" I've run across one you've probably seen before, but perhaps not "over analyzed" like this one...
I recently began seriously tinkering with OS X 10.4. I brought up the Dashboard on a system, with 5 active widgets. I then was out of the office a lot for a couple of weeks. When I came back, I started doing some work on the machine (which hadn't been rebooted in the meantime).
The work I was doing seemed to be going a fair amount slower than I expected it to, so I looked in Activity Monitor to see if I could understand why. Sure enough, I found the answer.

The "World Clock" widget was consuming 46.8% of the CPU and over 150MB of real RAM. Ouch!
Figuring it was a fluke, I terminated the process and let it come back up. That seemed to release the RAM and lower the CPU usage to around 8%.
An hour or so later, I checked again. Resource usage had increased. Thinking maybe the machine was out of whack, I rebooted and started the Dashboard again.
As a double-check, I brought Activity Monitor and Dashboard (with the same collection of Widgets) up on another machine that was built entirely differently and was dual-CPU instead of single-CPU. Its resource consumption started out in the 7-8% range. I left it going for a couple of hours and, sure enough, it was using more CPU and RAM also.

I wondered if resource usage would continue unabated if World Clock was left on-screen 24 hours (or as much as possible, at least). I wrote a quick shell script to take an hourly snapshot of the Dashboard Widgets' resource usage and write it to a text file. That told quite a tale, even being just a couple of hours into the test.

Right now it's about 30 hours later in this experiment. World Clock is up to 66.5% of the system's CPU, 99.42 MB of real RAM, and 241.11 MB of Virtual Memory. I am anticipating that by the time I return to the office tomorrow it will have reached near 100% of the CPU and perhaps considerably more RAM. What I want to know is if this monster can bring down the entire system.

Since you're interested in Mac performance, you might want to have a look at the article I've written, which I update as new information becomes available to me:
OS X World Clock Widget Resource Problem
In any case, keep up the good work!
-Mike S.

(I replied to Mike that I'm not a fan of widgets, OS addons, etc. (never was even in the old days before OS X) - I prefer running lean so to speak (saves resources, cpu cycles and often less problems with os updates) I've seen some Tiger installs where users went "widget crazy" and turned even fast macs into snails.-Mike)
Same here. In OS 7/8/9 days I never went in for those little cutesy utilities that changed the way your windows looked, animated your cursors, etc. All that stuff is amusing for about 10 minutes and afterward it just eats up resources.

I've been tinkering with the WorldClock.js script trying to see if I can find where that memory leak is. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the way the second-hand is drawn (and animated). If you disable the second-hand animation, initial CPU usage drops from 7-9% down to about 1.2% and stays near that for a much longer time. Unfortunately, there is still a "slow leak" memory wise, with every few ticks of the second-hand adding a few K to the RAM in use. I suspect they aren't destroying some JavaScript object when they're done with it. I just haven't found which one it is for sure yet...

(he later wrote)
I have reported it to Apple through their web site. (in reply to the reader suggestion below)
I've also combed through the code enough to think this is a garbage collection problem due to the way they wrote the code.
JavaScript apparently has a garbage collection methodology that says, in essence, "if any object that references THIS object is still in memory, I can't delete THIS object."

Based on what I can see in the source code, it looks something like this:

Function A
Call function B
Call function C

Function B
Do something

Function C
Do something
Call Function A

So what we see is that when Function B is called, the JavaScript garbage collector sees that A still has something to do, so it doesn't collect the garbage for A yet. When B is done, it goes on to C. C does its thing, then calls A to get the ball rolling again. Problem is, since C never actually terminated, that keeps the original A and B "open" in memory.

If you envision that the above functions are (in essence): Update the current time (A), Draw the Hour/minute/second hands (B), and Make the second hand wiggle (C)... You see the problem. Each second, the script is effectively forcing the JavaScript interpreter to store the last-second's state of function A, B, and C... along with the second before that, and so on. Thus, the longer this thing is up and running, the more "states" of A, B, and C it's storing. This requires more memory, which requires more CPU to manage, which (combined together) bogs down the system.

And since it's a "bogging down" that gets worse each time the second-hand moves, the effects are dramatic if you keep the application opened. If you just check it occasionally, only a few second-hand ticks are displayed and thus only a few "states" are stored.

Thus, the only people who will ever notice this will be those who leave their systems up over long periods of time (periodically checking the World Clock) or those who don't leave their systems up for long periods of time but who do leave the World Clock up a long time... "

This reminded me of a problem Matthew reported with the "blued" task/process (hogging CPU cycles per activity monitor, which also reported some hangs IIRC). It's bluetooth related and didn't appear here on the only 10.4.2 install I have, but that machine has no bluetooth adapter installed. Matt said booting from the Tiger CD and running Disk Utility (repair the disk/RP) helped but not sure if the problem will re-appear over time.
A reader suggested he send a bug report to Apple (which he later said he's done)

" This is regarding the "OS X World Clock Widget Resource Problem".
Have him run Sampler.app on WorldClock for a long time. Then, submit a bug report via https://bugreport.apple.com and attach a compressed archive of the sampler output.
The sampler capture will help Apple specifically identify the issue.
--Mike "

FYI - a reader later sent a note that Apple's webkit blog noted they're recently fixed over 4000 javascript memory leaks.

" I can confirm that the bug I reported to you (copied below) on September 8th with iTunes 5.0.0 has been fixed in 5.0.1.
- Jeff
(a copy of his past report on the bug follows)
... I have discovered a bug in both the Windows and Macintosh version of iTunes 5 (5.0.0).
If you uncheck the "Radio" check box in the General preferences pane of iTunes 5, then no shared music will show up in the Shared music section of the sidebar navigation. If you have "look for shared music" enabled only an empty folder for shared music will show up in the sidebar even if shared music is available. Toggling the check box for "Radio" in the General preferences on again will allow shared music to be seen in the sidebar and browsed again.... "

Another reader mentioned improved scrolling performance on his system:

" Just a quick impression on the new update to iTunes that was released on Tuesday. I have a G5 iMac 20" 1.8 ghz and I noticed that iTunes 5.0 made scrolling through the songs in my library using the Page Up/ Down keys more sluggish than previous iTunes releases. The 5.0.1 update seems to have fixed this little glitch. I'm not sure what else has been fixed since I only applied the update a few minutes ago. I'll pass more along if I notice anything.
Thanks, Chris "

I had 2 readers report (in Sept. 8th news and Sept 14th news) a problem with iTunes 5.0.0 not working with iPhoto to copy photos to their iPods but was not able to reproduce that problem here in a test with an iPod Nano using 10.3.9 on a PB G4 (I wasn't able to test it in on a 10.4.2 system though, if that matters). If anyone that had that problem before finds 5.0.1 fixed it let me know.

" I have had an entirely different experience with the 9600Pro. Mine was DOA. No video from either DVI port . It also came with the 9800 documentation describing power connectors and fan. I agree the documentation is poor. (a previous owner commented on this also. AJ mentioned that some ATI cards have a manual that covers installing several card models.) Despite being an AGP card the card doesn't have the retention tab described in the documentation....BR> I attempted to contact ATI tech support and initially received a standard auto response asking me to check the card, reset the PRAM, etc, all of which I had done. Finally got an email stating to send it back to the retailer. Awaiting an RMA from OWC.
Quicksilver 2001 867, 10.4.2, 1Gig RAM, Apple DVI-ADC connector (works well with my PB ), 17" studio display.
-Jeff W.
(I asked him to double-check that the card was fully/evenly seated in the AGP slot (even a slight bit unseated can cause problems).-Mike)
I installed the card three times and attempted to obtain video. I pressed/rocked the card as hard as I thought I could safely. Pressed CUDA, zapped PRAM, reinstalled the latest ATI drivers, etc. No Joy...I'll try one more time today while I wait for an RMA. "

Another 9600 Mac/PC edition owner wrote his also didn't work out of the box:

" I also had a DOA 9600 Mac/PC edition. We tried it in both a processor-upgraded Digital Audio and a stock Quicksilver; it was dead as a doorstop.
I'm hoping the replacement works.
-Marc D."

Another MDD wrote today he's run the card since Sept. 12th without any problems, but it's unusual to get this many failure reports so soon.
I welcome other 9600 Mac/PC edition owner feedback.

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