ManagedClient process consumes so much memory it causes a kernel panic

[maritimeseven]

Starting about a month ago, the macOS Dropbox app has started consuming an abnormal amount of memory by way of the ManagedClient process. It'll climb to over 10GB of memory (not disk space) and eventually cause the machine to restart itself.

Has anyone else faced this issue? I've verified permissions, uninstalled and reinstalled, enabled and disabled Smart Sync... nothing helps.

[Walter]

Hey there @maritimeseven - sorry to hear about this. 

Since you are experiencing high CPU usage from our desktop app, you may want to review the following article first which covers common causes of high CPU usage and the steps to resolve these: https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/high-cpu-usage 

If you are unable to resolve your issue with this information, please let me know (a screenshot would also help our investigation in that case) and we'll take it from there.

Thank you.

[maritimeseven]

Thanks for the reply! 

I've tried those steps (including checking for symlinks) and I'm still faced with this issue. In the screenshot below, you'll see the ManagedClient process running. It's up to 4.05 GB in that image and is already up to 4.64 GB as of typing this reply.

The process will disappear if I quit the Dropbox app.

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the swift response and screenshot @maritimeseven - most obliged!

From what I can tell this issue is not related to Dropbox whatsoever as this process (i.e. the "ManagedClient" one) is not coming from us. 

Just to make sure and isolate this issue, could you please try quitting the Dropbox application by using the following steps? 

• Click the Dropbox icon in your menu bar
• Click on the gear icon in the Notifications panel and select "Quit Dropbox"

Should the problem persist when Dropbox is completely closed, this suggests that the cause is related to something outside of the Dropbox application. You may want to check other applications or components of your Operating System that could be causing this.

In any case, please keep me posted on your findings. Thanks!

[maritimeseven]

Excellent. I did quit the Dropbox app which keeping Activity Monitor open. About 5 seconds after quitting the Dropbox app, the ManagedClient process disappeared completely from Activity Monitor. 

[Walter]

Funny thing what you mention @maritimeseven - would it be OK if I reached out to you via email to the address you use for your profile here so we can look into this together with all of my tools available? 

[maritimeseven]

Yes absolutely. Reach out anytime. Thanks!

[Walter]

Roger that @maritimeseven!

I just sent you an email so we can have a further look into this. 

Check your inbox for my message and we will take it from there.

Thanks for your patience and cooperation so far.

Cheers!

[emclain]

I just had a very similar experience... ManagedClient was using 8 GB of memory.  I quit Dropbox and ManagedClient disappeared.  Thanks @maritimeseven !

[Dom4]

I'm experiencing the same issue - quitting dropbox removes the ManagedClient process, but as soon as Dropbox restarts the process starts up again and the RAM starts growing at a rapid pace (between 30 and 300 MB every 5-10 seconds).

Every few minutes it grows over 11 GB of RAM and throws up an OS 'out of application memory' warning and eventually kills and restarts the process.

It is very disruptive!