1Password 4 making kernel_task huge

findchris
findchris
Community Member
in Mac

Same issue as this user here, which was a ticket that was closed without explanation. My kernel_task process is at almost 6GB!

Running a spindump reports:
Process: 2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits.onepassword4-helper [670]
Path: /Applications/1Password 4.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits.onepassword4-helper.app/Contents/MacOS/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits.onepassword4-helper

Any insight what might be going on? Maybe a memory leak?

Comments

  • rickfillion
    rickfillion

    Hi @findchris,

    Thanks for writing in. spindump samples all processes, so it's normal for it to find an entry for 1Password and 1Password mini if either are running.

    Memory allocated by 1Password will not show up as memory allocated to kernel_task, so having kernel_task show as using a lot of memory is not an indication that 1Password leaked memory. When 1Password leaks memory, the 1Password process would show a large memory use.

    If you're suspecting a leak in 1Password, the best course of action is to use the heap tool which gives an overview of memory use for a process. It's usually fairly easy to see a memory leak in there as it'll show certain object types as having a crazy number of allocations, far beyond the others.

    While I can't say that 1Password is leak-free (I fixed one just last week or so), I don't think the memory use you're seeing there as being associated with kernel_task has much to do with 1Password. Locally, I'm seeing kernel_task take 5.6gb. I actually consider that to be normal. The kernel is responsible for all sorts of caches, and will generally try to take whatever unused RAM portion to utilize as a disk cache so that you can get faster writes.

    Rick

  • findchris
    findchris
    Community Member

    Useful stuff. Thanks.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @findchris,

    Glad Rick was able to help :smile:

This discussion has been closed.