[ALOY-847] Could this be a memory leak in Alloy ? (bitmap trapped / Android)

GitHub Issue	n/a
Type	Bug
Priority	Low
Status	Closed
Resolution	Invalid
Resolution Date	2014-01-21T21:35:48.000+0000
Affected Version/s	n/a
Fix Version/s	2014 Sprint 02
Components	Builtins
Labels	Alloy, Android
Reporter	Kevin Purnelle
Assignee	Tim Poulsen
Created	2013-10-10T14:08:45.000+0000
Updated	2014-02-03T18:39:30.000+0000

Description

Hello, I have been chasing memory leaks and trying to improve memory management in my app. (I use a lot of bitmaps in my app.) I recently learnt how to use eclipse MAT and discovered a +-1.5 MB bitmap leaking in my app. In the end I did a really simple test: * Create a new classic titanium project without changing anything. Then analyze heap dump. * The same with a new Alloy project. Difference between both is around 1.5 MB: the bitmap size I've mentioned before. I suspect Alloy is trapping an image when the app launches. The only image I can come with is the one for the splash screen but I don't really know. I'll add some screens. If you want to try to reproduce the test it's easy. Just create two new projects like I did. It was tested with Titanium SDK 3.1.2GA Alloy 1.2.2

Attachments

File	Date	Size
alloy.png	2014-01-21T21:30:28.000+0000	231602
classic no title.png	2014-01-21T21:30:28.000+0000	206206
classic with title.png	2014-01-21T21:30:28.000+0000	191911
Screen Shot 2013-10-10 at 15.07.31.png	2013-10-10T14:08:45.000+0000	79576
Screen Shot 2013-10-10 at 15.24.19.png	2013-10-10T14:08:45.000+0000	66131
Screen Shot 2013-10-10 at 15.30.45.png	2013-10-10T14:08:45.000+0000	77106

Comments

Kevin Purnelle 2013-10-15 Sorry here I can not add a title to screenshot. From left to right: 1) and 2) with Alloy. 3) Classic Ti app (no bitmap found there)
Tony Lukasavage 2013-10-15 Does this "leak" grow over time? It appears that it does not, nor that it affects anything else. Is it just this 1.5 MB image you're worried about?
Kevin Purnelle 2013-10-15 In my particular case I'm having a serious problem with images being trapped somehow in Android. But I can't find where, except they are kept referenced in some LruImageCache object. (will be for Q&A soon :)) But, this crashes the app after a while. (quite soon actually) It is true, I suppose, that these 1,5 MB are constant and this won't crash an app. But while I was investigating what happens with my code, I found this issue. So I don't know if it's ok or not, to have these 1,5MB taken. I just prefer to mention it. My personal thought on the subject: it's 10% of max heap for Android prior to v3 for what I've read (16MB) (24 MB in recent devices), so it's something. And if it's really a "bug" it still reduces Alloy footprint quite a lot if resolved. With my recent issues, I saw it's easy for an app to crash just because of some bad memory management with images. (quite common problem in Android for what I've seen) That said, is it really worth it? is it really a leak? for that I don't know enough actually to know if I should worry or not.
Tim Poulsen 2014-01-21 monitor screens attached
Tim Poulsen 2014-01-21 I tested this and find a negligible difference between Alloy and Classic projects, provided the same app is built for both. * Project 1: Alloy, default 1-page app with centered label and window title * Project 2: Classic, default 1-page app using boilerplate code, no window title * Project 3: Classic, hand-coded to match Alloy app, centered label and window title, same click event listener Project 1 and 2 shows roughly 1.5 MB difference in heap use as reported. However, the apps are different because the default classic app has no window title (ActionBar) Projects 1 and 3 show very similar heap use, as shown in the screens I attached.
Tim Poulsen 2014-01-21 None of these apps showed growth over time. While the Alloy app uses a small amount of extra heap, the difference is small. There is no memory leak caused by Alloy.

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