IMac Memory Issues: "Your Mac OSX Startup Disk Has No More Space Available"

Hi all,
I've done some extensive searching on my issue, and haven't been able to find a solid solution. I was hoping that if I shared my specific problem, it might shed some light on what is going on. My OS is current: 10.8.2 with plenty of HD space (over 250 GB) and 4 GB ram.
Over the past couple of days, my iMac has become very slow and laggy. Most times I will eventually get the message: "Your Mac OSX Startup Disk Has No More Space Available". This is after it has been lagging for quite a while, sometimes several hours.
I will restart, things will be sufficiently fast for a few minutes, but once I start working in any application (including any browser, or adobe software) it starts to slow down until it is eventually to a crawl, with the spinny wheel showing up often, even when only one application is open at a time. It doesn't take more than several minutes to start slowing down. Even simple things like hovering over the dock start to really lag, or opening my applications folder or System Preferences can take upwards of 15-30 seconds, even several minutes sometimes.
Here's some steps I've taken so far:
- Checked the activity monitor and system memory seems fine. No single app takes up more than 7% or so of memory at any given time. 1.65 GB active, 1.64 GB inactive, about 700 MB wired, free about 4 MB. VM size is 247 GB, CPU also seems OK: (%user around 10-20%, %System around 10%, Idle around 70-80%). No single app seems to be taking up an excessive amount of Real Memory.
- Permissions repair (It found some things to fix, but never completely finished, seemed to freeze after several hours, tried it several times)
- Checked disk for repair (no problems found), did the S.M.A.R.T check and ran tests again using Onyx.
- Re-indexed Macintosh HD
- I saw a suggestion to reset the PRAM, so I did that.
I do have the system backed up via Time Machine. Suggestions for further action are very much appreciated!

Ok, thanks. Here's a screenshot from during when it was running to a near halt (took me a while even to take the screenshot):
Here's a second screenshot after restart. All I did was open Chrome to post this:
At this exact moment I have about 500MB of memory free, but I have been watching it slowly count down starting from 2GB free when I first restarted. So far it is running smoothly, but I am guessing that it will start to lag again once the free memory dials down.
In case there is any correlation: I happened to have a strange issue with my internet connection. My router seems to be working fine, and I have wi-fi connected around the house. However, I did have my iMac connected via ethernet cable, and the wired connection was not working (was not finding a DNS address), but when I go to Wi-fi, it works. Again, could be totally unrelated, but it started just before the slowdown.

Similar Messages

"Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" - uploading files problem

Hi everyone,
I'm running a late-2012 27 inch iMac - 3.4GHz Intel Core i7, 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3 with the 3TB fusion drive, OS 10.8.4. At present there is 1.92TB of available storage.
I have received this message "Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" just before a full on crash multiple times in the past couple of days whilst using WeTransfer to send over some large files (500MB+). The applications I have had open at the time have been: Activity Monitor, App Store, Firefox, and Finder. Over the course of uploading the files, the active system memory has gone from 1.04GB and steadily increased until it more or less maxes out around 29GB, at which point the Page Outs rocket up to around 40GB/s and the swap memory fills up pretty quickly until the computer basically can't take any more and blacks out.
This is a pretty new thing, haven't really had an issues before. My main software used: Sibelius 7 & Logic Pro X. I've also recently started working with Final Cut Pro X, which seems to have been struggling at points. I've tried closing everything, restarting the computer and not opening anything (specifically NOT FCPX) before attempting an upload. I've even gone so far as to remove FCPX from my system, and yet the problem is still recurring. Both "kernal_task" and "WindowServer" have been running high on CPU when these problems have occurred.
Does anyone know what might be the issue and how it could possibly be resolved?
Really appreciate any help, I'm in the middle of a fairly sizeable project and the deadlines are just around the corner.
Thanks,
Tom

There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory. That can happen for two reasons:
You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

New MacAir error states "your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" All I have added is MS Office

My new Mac Air states that my " Mac OSX startup disk has no more space available for application memory" and wants to force quit Safari. I have only added MS Office to the computer and Carbonite. Any suggestions?

Select the icon of your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you renamed it) in the Finder and open the Info window. What value is shown for Available (space)?

Error Message: Your mac osx startup disk has no more space available for application memory.

Hi everyone:
I have a 2010 27" imac. Dual Core i3, 3.2 GHz and 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, and a 90% empty 500 GB Hard Drive. Running Snow Leopard 10.6.6
I have received a message intermittently since I got the iMac. The Force Quit menu comes up and says "Your mac osx startupdisk has no more space available for application memory". Sometimes there are a few applications open. Sometimes none. Whenever I look in the Activity Monitor Utility I see 2 or 3 gigs of RAM still available for use, and lots of hard drive space.
Im not sure why I'm getting the message, nor what to do to rectify it. Quitting applications, like it suggests doesn't seem to help.
I am grateful for any advice.
Lauren

Hey Lauren.
First of all you do have some software updates you should be doing. 10.6.7 came out a few weeks ago. Sometimes doing all of your software updates resolve issues such as this.
To check for software updates click the Apple and then Software updates.
As this issue is someone broad, I would test one of the articles below to narrow down your issue.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1199?viewlocale=en_US
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388?viewlocale=en_US
Let me know if you need extra ideas.
Regards,
Britt.

"your mac osx startup disk has no more space"

I getting the following message constantly: "your mac osx startup disk has no more space". It pops up the "force quit" menu and displays this message at the top.
I'm getting this error on an iMac that has a brand new HD installed by Apple. I restored from a Time Capsule, Time Machine backup.
The 500GB hard drive has 388.28GB of free space left.
Updated to OSX 10.6.6.
Might have been running either 10.5.? or 10.6.? before the old HD crashed.
Both the Time Capsule and iMac are using wired gigabit ethernet to connect to our network.
I did check the startup disk using Disk Utility, it passed.
I also ran Fix Permissions and got quite a bit of ACL errors, but they all seem to be the ones on the "ignore" list from a different forum posting I found.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Tahoe Tech Group wrote:
I getting the following message constantly: "your mac osx startup disk has no more space". It pops up the "force quit" menu and displays this message at the top.
That's quite odd.
Do you get this immediately after startup, or only after running for a while?
If after running for a while, what was running?
Have you done any backups since reinstalling? If so, were there any problems?
Is there only a single partition on the Startup disk?
I did check the startup disk using Disk Utility, it passed.
You mean you did a +*Verify Disk,+* right?
Does it show Verified for the S.M.A.R.T. status?

Mac osx startup disk has no more space available

I get the error message "Mac OS Startup disk has no more space available." I have run the resolution suggested on support helpsite. Still running very slow.
Suggestions?

PapaCarl wrote:
I get the error message "Mac OS Startup disk has no more space available." I have run the resolution suggested on support helpsite. Still running very slow.
Suggestions?
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18694514#18694514
Also have a look on the right side of this page under 'More Like This'.
Cheers
Pete

"Your Mac OSX startup disk has no more space avaliable for..." error

Last night, a dialog box appeared with the following error (exact quote):
"Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
The box then had a force quite menu with the option to force quit any applications that were currently open.
I opened activity monitor, and nothing seems to have a CPU % of over 9% on any of the tabs, so I'm not sure what is causing this message to appear and how to fix it. Activity Monitor also says I have 2.07 GB out of 1.88 GB available, so I don't think this is a memory issue either. Help?
Thanks,
-Josh

What's the size of your HDD, and how much space is unused? You can check in /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility - highlight Macintosh HD and read the figures at bottom right.
If the available space is under about 15-20% of the total capacity, the message is telling you that there isn't enough disc space left for application swap files to be used.

When I open my iMac, I get this message - Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. ???????

When I open my iMac, I get the following message : Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. Then it says to quit applications not in usw and to close windows and remove files from startup disk. It lists Safari, email and Finder. I force a quit on all applications yet the same message comes up every time I open an application. What do I do to get rid of this once and for all? The computer is not even two years old and is only used for email and Safari. Help will be greatly appreciated,

The message has nothing to do with low disk space.
There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory (that is, the memory chips on the logic board) and virtual memory (one or more files on the startup volume.) That activity is relatively slow and causes the whole system to be less responsive. It can happen for two reasons:
A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)
Not enough memory for your usage pattern
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
These instructions are for OS X 10.9 ("Mavericks.") The procedure may be slightly different for earlier versions of OS X.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The processes named "Safari Web Content" render web pages for Safari. They use a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider them prime suspects.
Another process often implicated in memory leaks is "inkjet4" or "inkjet8," which is a component of the HP printing software. If it's present, force-quit the process in Activity Monitor to solve the problem temporarily. Empty the print queues in the Printers & Scanners preference pane (which has a slightly different name in each recent version of OS X.) If you don't use an HP printer, remove the software. Otherwise, if the problem is recurrent, update the software (which may not help) or contact HP support.
"Wired" memory should be a small part of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If you have a lot of wired memory, that's usually an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

Msg states: "your Mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory...Removing files from startup disk may help." yet, I have 299.11GB of 319.73GB available. Why is msg received?

The full message reads as, "
Force Quit Applications
Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
Currently I have:
Capacity: 319.73GB ; Available: 299.11GB ; Used: 20.62GB
Why am I receiving this message and being forced to force quit items? Both times the message has been received, Safari was open (frozen) while checking yahoo! mail.
I received my MacBook Pro as a gift less than a month ago and I have only saved 20 pictures within iPhoto and installed Skype and Vuze...no other modifications from default have been made.
Any idea?

The full message reads as, "
Force Quit Applications
Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using. Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
Currently I have:
Capacity: 319.73GB ; Available: 299.11GB ; Used: 20.62GB
Why am I receiving this message and being forced to force quit items? Both times the message has been received, Safari was open (frozen) while checking yahoo! mail.
I received my MacBook Pro as a gift less than a month ago and I have only saved 20 pictures within iPhoto and installed Skype and Vuze...no other modifications from default have been made.
Any idea?

Why does Mac Book Pro show your mac os z startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Why does Mac Book Pro show your mac os z startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Why does Mac Book Pro show your mac os z startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Suddenly over the past 2-3 weeks, first my iMac, then my Mac Pro both started giving me the pop-up error message: "Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory" offering for me to Force Quit open applications. Which does not work. Restarting temporarily helps, but the error will eventually return.
I have over 50% available in HD space on the iMac.
Also, I do not know if this is related, but the computers are running very slowly as well.
Additionally, before all of this, our Contact data, sync with Mobile Me, tripled in size with duplicates and jumbled messages.
Seemed like a cascade of failures beginning with contacts and ending with the memory error.
I have tried Applejack several times to no avail.
Any one have any ideas? Thanks.

CMCSK wrote:
first my iMac, then my Mac Pro
I have over 50% available in HD space on the iMac.
What about the Mac Pro? How large is your hard drive on both computers?
Problem first appeared on the iMac, then the MacPro starting giving the same error.
MacPro 999.5 GB total, 277 GB available
iMac 499.76 GB total, 214 GB available
"Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory"
Is FileVault enabled?
Never (unless it turned on itself)
have tried Applejack several times to no avail.
Have you tried using _Disk Utility from your install disc?_
From the HD, but not from from install disk. I will dig it out and try it.
Did you run Apple's Hardware Test?
Where do I find this?
Did you disconnect all peripherals except for the keyboard & mice while troubleshooting?
I did not since I am having the same problem on 2 different computers.
the computers are running very slowly as well.
Check the items in the Login Items. Delete or disable all you do not need.

My MAC OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.

My MAC OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.

HI there linc, i followed your post on another mac forum... this is the first time i've done this so not sure if you reply or anything but i followed all your parts on the other forum and received the following notices... what do you advise?! sorry if you are bored of these! and appreciate it... quite proud i managed to carry out all the steps! ALSO NOT SURE IF FOUR IS RIGHT!!! SEEMS A BIT LONG?!
PART 1
com.rim.driver.BlackBerryUSBDriverInt (0.0.68)
PART 2
com.trusteer.rooks.rooksd
com.rim.BBDaemon
com.adobe.fpsaud
PART3
com.trusteer.rapport.rapportd
com.rim.BBLaunchAgent
com.rim.RimAlbumArtDaemon
com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager
jp.co.canon.Inkjet_Extended_Survey_Agent
com.google.keystone.user.agent
com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae
PART4
COPYING.FLAC.txt
COPYING.Ogg.txt
COPYING.Speex.txt
COPYING.Theora.txt
COPYING.Vorbis.txt
COPYING.XiphQT.txt
ReadMe.rtf
XiphQT.component
/Library/Extensions:
/Library/Frameworks:
Adobe AIR.framework
DivX Toolkit.framework
NyxAudioAnalysis.framework
PluginManager.framework
RIM_VSP.framework
RimBlackBerryUSB.framework
/Library/Input Methods:
/Library/InputManagers:
CTLoader
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
AdobePDFViewer.plugin
AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
CANONiMAGEGATEWAYDL.plugin
DirectorShockwave.plugin
Disabled Plug-Ins
DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin
EPPEX Plugin.plugin
Flash Player.plugin
Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
Musicnotes.plugin
NP-PPC-Dir-Shockwave
OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin.plugin
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
Silverlight.plugin
VeetleBroadcast-0.9.16
VeetleTVCore-0.9.16
VeetleTVPlayer-0.9.16
flashplayer.xpt
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
npdivx.xpt
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins (Disabled):
Flash Player.plugin
/Library/Keyboard Layouts:
/Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist
com.rim.BBAlbumArtCacher.plist
com.rim.BBLaunchAgent.plist
com.trusteer.rapport.rapportd.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons:
com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
com.rim.BBDaemon.plist
com.trusteer.rooks.rooksd.plist
/Library/PreferencePanes:
DivX.prefPane
Flash Player.prefPane
Growl.prefPane
RapportPreferences.prefPane
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools:
/Library/QuickLook:
GBQLGenerator.qlgenerator
iWork.qlgenerator
/Library/QuickTime:
.DS_Store
AppleIntermediateCodec.component
AppleMPEG2Codec.component
CanonMJPEGAVI.component
CanonMJPEGAVIDec.component
CanonText.component
DivX Decoder.component
DivX Encoder.component
FLACImport.component
OggVorbis.component
XiphQT.component
/Library/ScriptingAdditions:
Adobe Unit Types.osax
/Library/Spotlight:
AppleWorks.mdimporter
GBSpotlightImporter.mdimporter
Microsoft Office.mdimporter
iWork.mdimporter
/Library/StartupItems:
HP Trap Monitor
ProTec6b
/etc/mach_init.d:
dashboardadvisoryd.plist
/etc/mach_init_per_login_session.d:
/etc/mach_init_per_user.d:
Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
SkypeABDialer.bundle
SkypeABSMS.bundle
Library/Fonts:
Library/Input Methods:
.localized
Library/Keyboard Layouts:
Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae.plist
[email protected]
com.apple.FolderActions.enabled.plist
com.apple.FolderActions.folders.plist
com.google.keystone.agent.plist
jp.co.canon.Inkjet_Extended_Survey_Agent.plist
Library/PreferencePanes:
Perian.prefPane
Library/QuickTime:
AC3MovieImport.component
Perian.component
PART 5
GrowlHelperApp, iTunesHelper, Mac_SwapperDemon, 3Connect Updater, CacheOutXHelper, CrossOver CD Helper, Google Chrome, iTunes, iAntiVirus, BlackBerry Device Manager, HP Product Research, HP Scheduler

OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory

This message pops up when running the system for some time a day or 2. Full message
"Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory. To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using, Closing windows and removing files from your startup disk will also help."
HD Space 361.27GB Free of 620
2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Dou
Memery 4 GB 1067MHz

This answers both of your questions. The computer needs some hard drive space for swap files and for storing other information while the computer runs. You are getting a warning that there is limited hard drive space that is affecting the ability of the computer to run correctly. Note, that your hard drive it not completely full. It that where so, you would be seeing really weird behaviors and likely applications would be crashing right and left. If nothing is done to remedy the situation, you will likely start to see weird behaviors and unexpected crashes.
Time for some clean up. Perhaps, there are some old files that can be trashed. Perhaps there are some old files that you want to save but don't use that often. Do you need instant access to old iMovie and iDVD projects? They take up a lot of space. These seldom used files could be moved to a secondary hard drive.
Also, use a product like OmniSweeper by Omnigroup; It will help to find folders/files that are large. It helps me to find those "Ah-ha" files. Those are the large files that I forgot I had on my hard drives that I don't need anymore yet are using GB of space. BTW, OmniSweeper is free!
Best of luck in cleaning up.

All of a sudden my iMac is telling me that my OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory.

Suddenly, my iMAC iOS10.6.8 is telling me that there is no more space available for application memory. I tried to use my install disk to reboot and use disk utility - but my disk won't boot.

Disk Utility won't help with that error. Single-click your hard drive icon and press the SPACE bar. You will get this screen (but with a black background instead of white as in the image:
What values does that show on your computer?

Your Mac OS X Startup Disk has no more space available for application memory?

What burns me is this problem of slowing down to a crawl and freezing up because of something called "memory leaks" which nobody at Apple seems to be able to eliminate with any new iteration of the OS X?
Can you maybe try to explain this in layman's terms to someone who is a graphic artist/designer and not an IT tech?
Suggestions for more RAM are easy for those who can actually add more RAM, but my iMac is maxed out at 6Gigs, so tell me why my Adobe Creative Suite CS3 worked for the past few years without issues as had my HP Color LaserJet 2600n? Now that I've "upgraded" the OS X my machine is slowing up to a snails pace compared to 3 years ago. And I went into the printer drivers section and I was told I don't have permission to delete drivers for odd-ball printers that I don't have?
So for those that need the information:
I'm running OS X v.10.8.4 (12E55)
2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory is 6 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Boot ROM Version:
IM71.007A.B03
SMC Version (system):
1.21f4
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
Primary HDD is 500 GB with 182.77 GB free
<Edited By Host>

Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The process named "Safari Web Content" renders web pages for Safari and other applications. It uses a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider it a prime suspect.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

IMac Memory Issues: "Your Mac OSX Startup Disk Has No More Space Available"

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for