More macOS Monterey issues are appearing from the woodwork just after its general release to the public. Many users have been reporting memory leak issues with the new macOS update, which means that apps start hogging RAM without any limitations. Some users have reported RAM usage of up to 20GB by macOS features like the Control Center, which usually consumes around 50MB RAM in normal situations.
The issue has been reported not only by old Intel Mac users, but also by Intel Mac users, including the recently launched 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models which use Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. The issues have been reported on social media as well as various forums.
macOS Monterey memory leak
As reported by MacRumors, YouTuber Gregory McFadden shared a screenshot on Twitter that showed Control Center consuming 20GB RAM out of the 64GB memory capacity on his new MacBook Pro. As shared earlier, Control Center should use around 50MB memory so this is not normal.
So glad I got 64GB of memory on my new Mac so I can use 26GB of it for control center… Wait… what. pic.twitter.com/inCOPaii1o
— Gregory McFadden (@GregoryMcFadden) October 28, 2021
Other users have reported Firefox using as much as 80GB memory. This might seem like a third-party app issue but since the issue is widespread and happening with both Apple’s built-in Mac apps including Safari, and third-party apps, the problem certainly lies somewhere with the new operating system.
It is not just users with large amounts of memory that are reporting this issue. Even users with 8GB and 16GB memory configurations on their macs are sharing similar issues with apps like Pages. Restarting the Mac does not resolve the issue for them.
What is interesting is that Apple had not announced anything for macOS Monterey which would change how memory management works. macOS utilizes something called compressed memory which makes more space for active apps that need it:
When your computer approaches its maximum memory capacity, inactive apps in memory are compressed, making more memory available to active apps. Select the Compressed Memory column, then look in the VM Compressed column for each app to see the amount of memory being compressed for that app.
This is not the only issue that users are reporting with macOS Monterey. Many have reported that they are simply unable to turn on their Macs after installing macOS Monterey update, especially on older Intel Macs. Apple has yet to respond to this issue.
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