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| 14:41.44 | feutetejsd | I'm in here two days in a row...a new record! |
| 14:42.00 | banana_neal | Thanks for joining us :) |
| 14:42.09 | feutetejsd | :) |
| 15:03.59 | banana_neal | So how much of a Mac expert are you? |
| 15:04.38 | feutetejsd | pretty decent.... |
| 15:04.45 | feutetejsd | how's that for non-commital? |
| 15:04.56 | banana_neal | Eh, I'll take what I can get. |
| 15:05.02 | feutetejsd | hehe |
| 15:05.08 | banana_neal | Can I ask your opinion on something? |
| 15:05.19 | feutetejsd | sure |
| 15:07.24 | banana_neal | K. I've been having some crash issues with my machine (a dual G5). After lots of time staring at Menu Meters, we've determined that it's probably an issue related in memory... and we believe that some process or software has a memory leak, but we can't nail down what. So here's my first question... |
| 15:08.46 | banana_neal | What is the normal CPU usage when you're not doing anything on your machine? 5%? 10% |
| 15:08.47 | banana_neal | ? |
| 15:09.15 | feutetejsd | well, I'm rarely not doing anything.... |
| 15:09.28 | feutetejsd | most idle machines I've dealt with are 5% used or less |
| 15:09.53 | feutetejsd | they're usually Linux machines not running a GUI, however, so add a GUI on top of that and 5-10 is probably about right |
| 15:10.00 | feutetejsd | if the machine is just sitting there doing nothign |
| 15:10.12 | banana_neal | Yeah, that's what I thought. When I do nothing, I'm typically cruising along at between 25% and 30%. |
| 15:10.27 | feutetejsd | what is chewing up the CPU time? |
| 15:11.01 | banana_neal | Activity Monitor says it's Firefox. Are you aware of any problems with Firefox on Mac? |
| 15:12.09 | feutetejsd | for most pages, it's fine for me, but I've noticed that either if I have a lot of tabs open, or if the page has anything other than straight HTML (i.e. flash, QuickTime, etc), its CPU usage goes thru the roof |
| 15:12.15 | banana_neal | It seems to switch, though. Sometimes it's Adobe Illustrator that's a memory hog (even when I'm idling). |
| 15:12.15 | feutetejsd | I have lots of problems with Flash on Firefox |
| 15:12.24 | banana_neal | ya? |
| 15:12.42 | feutetejsd | yeah...if there's lots of animation or audio, it gets really choppy and slows WAAAAY down |
| 15:13.52 | banana_neal | Huh. I've never noticed that before. I have noticed lotsa other bugs in Firefox, though. Probably the most obvious is the text parsing issue... the browser will render bold text or <em> text on top of other text or it will ignore margins. Stuff like that. |
| 15:14.14 | feutetejsd | hmmmm |
| 15:14.21 | feutetejsd | how much RAM do you have? |
| 15:14.32 | feutetejsd | if it's a dual G5, I'm guessing lots... |
| 15:14.47 | banana_neal | Yep, 1GB in each processor. |
| 15:14.59 | banana_neal | Wait. Lemme check on that. |
| 15:15.25 | banana_neal | Sorry. 4.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM total. |
| 15:15.45 | feutetejsd | holy smokes |
| 15:16.13 | feutetejsd | so, your crashes....do they just take down an app or do they kill the OS? |
| 15:16.31 | banana_neal | Kill the OS. The computer freezes. |
| 15:16.44 | feutetejsd | eep! |
| 15:16.49 | banana_neal | Every once in a while I'll get the black transparent screen of death. |
| 15:16.55 | banana_neal | But that's much rarer. |
| 15:17.27 | banana_neal | See, right now I'm still eating lots of memory... between 10% and 20%. And I'm not really running anything significant. |
| 15:19.24 | feutetejsd | well, it may be that the kernel has allocated RAM for apps that are running, but they aren't using it. MenuMeters will report what the kernel has allocated |
| 15:19.59 | banana_neal | Hmm. K. How do I tell what the kernel has allocated? |
| 15:21.03 | feutetejsd | Linux has a cool command called free that will tell you, but OS X doesn't....at least Panther doesn't |
| 15:21.03 | feutetejsd | are you running Tiger? |
| 15:21.28 | banana_neal | I'm running 10.4.7, whichever one that is. |
| 15:22.34 | feutetejsd | Tiger |
| 15:22.41 | banana_neal | k |
| 15:22.44 | feutetejsd | are you familiar with Terminal? |
| 15:23.10 | banana_neal | Just fairly, but if you tell me what you recommend, I can have Wade walk me through it. |
| 15:23.30 | feutetejsd | I'd open up the Terminal and type: |
| 15:23.34 | feutetejsd | which free |
| 15:23.42 | banana_neal | Hmmph. k. |
| 15:23.49 | feutetejsd | if free is installed, it'll return something like /sbin/free |
| 15:24.10 | banana_neal | Here's what it returned: |
| 15:24.11 | feutetejsd | if it's not, we can use the top command to get some idea, although not quite as nice as free |
| 15:24.12 | banana_neal | no free in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin |
| 15:24.14 | feutetejsd | ok |
| 15:24.21 | feutetejsd | then type: |
| 15:24.22 | feutetejsd | top |
| 15:24.25 | banana_neal | k |
| 15:24.38 | banana_neal | Whoa. That's cool. |
| 15:24.55 | feutetejsd | you should see a section near the top that is PhysMem? |
| 15:25.07 | feutetejsd | mine says: |
| 15:25.08 | feutetejsd | PhysMem: 69.2M wired, 288M active, 147M inactive, 505M used, 6.95M free |
| 15:25.16 | banana_neal | Ya, here's what it says: |
| 15:25.17 | banana_neal | PhysMem: 260M wired, 441M active, 1.14G inactive, 1.82G used, 2.68G free |
| 15:25.54 | feutetejsd | ok, so you currently have 2.68G unallocated |
| 15:25.59 | banana_neal | k |
| 15:26.05 | feutetejsd | 1.14G of what has been allocated is currently inactive |
| 15:26.19 | feutetejsd | and I believe that memory that is allocated but inactive CAN be used by other apps if needed |
| 15:26.38 | feutetejsd | it's just that the kernel reserves it for the app for which it was allocated as the first priority user of the memory |
| 15:27.06 | feutetejsd | but if it's not using it, it can be re-allocated to another app that has a need |
| 15:27.14 | feutetejsd | I *believe* that's how it works ;) |
| 15:28.18 | *** join/#byumug gildedcage (n=gildedca@64.72.210.10) |
| 15:28.40 | feutetejsd | so if I'm right, you have 3.82G that's more-or-less available for apps to use if needed |
| 15:29.47 | banana_neal | Well, crap, that's a ton. |
| 15:29.50 | feutetejsd | here's an interesting read: |
| 15:29.51 | feutetejsd | http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2006-April/120028.html |
| 15:30.12 | feutetejsd | remember that OS X is based on BSD UNIX, so this explanation probably applies |
| 15:30.22 | feutetejsd | "'Inactive' can (and usually does) include memory that was used by |
| 15:30.22 | feutetejsd | processes that are no longer running." |
| 15:30.41 | feutetejsd | "Keep in mind that the resident size of a process (as displayed by top(1) or |
| 15:30.42 | feutetejsd | ps(1)) includes any shared libraries it is using. Memory for shared libraries can however be shared between several different |
| 15:30.42 | feutetejsd | processes." |
| 15:36.53 | feutetejsd | have you ever used the Activity Monitor? |
| 15:40.08 | feutetejsd | it's a GUI view into the same information provided by top, but also has HD usage, network activity and others |
| 15:41.19 | banana_neal | Ya, I was looking at Activity Monitor just now. |
| 15:44.57 | feutetejsd | so, when your machine freezes, is it usually when working in one specific app? or, is one app open every time you have a crash? |
| 15:47.14 | banana_neal | It's hard to tell cuz I usually have so many apps open at once. But I'm about 90% it's because I'm running an app that the crashes happen. |
| 15:47.28 | banana_neal | 90% => 90% sure |
| 15:48.34 | banana_neal | Hmmph. Maybe it's Firefox that keeps causing the problems. I run that an awful lot. I should see if memory usage improves if I don't run it. |
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| 16:01.22 | feutetejsd | well, that was fun |
| 16:01.26 | feutetejsd | a little crash of my own |
| 16:01.38 | banana_neal | Dear oh dear. I'm contagious. |
| 16:02.08 | feutetejsd | hehe |
| 16:02.54 | banana_neal | Anyhoo, thanks for looking into this issue with me for a while. I'll keep my eye on Activity Monitor and see if there's a particular app that's throwing a wrench in the gears. |
| 16:03.03 | feutetejsd | so, anyway it might be worth it to watch top or activity monitor while running the suspect app to see if its memory consumption slowly creeps up.... |
| 16:03.06 | feutetejsd | yeah |
| 16:03.19 | feutetejsd | it very well may be a leak in the software somewheres |
| 16:03.29 | banana_neal | That's what Wade thought it was. |
| 16:04.08 | feutetejsd | yeah, keep an eye on activity monitor and see if there's anything that slowly creeps up in its memory usage....that's where I'd start too |
| 16:05.54 | banana_neal | Thanks again. I sure will. |
| 16:06.01 | feutetejsd | so, you work with Wade, banana_neal? |
| 16:18.24 | gildedcage | (sorry, just dinking) |
| 16:18.37 | gildedcage | yeah, neal works here with wade too, but neal is currently on the can |
| 16:18.44 | feutetejsd | hehe |
| 16:18.52 | feutetejsd | so, I guess you also with with neal and wade? |
| 16:18.58 | gildedcage | true |
| 16:19.16 | feutetejsd | are you all in design like wade, or do you have other roles? |
| 16:19.28 | gildedcage | all designers, more or less |
| 16:19.33 | feutetejsd | cool |
| 16:20.00 | feutetejsd | I once thought I had some design skills, but have long since been proven wrong :) |
| 16:20.09 | feutetejsd | i'll leave the designing to the designers |
| 16:20.44 | gildedcage | thanks, wish the general population would reach the same understanding |
| 16:20.59 | feutetejsd | hehe, no kidding |
| 16:21.12 | gildedcage | then our plot to take over the world would be much smoother |
| 16:21.18 | feutetejsd | LOL |
| 16:21.25 | feutetejsd | I'm sure that would help quite a lot, yes |
| 16:23.53 | banana_neal | Sometimes, as a designer, I feel like the Brain, and I feel like the rest of the world is Pinky. |
| 16:24.06 | feutetejsd | hehe |
| 16:24.10 | feutetejsd | what an awesome show that was |
| 16:25.47 | feutetejsd | funny, I've felt the same way as an ops guy :D |
| 16:25.54 | banana_neal | Except when I say "Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking", Pinky says "sure Brain, but where are we going to find a media buyer at this time of night?" |
| 16:26.18 | banana_neal | Yeah, most of us "creators" do feel the same way. |
| 16:26.26 | feutetejsd | hehe.... |
| 16:26.47 | feutetejsd | wade has been unusually silent this morning....is he asleep at his desk again? |
| 16:27.11 | feutetejsd | somebody go poke him with a stick... |
| 16:27.28 | banana_neal | I should man. No, he's been around the office doing "important" stuff. |
| 16:27.47 | feutetejsd | uhhhhhh.....yeah |
| 16:27.52 | feutetejsd | me too |
| 16:28.19 | banana_neal | Like, for example, this morning he came running upstairs, his arms flailing wildly, screaming "Emergency! I just found a sign downstairs in comic sans!" |
| 16:28.37 | banana_neal | No joke. |
| 16:28.37 | feutetejsd | holy crap |
| 16:28.43 | banana_neal | It was hilarious. |
| 16:28.49 | feutetejsd | that's awesome |
| 16:28.57 | feutetejsd | although I can't say I wouldn't do the same |
| 16:29.07 | feutetejsd | even though I'm no designer, comic sans is still offensive |
| 16:29.19 | banana_neal | That's fer durn sure. |
| 16:29.54 | feutetejsd | was it a doba sign? |
| 16:30.33 | banana_neal | Nah, but anything that appears in the office is supposed to be filtered by our department first. For some reason, this 'un slipped through the cracks. |
| 16:30.47 | banana_neal | Those fetchers. |
| 16:31.13 | feutetejsd | gotcha |
| 16:31.56 | banana_neal | comic sans... they can comic sans half of my butt. |
| 16:32.31 | feutetejsd | hehe |
| 18:14.12 | banana_neal | ~macintosh |
| 18:14.20 | jbot | [macintosh] the shish |
| 18:14.30 | banana_neal | isn't it though? |
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