MATLAB consuming Memory on MAC

The latest R2012a consumes Real memory on the MAC even if it is not doing anything and just left open. Right now my MATLAB is using up 3.81GB of the Real Mem and it has been open for 48 hours or so. I have to close MATLAB every few days and restart it to release the Memory otherwise my VM starts swapping like crazy.

I do not remember facing the same problems with the older versions.

Matlab Version R 2012a OSX -Lion 10.7.4

Anyone else face the same problem? Any solutions?

[Ken Atwell]

Clarifying questions:

1. You say "VM" -- Is MATLAB running inside a VM? If so, can you detail your software configuration a bit more (guest and host OS)? In my experiences with VMWare Fusion (I run Windows and Linux clients inside of a Lion host), VMs use wired memory and generally doesn't swap.
2. Does MATLAB gobble up memory even if you start it, and then do nothing other than let it sit overnight? Is Activity Monitor showing any CPU usage at all? If, so you want to sample the process to provide MathWorks with some diagnostic information.

[Thomas]

No MAtlab is running on the regular MAC OSX not as a VM.

FYI VM size on MAC: This is the total amount of Virtual Memory for all processes on the Mac. i.e. Mac OSX even running natively is like a VM.

I am testing with R2011a as well right now and the REal Memory is not growing like it does on the R2012a.

I will start Matlab 2012a before I leave my office today and see if the Memory is gobbled up even if nothing is done..

CPU usage is very low. I will sample the process and start a ticket with the Mathworks.. Just wanted to see if others have the same issue.

[Ken Atwell]

Gothca, I misinterpreted VM as "virtual machine" and not "virtual memory".

I don't recall hearing other problems along the lines you're describing, sorry. Let us know if a completely fresh MATLAB chews up memory.

[Ian Harris]

Same for me - I crashed last night with KERNEL paging problems, it was during as Matlab session that everything froze. As far as I can tell, it takes VM but doesn't release it - the figure only goes up (so I assume it thinks it's released it, and asks for more).

Right now, it's using just under 1GB of real memory, and 1.11GB of VM. It's doing nothing with that, and there are no variables in memory ('whos' returns nothing). Since I restarted this morning, it's only gone up.

Thing is, I'm running 7.9.0 R2009b!

I'm on a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac, with 8 GB RAM, running Snow Leopard (10.6.8).

[Thomas]

I face this scenario only with R2012a and Mac OSX Mountain Lion 10.7.x I am currently testing the R2012b pre-release to see if the memory leak still occurs.

[Olivier Gevaert]

Same problem here I'm running Matlab 2012a on an iMac, and compared to the previous version R2011b I'm also observing some serious memory problems. Previously I got run multiple matlabs at the same time. Now it seems that each matlab process is just eating more and more memory without me creating any objects/variables.

[Walter Roberson]

My R2012a on MacBook Pro with Lion (_not_ Mountain Lion) has been open for about 20 days, and has a virtual size of less than 600 Mb.