Memory leak ? icons and preview disapear, Ghost RAM usage

netuser · 26 Nov 2014

Hi,

Since upgrade to build 9879 i have an other big issue and if anyone can please help with it.

I think it is memory leak, after some hours of use, i start to see weird things. Like icons and preview thumbnail are no more showing on task bar, when i click on start menu, it doesn't seem to show up but when move mouse up i start to see lines of each row showing up.

Same if i right click on task bar it show up a black empty square but when moving mouse in it show up lines. The preview of Firefox thumbnail is jsut a blue enpty square box. Closed app icons still Ghost icons on task bar but there are not there in real as clicking dont do anything.

In Task manager 6 GB of my 8 GB ram is used and I only have Firefox opened with 4 tabs, and it is showing using 500 MB only. I dont see any other program using a lot of memory but still 6GB is used and I don't know how to see what on earth is using all my RAM.

Anyone have any idea what is going on ? it seem like ghost memory Leak. Reboot help till it start over again after some hours. It never happened with previous build.

Thanks

Kari · 27 Nov 2014

There's a known issue in Build 9879, when GDI objects count in Explorer process reaches 10,000 the Explorer starts acting like you described. More about this issue on Microsoft TechNet: https://social.technet.microsoft.com...iew2014General

To see the number of GDI objects, open Task Manager and go to Details tab. Right click anywhere in the column titles row and click Select columns and select GDI objects from the list, click OK:

The GDI objects are now shown:

When this count reaches 10,000 the issue starts but it can luckily be easily and fast fixed. First kill (end) the Explorer process by right clicking it and selecting End task:

Notice that killing the whole Explorer process your Taskbar and all open File Explorer windows will disappear.

Now open the Task Manager's File menu and select Run new task, type Explorer.exe and click OK:

Explorer restarts, the GDI object count is low and you can continue using Windows normally.

Kari

netuser · 27 Nov 2014

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply. I see that only after an hour my explorer GDI is already at 5000

.

I saw on your link that are some .bat file to run the task to kill the explorer at 9000 GDI, did you tested any ? Is it safe to use it ?

Thanks

Kari · 27 Nov 2014

No, I have not tested because this has happened to me not too often; when it happens it's a few seconds job to kill and relaunch Explorer I've been happy with that.

netuser · 29 Nov 2014

Thanks to @Kari for the link where there is a script to automatically kill and restart the process , I tried to post on that site but i am unable dont know why.

So I am asking here if anyone can help me, as I don't know how to run this script, I copy pasted in text file then renamed it .bat. When I run it i see a cmd window flashed and go but I do nothing

Link of the post : https://social.technet.microsoft.com...iew2014General

Here is the script :

Code:

set GDIViewPath=C:\Other Program Files\GDIView\
set GDIDumpPath=c:\batch\
set GDILimit=9000

"%GDIViewPath%GDIView.exe" /scomma "%GDIDumpPath%gdiview.txt"
for /f "tokens=1,2,15 delims=," %%G in (%GDIDumpPath%gdiview.txt) do ( 
if %%I gtr %GDILimit% (
echo %date% %time% The process %%H had %%I GDI Objects, so it is closed for sanity  >>%GDIDumpPath%Leak.Log
taskkill /PID %%G /F
start %%H
)
)

usasma · 30 Nov 2014

Did you install GDIView in the directory named C:\batch ?
I'm not real good at this stuff, but it seems that the author may have changed the GDIView directory to c:\Other Program Files\GDIView\ - so try copying the GDIView files there also.

I suppose that you won't see anything until the GDILimit of 9000 is reached

Also, try this code:

Code:

set GDIViewPath=C:\Other Program Files\GDIView\
set GDIDumpPath=c:\batch\
set GDIProcess=explorer.exe
set GDILimit=10

"%GDIViewPath%GDIView.exe" /scomma "%GDIDumpPath%gdiview.txt"
for /f "tokens=2,15 delims=," %%G in (%GDIDumpPath%gdiview.txt) do @if "%%G"=="%GDIProcess%" set totalGDI=%%H

if %totalGDI% gtr %GDILimit% (
Echo WARTING!! at %date% %time% %GDIProcess% was closed at %totalGDI% and the limit was %GDILimit% >>%GDIDumpPath%Leak.Log
taskkill -im %GDIProcess% -f
start %GDIProcess%
) else (
Echo %date% %time% It is safe at %totalGDI% and the limit is %GDILimit% >>%GDIDumpPath%Leak.Log
)

The author states that it generates a logfile, so you can view that to see what happens (log will be at C:\batch\Leak.Log.

usasma · 30 Nov 2014

If unable to get GDIView into both directories, then try it in each one individually.
Good luck!

topgundcp · 30 Nov 2014

It is not neccesarily that explorer.exe was the cause for memory leak. As we all know, explorer.exe is the main Windows core file and often being spawn/forked by other processes.

I have not had any problem until I tried to download multiple files from the Internet with Internet Download Manager and using GDIView - View GDI handles/resources list and detect GDI leaks to monitor the GDI Object and noticed the # of GDI objects increased to 10000 within 30 seconds. Disable Internet Download Manager Add-on and the problem goes away.

FYI, Firefox also caused this problem until they fixed it with the latest version 33.1.1

To quickly restart explorer, I added the entry to the right click menu as shown below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\background\shell\Restart Explorer]
"Icon"="%SystemRoot%\\System32\\imageres.dll,73"
"Position"="Bottom"
@="Restart Explorer"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\background\shell\Restart Explorer\Command]
@="TSKILL EXPLORER"

PS. I have tried with both Chrome and Firefox. With Internet Download Manager Add-on enabled, I got the same problem. So in my case the culprit is the Internet Download Manager Add-on for both Chrome and Firefox.

netuser · 30 Nov 2014

Thanks to all of you for replies :)

I didn't knew i had to install a GDView app in order to it to work. I downloaded and put GDIView.exe in batch folder and it worked. :)

topgundcp: Your idea of Right click is very nice but problem is when this GDI issue happens i cant right click on Desktop

Also now i know Memory leak is another issue not related really to GDI.

Can anyone help me please to find out what is using my RAM ? When I start my computer I only have 1 GB of my 8 GB used. I only use Firefox and other small app i don't use all the time, like qbtorrent, note++ paint.net. Now after some time my RAM usage go up to 6.5 GB and when i check in Taskmanager I dont see any app using that much RAM. Firefox is using only 700 MB and other app are using just tiny bit of Ram.

The total doesn't add up, what is using or leaking my RAM ? How to see that ? I have at some point was forced to close app as RAM usage peaked so high system was not responding :S

Here are the screenshots,

Thanks :)

topgundcp · 30 Nov 2014

topgundcp: Your idea of Right click is very nice but problem is when this GDI issue happens i cant right click on Desktop

@netuser
Yes, it's true but when I hover my mouse over the items pinned to the task bar, explorer.exe was respawned and allows me to right click again.