com.apple.WebKit.WebContent process is being killed by the kernel’s memorystatus jetsam mechanism when it exceeds the ActiveHard 2048 MB limit, even though the iPhone has 12 GB physical RAM and hundreds of thousands of free pages available. This causes the exact same WebProcess → GPUProcess crash that was reported in thread 822200, but now the root cause is clearly visible in the kernel log. The crash only occurs on iPhones, never on iPads (even older ones).
Environment
Failing devices: iPhone 17 Pro (12 GB RAM) x 2 — iOS 26.3, 26.4, 26.4.1
Working devices (same page, same iOS): iPad Pro 2018 — iOS 26.1 (stable) iPad Pro 2025 — iOS 26.4 (completely stable)
Reproduces in Safari and in WKWebView (Capacitor/Ionic app)
Actual Logs (kernel + WebKit)
`logApr 15 21:23:33 iPhone kernel[0] <Notice>: memorystatus: com.apple.WebKit.WebContent [1596] exceeded mem limit: ActiveHard 2048 MB (fatal) Apr 15 21:23:33 iPhone kernel[0] <Notice>: memorystatus: killing process 1596 [com.apple.WebKit.WebContent] in high band FOREGROUND (100) - memorystatus_available_pages: 196999
0x1110ec640 - [PID=4689] WebProcessProxy::didClose: (web process 0 crash) 0x1110ec640 - [PID=4689] WebProcessProxy::processDidTerminateOrFailedToLaunch: reason=Crash 0x117048018 - [pageProxyID=7, webPageID=8, PID=4689] WebPageProxy::processDidTerminate: (pid 4689), reason=Crash 0x1130e8640 - [PID=0] WebProcessProxy::gpuProcessExited: reason=IdleExit ... (multiple RBSRequestErrorDomain Code=4 "Target process has a higher termination resistance..." errors)`
Expected Behavior With 12 GB RAM and ~197k free pages, the WebContent process should not be killed at only 2 GB. The same heavy animation page runs stably on iPad (which apparently has a higher ActiveHard limit for WebKit). Additional Notes
This is not a leak in the web page itself — the crash happens even when total system memory is plentiful. The 2048 MB ActiveHard limit appears to be applied specifically to iPhone device class, while iPad gets a more generous budget. The issue has existed since at least iOS 26.3 and affects both Safari and embedded WKWebView.
This seems like an overly aggressive jetsam policy for WebKit on iPhone compared to the available hardware. Could the WebContent process’s memory limit be increased for modern iPhones (12 GB+ models)? Increased Memory Limit not worked for com.apple.WebKit.WebContent. I can only add this to my app. Thank you!