RE: Strange Memory Leak

When I used to test Director for this company once known as 

Macromedia and we reported a bug, we would be belittled by
the  
developers (and rightly so) if we did not mention the
platform that  
we encountered the particular bug on.

This is a prime example of why.

This memory bug was originally found on Windows XP.  But
when the bug  
was reported, no mention of the OS was to be found.  At
least two  
people found that the bug did not happen at all for them,
possibly  
creating a little bit of confusion and wasted time.

If it was reported that the bug was found on XP, then we
would have  
set out with the correct mindset, To verify on XP and check
for  
presence of it on OS X.  An XP machine is right behind me
but I am in  
front of my Mac.

Please report the OS when you find an issue if it is
something like  
this.  It appears that this bug is directly related to an
operating  
system garbage collection issue.  Reporting the OS saves 
time for  
the people who have to read your bug..

On Mar 23, 2007, at 10:51 AM, Colin Holgate wrote:

> At 3:52 PM +0100 3/23/07, Christophe Leske wrote:
>> forget the memory inspector. This window isnīt
accurate anymore  
>> since a long time, according to macr engineering.
>
> I couldn't even find the memory inspector, I used
Activity Monitor  
> for my test.
>
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>
> Please report the OS when you find an issue if it is
something like 
> this.  It appears that this bug is directly related to
an operating 
> system garbage collection issue.  Reporting the OS
saves  time for the 
> people who have to read your bug..
yeahhh... sorry, my bad
I won't do it again

bye

Alexx
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Christophe Leske a écrit :
> Guys,
>
> forget the memory inspector. This window isnīt accurate
anymore since 
> a long time, according to macr engineering.
>
maybe... but after a long while, the app crashes saying
"no more ram is 
available", so the leak was here ;)

bye

Alexx

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At 3:52 PM +0100 3/23/07, Christophe Leske wrote:
>forget the memory inspector. This window isnīt 
>accurate anymore since a long time, according to 
>macr engineering.

I couldn't even find the memory inspector, I used Activity
Monitor for my test.

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Hi,

Try this out in Projector or Shockwave with the freeBytes
property and
the leak is gone. Seems like internal Director thing. Win XP
SP2.

Cheers,
Petro

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dirgames-l-bouncesnuttybar.drama.uga.edu
[mailto:dirgames-l-
> bouncesnuttybar.drama.uga.edu] On Behalf Of Alexx
> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 6:16 PM
> To: Director - Shockwave - and Flash Game Production
> Subject: Re: [dirGames-L] Strange Memory Leak
> 
> 
> >
> > Please report the OS when you find an issue if it
is something like
> > this.  It appears that this bug is directly
related to an operating
> > system garbage collection issue.  Reporting the OS
saves  time for
the
> > people who have to read your bug..
> yeahhh... sorry, my bad
> I won't do it again
> 
> bye
> 
> Alexx
> _______________________________________________
> dirGames-L mailing list  -  dirGames-Lnuttybar.drama.uga.edu
> http://nuttybar.drama.uga.edu/mailman/listinfo/dirgames
-l

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alexx" <earthwormjimfree.fr>

> thanks for the test... and I think I've found how to
prevent the problem
> : calling _System.gc() every frame fix the leak
> it's a bit dirty, but working 

Well it might prevent the problem, i'm unsure if its good
practice to do 
this and of course it doesn't address the actual issue at
all.

As I said in my initial reply, i'm rather bemused as to how
having 
javascript functions that are never called can affect the
garbage collection 
of lingo, even between movies of the same Director Instance.
I think this 
needs further investigation, unless it is expected
behaviour.

I'll take the time to flag it up with Adobe if you like?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Zavatone" <zavpublicmac.com>



> When I used to test Director for this company once
known as
> Macromedia and we reported a bug, we would be belittled
by the
> developers (and rightly so) if we did not mention the
platform that
> we encountered the particular bug on.

Yes but you don't work for them anymore ;)

Besides I don't think Alexx was initially reporting a bug,
just that he'd 
found a memory leak and wanted to check with others on the
list if it was a 
problem with Director or with his code base. It was simply a
heads up.

Afterall dirgames-l is hardly the place to report bugs is
it? I know in the 
past MM devs have been pretty good about moniotring lists,
Tom especially, 
but that no longer appears to be the case, and frankly I
wouldn't expect 
Adobe to take much notice until it was entered correctly
into their bugbase.

To be honest there was a much more important aspect missing
from Alexx 
intial report and that was the user of javascript. Even
though not a single 
function ever needs to be called to cause this problem, as
soon as I saw it 
in the example he posted, it pretty much pointed the way to
the problem. 
Before that i had tested the simple frame script he'd posted
and found no 
problem.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Murray" <jmurrayfuelindustries.com>



> I'm interested in the _System.gc() call ..
>
> What is it? How do we use it? Does it work? Why does
MX2004 say to me
> that .gc() isn't a handler?

I guess its another classic undocumented function and needs
to be called 
from within a javascript function. Its just a call to clean
up garbage 
collection when using javascript, but it should not be
over-used since it 
javascript should be keeping track itself. Its come up
before on some of the 
lists when other memory issues with javascript have come
up.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Petro Bochan" <pbochansoftservecom.com>

> Try this out in Projector or Shockwave with the
freeBytes property and
> the leak is gone. Seems like internal Director thing.
Win XP SP2.


Apart from the fact that in a recent project involved in
loading 40mb or 
more of data, the reported freebytes/freeblocks remains
static in 
authoring/projector and shockwave and tells me that i
actually have more 
memory than my system contains!

I find it far more productive to keep an eye on the memory
usage in the 
windows task manager, although you can't rely on that either
it does give an 
indication as to whether there is a real memory leak or
not.


Noisecrime 2007 


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yo

>> thanks for the test... and I think I've found how
to prevent the problem
>> : calling _System.gc() every frame fix the leak
>> it's a bit dirty, but working 
>
> Well it might prevent the problem, i'm unsure if its
good practice to 
> do this and of course it doesn't address the actual
issue at all.
of course not... but as always, this problem pops up just
before the 
dead line...

> As I said in my initial reply, i'm rather bemused as to
how having 
> javascript functions that are never called can affect
the garbage 
> collection of lingo, even between movies of the same
Director 
> Instance. I think this needs further investigation,
unless it is 
> expected behaviour.
>
me too
> I'll take the time to flag it up with Adobe if you
like? 
yes ! Since I have no contact at Adobe at all ...

bye

Alexx
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