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donotdisturbd and suggestd consuming all memory

New Mac Mini on Ventura. Just started today that I am aware of. Between susggestd and donotdisturbd all of my memory is being consumed (16gb). I have restarted and no joy. Anyone else seeing this.

Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Jun 18, 2023 10:23 AM

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Posted on Jun 18, 2023 10:59 AM

PadLove wrote:

New Mac Mini on Ventura. Just started today that I am aware of. Between susggestd and donotdisturbd all of my memory is being consumed (16gb).

How did you come to that conclusion?

I have restarted and no joy.

Try Safe Mode as per > Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support


Then restart normally and re-check.

12 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 18, 2023 10:59 AM in response to PadLove

PadLove wrote:

New Mac Mini on Ventura. Just started today that I am aware of. Between susggestd and donotdisturbd all of my memory is being consumed (16gb).

How did you come to that conclusion?

I have restarted and no joy.

Try Safe Mode as per > Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support


Then restart normally and re-check.

Jun 18, 2023 11:28 AM in response to PadLove

Hello,


We need to see what all is running & machine specs, a report from this will not display any personal info...


EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/


Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…


Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

Jun 20, 2023 9:31 AM in response to PadLove

"knowledge-agent" and related files are part of Siri and, in your case, is being piggy:



There are many reports here and elsewhere of it being an issue. Some say that turning Siri and restarting helped; others say it did not help. The latter makes me think it is to some degree an issue with third-party software getting int eh way.


This also supports the "third-party curse" theory. From a "red flag" standpoint, I am far less concerned with 110MB free RAM than I am with this:



For a computer that was rebooted only 5 hours before the EtreCheck test, 3GB of Swap is super-massive. Normally a Mac with 16GB RAM would not have that big a Swap value after months of no restarts. That to me also suggests a third-party interference.


You storage is, IMHO, slow:



I've not seen an Apple Silicon (M-series) Mac post Write/Read scores under 2500MB/sec. Some "cleaing: apps can slow storage perfroamce but I do the see the usual suspects.


My first two suspects in your case are BackBlaze and your private VPN. Online file storage can use a lot of resources if you are backing up a lot of stuff, and I see BackBlaze in too many "my mac is not right" posts here.


Client-side VPNs are useful to making money for those selling them, not much more. We know they slow things. Your ISP have gobs of server-side protection so I see client-side VPNs ratehr redundant. And, if they cause the user issues....well...


Jun 19, 2023 9:25 AM in response to BDAqua

So I came back this AM to work on this and low and behold donotdisturbd was only consuming 15mb. I had just left it as is with no reboot. That said I check the update logs and there was an update last night from Apple applied so maybe they addressed it. It was easily re-createable on Saturday but no longer happening.


Appreciate all the help and will re-post if it happens again.

Jun 19, 2023 3:58 PM in response to PadLove

We may get more info by running etrecheck after giving it Full Disk Access.


Whilst I can't put my finger on an exact cause yet, every time I've seen Free RAM. less than a couple hundred MB...

Virtual Memory Information: Physical RAM: 16 GB

Free RAM: 110 MB Used RAM: 13.79 GB Cached files: 2.10 GB

Available RAM: 2.21 GB Swap Used: 3.03 GB


It's been on problem systems, even though the saying is Free RAM is wasted RAM, Ifind that not so

Jun 20, 2023 9:48 AM in response to Allan Jones

Great info thanks so much. Of course, today it's not happening and nothing has changed but am keeping an eye on what is running to see if it starts up again. The original culprit was donotdisturbd and suggestd doing same, which just seems odd that the multiple services exhibit the issue but suppose that points to the 3rd party interference.


I am fine with disabling backblaze and seeing if that helps. The VPN is because we are outside the US and from time to time I need to turn it on to bypass blocks such as CVS Pharmacy not allowing a login. I only turn it on usually for a few minutes and then back off. As to the Performance section I have an external USB-c drive plugged in as well. Is Performance limiting it's tests to just the installed drives or includes the USB drive?

donotdisturbd and suggestd consuming all memory

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