1.0.0-rc36 memory issue

Bug Reports
1

Windows 11
Photos on external USB drive

  1. Update app
    2, Run Aspect
  2. Press Upgrade library
  3. Open any event
  4. Open a photo
  5. Wait some seconds

It repeated every run

image

2

There will be some general memory consumption improvements in the next release, but those should mainly apply to the library loading process and not for activities that happen afterwards like in this case. To better pinpoint what is going on here, a few questions:

  1. Does the library upgrade dialog appear for every run? It should only appear once, so if it appears on every run, that may indicate a separate issue.
  2. Is opening an event/photo necessary to reproduce the memory consumption, or does just waiting also work?
  3. Since this might also be caused by a background process, such as “Analyzing Images”*, there is a chance that this is simply caused by the runtime image cache filling up. The maximum size of the cache can be configured under General → MEMORY USAGE in the settings dialog.

As a base line, with my default library of about 70k photos and a large amount of keywords/collections, I’m getting about 2.5 GB of memory use after loading the library and letting the application sit for a while. A test library with one million images lands at about 3.5 GB.

* Another possibility is when there are multiple libraries registered in the application and other devices in the network are running Aspect. In that case, one of the other libraries may get loaded in the background to enable synchronization with the other devices.

3

Yes, every run.

  • The memory after start up - 1.8 Gb
  • After event open - from 2 Gb to 1.6
  • After image from event open - from 2.4 to 2.1
  • After list of some images (by mouse wheel) - from 7.8 Gb to (some times 2, some times 5 Gb

3.95 Gb

4

The same issue with rc-37. Every run the app prompts for Library Update, the same memory issue. I can share a video of the process if need (directly to you) or can provide AnyDesk access if need.

5

Okay, the upgrade message should definitely only appear once, maybe there is some kind of error occurring in the background that leads to the upgraded library catalog not being saved afterwards. If you have the chance to send me (DM here, or to bugs@bildhuus.com) a log file of the application starting, clicking upgrade and then exiting, I can probably pinpoint that issue. The log file (aspect-log.sdl) can be found by entering %TEMP% in the run dialog that opens by pressing Win+R.

The memory consumption sounds like it could still be in the usual range, I’m seeing similar behavior when scrolling through the images as the image cache fills up. The reported memory consumption there is higher than what would nominally be expected, though (memory usage at startup + maximum RAM cache size + a bit more for other involved caches).

Since we are using a garbage collector for much of the memory that is used within the application, at least some of this overhead is expected due to the way the garbage collector operates. But since we are talking about a considerable overhead here, I’ll do some research to see where exactly the memory is used and what can be done to improve it.

6

I’ve sent by email. Thank you for the reply.

7

Thanks! So it turned out that the upgraded library catalog was just never saved to disk, because there were no recorded changes apart from the upgrade, which itself wasn’t counted as a change as it should have. Until the next release is out, you should be able to make this go away by making any change, for example liking and un-liking an image.

Regarding the memory consumption, do you by any chance have multiple libraries registered and possible have a second device that is running Aspect (Mobile)? I encountered and fixed an issue where other libraries were unnecessarily loaded when another network device was active, leading to increased memory usage. Also, there was another issue that could lead to more memory being used over time.

Overall, I’m seeing very predictable memory use when going through photos now. All three fixes will be in the next release, which will probably come out next Friday.

8

Thank you, yes, I have made changes and the update window no longer appears.

As for memory consumption, it’s not that important. It seems that the garbage collector sometimes fails or is triggered later than we would like.

I don’t have any other libraries or devices. There were two recent libraries that I deleted from the disk a few days ago, and now I’ve cleaned them up.