Users reporting ‘memory leak’ issues after updating to macOS Monterey
Some users who have recently upgraded to macOS Monterey experience a bug known as a “memory leak”, a scenario in which a specific macOS process or application gets stuck and stays running for long periods of time while in operation. background, consuming unusually large amounts of memory or RAM.
It is difficult to determine precisely which models of Mac computers are affected; However, the lineup is relatively wide, including the newer 14in and 16in MacBook Pros. Reports on Twitter, Reddit, MacRumors Forums, and Apple Support Communities consist of users reporting that their Macs are warning that the system is “out of application memory” or that specific applications are consuming ridiculously high amounts of memory. RAM in Activity Monitor.
Some reports point to the macOS Control Center as the main culprit, with YouTuber Gregory McFadden sharing a screenshot of the Control Center using up to 20GB of RAM on his 16-inch 64GB M1 Max MacBook Pro. Other users also share similar experiences on the MacRumors Forums and Reddit.
Another group of related reports includes Mozilla Firefox. As the tweets below show, Firefox for some users uses incredibly high amounts of memory, up to 80GB for one user.
With the exception of reports related to Firefox and Control Center, the more prevalent reports from users on different platforms suggest that the most common bug is the “Your system has exhausted application memory” pop-up.
The pop-up is apparently presented to users despite minimal usage of their Macs with massive amounts of memory to spare. In some cases, some users have suggested that restarting the Mac helps, while others say the pop-up reappears soon after. An Apple Support Communities user noted their experience:
Since downloading Monterey, I have received repeated “your system is out of application memory” messages. This has only happened since downloading Monterey. When examining activity monitor pages, it seems the main culprit is using up to 18GB and above! Is this evidence of a memory leak for Pages with the Monterey operating system? Restarting doesn’t make any difference.
Mac users on the MacRumors forums (1, 2, 3, 4), Apple Support Communities (1, 2), and Reddit, note similar experiences. Earlier today, we reported user reports that the âmacOS Montereyâ update was breaking some older Mac computers. Given this and the memory usage issues for some users, it may be best for users still on macOS Big Sur to wait for the second version of macOS Montereyâ before upgrading.