[AccessD] Tracking down memory leak

McGillivray, Don [IT] Donald.A.McGillivray at sprint.com
Thu Jan 22 12:38:58 CST 2009


Hi, All

I'm looking for guidance on identifying the source of a memory leak in an application.  I've already gone through my code to ensure that each "Set ObjVariable =  . . . " statement is accompanied by a "Set ObjVariable = Nothing" statement.  All my procedures use error handling, and are forced to exit through a substructure that contains the proc's "Set ObjVariable = Nothing" statements, ensuring that the object variables are set to nothing even when an error occurs.

As the app runs, both memory usage and the handle count slowly creep up over time - the handle count faster than the memory usage.

I did a simple experiment by monitoring handle usage while opening and closing a single table in a database several times.  I noticed that at first the handle usage was variable, but that after several repetitions it more or less stabilized.  Something like this:

Rep             State           Handles
=================================
0               Initial 195
1               Open            203
1               Closed  199
2               Open            203
2               Closed  200
3               Open            202
3               Closed  200
4               Open            201
4               Closed  200
5               Open            210
5               Closed  204
6               Open            207
6               Closed  204
7               Open            206
7               Closed  201
8               Open            204
8               Closed  201
9               Open            204
9               Closed  201

For grins, I left the db open and idle overnight.  When I checked this morning, its memory usage had gone from 20.7 MB to 3.7 MB.  Upon opening the table, the usage went to 7.8 MB and stayed around there after several open/close repetitions.

So, now I'm more confused than when I started.  How exactly does one detect memory leak, and once detected, how to find its source?

Anybody out there with nothing better to do than to educate my weak brain?

Don

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