can fix a wide range of problems it can't on the Mac.

Now: Going back to your original problem, you said the KERNEL task was
growing. So we must assume that it is a component of he kernel that is in
trouble.

It could be ANYTHING that is in the kernel, or is running as a child of the
kernel. I don't know enough about Unix to work out what it's likely to be.

But I would be tempted to perform an Archive and Install of OS X round about
now.

Your disk space is being eaten by the ever-growing paging file, which in
turn is being inflated by the ever-increasing demand for memory.

So the system is pretty unusable, and it's time for serious intervention.

Sorry to be not much help...

Cheers

Ah, there's the rub!, to plagiarize a phrase from Shakespeare. I agree with
you but I can't figure out how to determine which file or couple need to be
deleted.

I have had a Force Quit Applications dialogue appear a number of times over
the last couple weeks that says not enough memory. That's when I started
watching Activity Monitor and noticing the "free" and "used" memory meters
moving in the wrong direction up to the point of 30 to 70 MB of memory left
and then not enough to shutdown except with Mac tower power button. On a
couple occasions, I've left the machine alone running a diagnostics or
cloning operation with more than 1 GB "free" showing in the Activity Monitor
to return an hour or couple later to find that the machine had apparently
drained the last of the memory and turned itself off. There is no memory
leak whatsoever when I operate in shift-down startup mode.


That, TOO. I just noticed in the last couple days Get Info on the boot
volume is showing hundreds of thousands more "used" bytes each day. (Its
capacity is 39.88 GB of which 12.25 GB is used.)

I just checked and a Retrospect Duplicate clone on an external hard drive I
made 2 days ago, shows 11.99 GB used. A clone made a day before that shows
11.002 GB used. Something is doing a lot of writing to the boot volume on
my internal hard drive. I wish I knew what. It is NOT documents because
all of them, including the MUD folder, are aliased from a 2nd/OS-free volume
on my hard drive.

I'll be patient, but it's a pain to have to re-start in normal startup mode
or operate without the convenience of some extensions, as I'm now doing, in
shift-down startup mode.

Respectfully, Norm

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Hi Norman:



Of course, there "could", but I don't think there "is". However, I am on
Intel, so your case will be different.


Bob was trying to save himself some typing

Re-install never fixes anything on a Mac. There are two reasons for this:

1) The files that corrupt are "generated" files that are not on the
installation media. They are generated when the application first runs. So
if you re-install, you simply overwrite existing files that had nothing
wrong with them.

But when the application re-starts, it looks, sees that the generated files
are already there, and "uses" them, instantly restoring the problem

2) If you use the Installer, the installer checks to see if each file it is
about to write exists. If it does, the Installer checks the date to see if
the file on your disk is newer than the file on the CD. If it is, the
installer skips writing that file.

That prevents the re-installation overwriting patched or upgraded
components.

It also prevents it fixing any problems if they exist

On Windows, the damage tends to happen in the Registry (Windows' version of
the Preferences) and the Windows installer is a bit smarter than the Mac
one: it not only checks that the registry entries are present, it checks
that they make sense. And re-writes them if they don't. So a re-install on
Windows can fix a wide range of problems it can't on the Mac.

Aha! Thanks very much, John, for saving me a lot of wasted effort and for
an explanation that makes this retired emeritus professor of communications
envious of your capacity for such clear, concise and interpretive writing.

Now: Going back to your original problem, you said the KERNEL task was
growing. So we must assume that it is a component of he kernel that is in
trouble.

It could be ANYTHING that is in the kernel, or is running as a child of the
kernel. I don't know enough about Unix to work out what it's likely to be.

But I would be tempted to perform an Archive and Install of OS X round about
now.

I did an Archive-and-Install two days ago. How likely do you think it might
be that my selection of the check-box for importing settings also imported
the corruption as well?

Your disk space is being eaten by the ever-growing paging file, which in
turn is being inflated by the ever-increasing demand for memory.

So the system is pretty unusable, and it's time for serious intervention.

Sorry to be not much help...

You've been of great help, John. Thanks for the education and your
contributions to the newsgroup.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Diane Ross]

I have had a Force Quit Applications dialogue appear a number of times over
the last couple weeks that says not enough memory.

Not enough memory could be a font problem. If you use Suitcase to manage
your fonts, and you deactivate one of the fonts that is required to display
the current message you could receive this error.

As Entourage and the other Microsoft apps have a nonstandard way of handling
fonts, they don't respond well to a removal while the app is running.

Microsoft has a set of required fonts to keep in mind. It may be that one of
them is missing or has been deactivated by font management software.

 

[John McGhie]

HI Norman:

Aha! Thanks very much, John, for saving me a lot of wasted effort and for
an explanation that makes this retired emeritus professor of communications
envious of your capacity for such clear, concise and interpretive writing.

Please tell my Boss ‹ I am a Technical Writer

I did an Archive-and-Install two days ago. How likely do you think it might
be that my selection of the check-box for importing settings also imported
the corruption as well?

I am not sure: If it brought all the Preferences back in, then that's the
problem.

Could be worth following Diane's suggestion first ‹ it's easier ...

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[abdesai]

Sorry I do not have any suggestions, but I do have a similar problem.
When I leave Word or Excel running for a few hours, the force quit
dialog appears, pausing the office application, and stating that my
startup disk memory is running low. I have a powerbook g4 1.25 GHz
with 1.25 Gb RAM. Could it be a PPC issue?

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks, Diane.

I do not have any font management software. But you gave others with memory
leak problems and font management software an excellent tip.

Clue for troubleshooting: There is no memory leak and no runaway disk
writing whatsoever in Safe Boot mode (shift-down-startup).

Earlier in this discussion, I mentioned that I did another Archival
Installation last week (with the import settings checkbox checked).

I will wait for OS 10.5.2 and the Office 2008 update before any more
re-installations of Leopard.

Suggestions, please?

Respectfully, Norm

Not enough memory could be a font problem. If you use Suitcase to manage
your fonts, and you deactivate one of the fonts that is required to display
the current message you could receive this error.

As Entourage and the other Microsoft apps have a nonstandard way of handling
fonts, they don't respond well to a removal while the app is running.

Microsoft has a set of required fonts to keep in mind. It may be that one of
them is missing or has been deactivated by font management software.

FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the
memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive
(which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all
caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I
knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn¹t fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an
archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1
updater.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

I¹ve edited the first sentence and am re-sending my response to Diane after
Jolly Roger¹s post pointed out an ambiguity.

Thanks, Diane.

I do not use any font management software. But you gave others with memory
leak problems and font management software an excellent tip.

Clue for troubleshooting: There is no memory leak and no runaway disk
writing whatsoever in Safe Boot mode (shift-down-startup).

Earlier in this discussion, I mentioned that I did another Archival
Installation last week (with the import settings checkbox checked).

I will wait for OS 10.5.2 and the Office 2008 update before any more
re-installations of Leopard.

Suggestions, please?

Respectfully, Norm

Not enough memory could be a font problem. If you use Suitcase to manage
your fonts, and you deactivate one of the fonts that is required to display
the current message you could receive this error.

As Entourage and the other Microsoft apps have a nonstandard way of handling
fonts, they don't respond well to a removal while the app is running.

Microsoft has a set of required fonts to keep in mind. It may be that one of
them is missing or has been deactivated by font management software.

FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the
memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive
(which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all
caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I
knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn¹t fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an
archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1
updater.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Norman:

All I have heard so far is that there is an Apple bug with 10.5.1 that does
cause a memory leak. Apple is working on it, and will presumably issue a
patch shortly.

In the meantime, all I can suggest is to log out before you walk away

Cheers

I¹ve edited the first sentence and am re-sending my response to Diane after
Jolly Roger¹s post pointed out an ambiguity.

Thanks, Diane.

I do not use any font management software. But you gave others with memory
leak problems and font management software an excellent tip.

Clue for troubleshooting: There is no memory leak and no runaway disk
writing whatsoever in Safe Boot mode (shift-down-startup).

Earlier in this discussion, I mentioned that I did another Archival
Installation last week (with the import settings checkbox checked).

I will wait for OS 10.5.2 and the Office 2008 update before any more
re-installations of Leopard.

Suggestions, please?

Respectfully, Norm


FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FIX MEMORY LEAK

1. Repaired Permissions. It found no problems.

2. Assured that Time Machine and Spotlight were not running during the
memory leak.

3. Ran Disk Utility Repair on the OS 10.5.1 volume from another hard drive
(which also has a memory leak problem). It found no problems.

4. Used TechTool Pro 4.6.1 to:
--diagnose the volume structure (no problems found)
--diagnose finder info and file structure (no problems found)
--rebuild the directory (no problems found during the rebuild)

5. Used the current version of Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all
caches.

6. Un-installed all 3 of my user widgets and a couple applications that I
knew ran processes:
--the anti-virus application
--Macaroni
--Leopard Cache Cleaner

6. Re-ran the OS 10.5.1 updater while in shift-down mode.

7. When that didn¹t fix the memory leak, I used the OS 10.5.0 DVD to do an
archival install (with settings imported). I then ran the downloaded 10.5.1
updater.

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Diane Ross]

Clue for troubleshooting: There is no memory leak and no runaway disk writing
whatsoever in Safe Boot mode (shift-down-startup).

Try adding by a few startup items at a time. That might help identify what
is causing the problem. I would start with the Microsoft Database daemon and
My Day.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Try adding by a few startup items at a time. That might help identify what
is causing the problem. I would start with the Microsoft Database daemon and
My Day.

Thanks, Diane. I had started in the other direction. Your idea makes more
sense.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Hope is a great thing to nourish and you just did, John McGhie, when you
said: "All I have heard so far is that there is an Apple bug with 10.5.1
that does cause a memory leak. Apple is working on it, and will presumably
issue a patch shortly. In the meantime, all I can suggest is to log out
before you walk away "

After thinking the Mac was quietly sleeping overnight and waking it this
morning to find the ugly dialogue warning there was no more memory for
applications, your suggestion to log out is one that I shall now
follow--together with walking away and patiently waiting for the updater.

Immediately before I run the OS 10.5.2 updater, however, I will do yet
another Archive-and-Install. As you concisely and aptly put it: "Your disk
space is being eaten by the ever-growing paging file, which in turn is being
inflated by the ever-increasing demand for memory" and it is, indeed, time
to do another OS installation.

When I do that Archival Installation, I'm wrestling with whether or not to
import user settings--again--as I did a couple days ago. What do you
think?

Respectfully, Norm

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Norman:

A healthy OS X system will manage its paging file just fine without any help
from us.

When you reboot the Operating System, it does a large number of maintenance
tasks, one of which is to empty the paging file.

I would not re-install that operating system again unless we get a clear
indication that we need to. Currently, it's running fine Well,
excepting for a small memory leak ....

Cheers

Hope is a great thing to nourish and you just did, John McGhie, when you
said: "All I have heard so far is that there is an Apple bug with 10.5.1
that does cause a memory leak. Apple is working on it, and will presumably
issue a patch shortly. In the meantime, all I can suggest is to log out
before you walk away "

After thinking the Mac was quietly sleeping overnight and waking it this
morning to find the ugly dialogue warning there was no more memory for
applications, your suggestion to log out is one that I shall now
follow--together with walking away and patiently waiting for the updater.

Immediately before I run the OS 10.5.2 updater, however, I will do yet
another Archive-and-Install. As you concisely and aptly put it: "Your disk
space is being eaten by the ever-growing paging file, which in turn is being
inflated by the ever-increasing demand for memory" and it is, indeed, time
to do another OS installation.

When I do that Archival Installation, I'm wrestling with whether or not to
import user settings--again--as I did a couple days ago. What do you
think?

Respectfully, Norm

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]