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macx_swapon
#21317 03/31/12 04:54 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
andycap Offline OP
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Yesterday I came back to my iMac after several hours to find the Force Quit Applications window displayed on the desktop saying "Your Mac OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory" (with Safari and Finder being the apps listed), the Finder being slow as a wet week and multiple occurrences of the following in Console:

"Mar 30 22:46:32 Andy-xxxx's-Computer-2 kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_allocate_cluster - send HI_WAT_ALERT
Mar 30 22:46:32 Andy-xxxx's-Computer-2 kernel[0]: macx_swapon FAILED - 12"

and a few of the following which seem to be related:

"30/03/12 10:45:35.000 PM kernel: (default pager): [KERNEL]: System is out of paging space".

My hard drive was and is still well over 300GB free. I attempted to quit Safari but, since everything had essentially ground to a halt, I eventually powered off with the button. I'm no expert at reading Console messages but it seems to me that Safari had conniptions of some sort. Surely it can't be a memory leak because, if it is, that's some leak!

Everything seems fine today but I'm a bit nervous about leaving Safari running. Does anyone have any idea what's going on?


iMac 21.5 in, late 2009, 3.06 GHz, Core 2 Duo, 8GB, OS 10.7.3

Re: macx_swapon
andycap #21318 03/31/12 05:22 AM
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A Google search for "macx_swapon FAILED - 12" shows that you're neither alone nor a member of a very big club.

I haven't got a clue what's up, but I guess it couldn't hurt to run a maintenance routine...DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro if you've got either, "Repair Disk" while booted into/from wherever you run it in Lion (your Recovery Partition?) if not. (Edit: I guess it wouldn't hurt to repair permissions, too.)

For what it's worth, I don't find Safari 5.1.5 leaking memory, the component that used to be guilty now preferring to quit.

Edit: I just did a better search..."macx_swapon FAILED - 12 site:apple.com," and found both that you're less alone than I had thought and this, which points to Parental Controls as a culprit. (The linked thread is the only one I found that reached any sort of conclusion.)

Last edited by artie505; 03/31/12 05:54 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: macx_swapon
artie505 #21319 03/31/12 06:22 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
andycap Offline OP
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Joined: Sep 2009
Thanks Artie. I should perhaps have mentioned that I did do a Google search and came to the same conclusion as you - there was potentially only one answer in the mainstream forums (about Parental Controls) and this is not it in my case as I have none set.

Why I didn't think about running maintenance I don't know. I have now done a Diskwarrior check (completely clean) and a permissions run (nothing repaired except scripting additions and LauchPadLayout plist, both of which are "normal" for me).

I was just hoping that you or the other frequent fliers at FTM might have a better clue (as you have ably proved in the past) than readers of forums elsewhere!

Re: macx_swapon
andycap #21321 03/31/12 06:39 AM
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Well, it's the middle of the night here, so you're not out of luck...yet. tongue

For all the posting about your issue, there's remarkably little in the way of suggestions, let alone answers.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: macx_swapon
andycap #21324 03/31/12 11:48 AM
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Originally Posted By: andycap
I eventually powered off with the button.
While this probably caused no damage, a potentially safer way to force a shutdown can be done with Terminal.

1. Launch Terminal (Applications/Utilities).
2. Type sudo shutdown -h now and press Return.
3. Type your administrator password (it will appear as if nothing is happening but this is a security measure to insure that nobody can read the password over your shoulder) and press Return.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: macx_swapon
andycap #21405 04/05/12 10:05 PM
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I would expect one of two things to cause that error - loss of contact with the boot drive, or full disk. The former being the most common. Usually if you are running out of disk space you will get a popup. If your hdd decides to check out, things will rapidly grind to a colorful spinning stop and a power cycle will be your only escape.


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: macx_swapon
Virtual1 #21409 04/05/12 11:15 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I would expect one of two things to cause that error - loss of contact with the boot drive, or full disk.

I have been experiencing occasional loss of the (external) FireWire boot drive because of suspect FireWire ports on my iMac, so this is definitely a potential problem scenario.


alternaut moderator

Moderated by  alternaut, dkmarsh, joemikeb 

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