I was just working on a 30 page paper - no figures, just text and citations - on a MacBook running Word 2008, Endnote X2, Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.5. I noticed that my computer was disk thrashing, and sure enough, Endnote X2 was using 497 MB of memory (I have 3 GB and run many apps at once). I turned off Instant Formatting and typed in a temporary citation reference, which 2 seconds later sent me to Endnote, which took another minute of beachballing and maximum CPU usage (with Instant Formatting already turned off). I then checked again and Endnote X2 was using 601 MB of memory.
I’m not sure how much can be done, but if there is any possible way, please look into these CPU usage numbers and memory leaks. I have to switch to Windows using VMWare Fusion just to get work done, which is and should be a shame for any Mac user. The memory leak is new to X2, but even on X1, my laptop was gently roasting from the constant high CPU usage of Endnote.
First, I’m not a Mac user, but it sounds like I had the similar problem with X1 Windows version. Everytime I used “Change text” or “Change/Move field” functions, the memory use by Endnote increased. (by the way, I monitor system memory by Abexo’s utility, which defrag memory nicely). I wrote to Thomson about the problem, and X2 already didn’t have the same problem when beta test started.
What I did when I was using X1 is actually close the database and reopen. Then the memory leak/fragmentation was recovered. I had to do this almost every 10 minutes or so. I know it’s a pain and annoying, and I’m not sure it works with Mac version. I’m just telling what I experienced, and hope that helps.
Also, can you check if closing the library releases the memory?
In X1/Win version, there seems to be a problem handling cache.
Closing open library and reopen may initialize cache.
I’m not sure how you are checking the use of memory in Mac OS X, but if you have a tool to monitor CPU, take notes on numbers when open/close library, search your library, or format document.
This issue eventually goes to Tech support, I guess.
As far as we’re aware, there shouldn’t be any memory leaks with X2.0.1 on the Mac. There were a few instances in X2.0.0 where there’s a potential for a memory leak on some CWYW dialog boxes, but this cleans up instantly when the dialog is closed, and these were fixed in X2.0.1. Do you have the same sort of problem using the sample Paleo library on a new document (in other words, are you able to isolate the problem to a specific Word document or library that you’re using)?