Memory use ramps up after saving > crash Topic is solved

[JonR]

Hi Dan,

I have been having crashes and narrowed it down to the save process: The lists are saved fine but TDL crashes sometimes immediately afterwards - no warning or message just 'bam':gone!

I observed memory usage for TDL shooting up when I saved, not all the time but often. So I guess if that happens enough times some limit gets reached? Attached screencap shows an example crash after save tracked in 'process hacker'.

Update - After further investigation and reducing the lists down to 4 (number) and clearing most of the .ini file, my version still launches at around 60-70MB 'private RAM' and then randomly increases in RAM usage with each save - the first save is usually the worst going from say 80MB to 120 or so. Now I am wise to crashing so i restart TDL often to keep it stable.

I am on an old Win7 64bit Toshiba R630 with 4GB ram of which around 40-70pc in use typically i.e. shouldn't be a barrier?

I confess my primary list is quite old and large and complex so might be taking a lot of resource to manage - esp as I constantly expand/contract the tree. It has around 5k items and around 10-20 custom fields active at any one time, plus links reminders due dates icons comments tracked time ... all the toys!!

Thanks,

Jon

[abstr]

Welcome Jon.

Can you enable logging ('Tools > Enable Logging' or add '-g' to the commandline) and then get the software to crash and then attach the log file please?

[JonR]

Logging duly enabled - but it's typical that since I slimmed down my open collection I haven't been able to replicate the crash so far - memory is sticking at 130MB or so after initially jumping up from 70-80MB. Will report back as soon as something happens...

Jon

[JonR]

OK it happened after a few hours of moderate effort - attached is log file* and some extra monitoring stuff.

*(attachment in forum only supports image filetypes? so I emailed the log file).

RAM usage keeps creeping up with each save, starting at <80MB at intial loading and ending at 200+. Total available RAM is good (currently 2.3GB used of 3.7GB avail after crash ie TDL not running).

I have some other sw running - Excel - NP++ - stickies - xplorer2. Apart from stickies don't know of any clash particularly.

The other evidence I can think of:
I use the 'auto export on save' feature (set to write CSV files). I guess the log file shows that?
I also use auto version backup. (This succeeded in the save at the moment of crash)
I also use time logging to csv. (although haven't so far today) - I see the log switch also saves backups of the time log csv in a subfolder: I see the backup of the log csv succeeded to be saved at the last save (at the crash). Does that make sense??
I also see that while the TDL is saved ok, the csv export failed on the last save. (timestamp in explorer is older)

Aside - Today I am also not using the built in timer - I had wondered if the timer was causing crashes and so stopped using it recently - but that seems to be a red herring now...

Thanks!

Jon

[JonR]

update - so second time today crash happens much sooner (first save in fact I think) and seems to be related to a specific list ("2019_WORK(actual)!") - which happens to have a large-ish time log csv file with it. It didn't get saved (but also wasn't used today).

Its only 66kb but do these time logs need purging or resetting?

The list itself is 2.5MB and again saved fine. The export csv is 1.2MB. (That export csv hasn't been saved properly this time either).

Thanks,

Jon

[abstr]

Thx for the extra info Jon.

I use the 'auto export on save' feature (set to write CSV files). I guess the log file shows that?

Unfortunately not but it did hint that the crash occurs immediately after saving and so the most likely culprit is an 'auto-save'.

Some further exploratory questions:

1. Do you use 'Rich Text' comments much?
2. Do you have MS Office installed?

[JonR]

Dan - Now you are on to something I will have a look at that time log csv for clues.

Your Qs -

No I never* use rich text comments. *Well, once I did but as a rule no. Default is plain text on all lists.

Yes I do have MS office, my own desktop copy (2010 version), and also obliged to work remote using various MS products via browser and also various installed 'things' in usual MS fashion.

For instance Office 365 and 'Teams' and various other skype-alike tools bc none of them work with any of the others. So now I have 3: Teams, Lync plus Skype. I had to install IE10 just to use one of them. But I don't think you wanted to know that...

Regards,
Jon

[JonR]

That auto export csv - There are 4 missing lines/items in the last good save of just over 2k total, compared to the source tdl.

Those missing could be related to RTF comments, I will find out.

(Generally, was I barking up the wrong tree about memory growth?)

Thanks

Jon

[JonR]

So 4 missing items and 4 rtf comments. BUT in fact the plain text items are in the csv ok. So baffled now.

Could the total number of items in TDL status line actually count items with RTF comments twice? (I seem to remember reading that it saves a text only version and a separate RTF encoded version of an item?)

If its worth finding the missing items then I'd need to think how to do that. Is there an easy way of spotting gaps in task ID or position fields?

Thanks

Jon

[abstr]

Yes I do have MS office

In that case try deselecting the 'Rich Text' comments preference "Use Microsoft Word for content format conversions" and let me know how it goes.