I'm attempting to download a large number of images using AFNetworking 2.5 and stream them to disk. According to the memory monitor in Xcode, this is causing unbounded memory growth (and eventually memory warnings and force quits) - but profiling the memory usage using the allocations instrument shows the memory usage to be stable.
I'd like to think Xcode is just wrong here, but then why would my app be getting killed by iOS?
Instruments shows this - the peaks are Core Data queries, then the rest is the images downloading - peaks at about 9.5MB, the rest sits at about 8.5MB
I've also tried Heapshot Analysis - which shows a tiny bit of growth but nowhere near the amount reported by Xcode
Xcode's memory monitor shows this - growing by multiple MB per iteration.
Is there any way to get Instruments to show me whatever Xcode is seeing? Or is there a better instrument to use to find out where all this memory is going?
Thanks!
According to the memory monitor in Xcode, this is causing unbounded memory growth (and eventually memory warnings and force quits) - but profiling the memory usage using the allocations instrument shows the memory usage to be stable.
Believe Instruments and the Allocations information - not the memory monitor in Xcode. The memory monitor graph is completely irrelevant. Ignore it.
This is not because the memory monitor in Xcode is useless or wrong. It is because memory management is completely different for a debug build than for a release build (Instruments uses a release build). This is especially true in Swift (you don't say whether you're using Swift).
Observe memory usage only on the device and only in a release build. Otherwise, you'll be completely misled.
Related
Which memory usage reporting method should I use when my application crashes due to low memory? There are few options:
Allocations instrumentation tool
Activity Monitor instrumentation tool
VM Tracker instrumentation tool
Xcode debugging sessions memory reporting
mach_msg_type_number_t.resident_size
The problem is that every method returns different results.
Allocations instrumentation return much smaller values than other methods - I assume Allocation only counts memory explicitly allocated inside application, but not memory used by my my app code and other libraries code? Am I right? On 512MB devices Allocation reports as low as 70MB of allocated memory and application still receives memory warnings and eventually crashes. Can I somehow measure what this difference is exactly?
Xcode debugging sessions memory reporting and mach_msg_type_number_t.resident_size varies vastly. They are sometimes 50MB away from each other, both ways. Why is that?
We are working on HTML5 application - it consists of single WebView and some native parts.
But there is a huge memory leak(memory warnings and then crash) and we don't know if that WebView or native part...
So is there any way to track memory consumption by UIWebView or track object allocations to find who is leaking - WebView or native parts ?
Build your application in Xcode with the Profiler tool (command - I). In this, you are able to use a number of different tools to track memory allocations, leaks, zombies, etc..
Additionally, when profiling system resource utilization, I recommend you do all of this testing on a real device to ensure accuracy.
I'm in the process of understanding how to put instruments to better use. I just finished a leak management exercise, and instruments is reporting very few leaks. I'll figure those out later. In the mean time, my app is crashing, and it appears that its related to memory pressure.
So I looked at this in Instruments. I have Allocations and Memory Monitor in use. Allocations shows a pretty steady 3 to 4 MB Live bytes while I just let my app initialize and come to equilibrium. Overall bytes, however, jumps to over 50 MB. I didn't think much of this until I looked at the Memory Monitor and I see that memory usage goes up and down, causing memory warnings. (It seems strange to me that this doesn't show up on the allocations graph at the same time.)
The app should be at an equilibrium point, but apparently it's not. My question is how can I use instruments to help me understand why memory usages is rising and falling?
Instruments as a tool for debugging is simply excellent. From what I can understand, you have been trying to use the allocations tool, so I'll go over that. Allocations details the number of objects your application allocates during it's execution, along with their in-memory references, locations, even the calling code that allocates said objects. When instruments starts running the allocations tool, your application begins reporting all allocations as blue dots, which pile up higher and higher as your application executes (naturally, as you should be allocating more and more objects). Overall Bytes displays the amount of memory EVERY allocation your app has made added together. I want to stress this for your case: it does not mean your app is currently using 50 mb of memory!, it just means that your app has used 50 mb total. Your app is obviously limited to the amount of memory the device has, and 3-4 mb is not a lot when you consider that the first gen. iPhone had about 128mb, but for more complicated applications, the OS will usually kill off other applications before it kills yours.
As for the other allocation graph with spikes, rather than a continuous line graph, that is to detail the number of allocations going on at that point in time. Usually, the spikes can be ignored, unless there are a lot of large spikes in one small amount of time.
Anyways, to address your specific memory warning problem, it honestly depends how many memory warnings you are receiving, and at what level the warning are at. And as for your leaks, my only word of advice is: Squash them as soon as possible! When you see a leak (a red bar in the leaks tool), click on the bar and find the objects that are being leaked. When you select a leaked object, then select the right sidebar, it will show you the code that is leaking. When you double click on any part of the right sidebar, it'll even open up the specific line and class the leak originated from!
I want to make sure I'm reading the allocations plug in correctly. I'm testing an iPad app thats receiving memory warnings 1,2 & 3.
I want to know the current used up memory from my app, which I think it has to be the "Live Bytes" column? which marks All Allocations to 2.42 MB which I think its low.
What do the other columns report? #Transitory, Overall Bytes ?
Also if my app uses only 3 MB of memory can it be killed if I get a memory level 3 warning without releasing?
Thank you.
Don't use the Object Allocations instrument for looking at your total memory usage. It does not display the true total memory size of your application, for reasons that I speculate about in my answer here.
Instead, pair Object Allocations with the Memory Monitor instrument, the latter of which will show the true total size of your application. I'm willing to bet that it's way larger than the 2.42 MB you're seeing in Object Allocations (for example, I had an application with 700k of memory usage according to ObjectAlloc, but its actual size was ~25 MB in memory). If you are receiving memory warnings on an iPad, your application is probably chewing up quite a bit of memory.
Object Allocations is handy for telling you what you have resident in memory, but it's not an accurate indicator of the size of those items. It's also a great tool for showing you steady increases in allocated objects by using the heap shot functionality (the "Mark Heap" button on the left-hand side of the instrument).
Your memory usage looks fine. Check to see which app is being sent the memory warnings, it is probably not your app assuming your app is not in the background. The only way you should be getting memory warnings is if the app is in the background and another app needs more memory.
When I was looking at logs I noticed other apps were getting them while my app was running, other apps such as Mail or navigation apps (Navigon) do run in the background and will cause memory pressure. You might get a memory warning but should not be terminated.
For a description of the memory columns see Explanation of Live Bytes & Overall Bytes.
As #Brad points out use the memory monitor tool as well.
I am running an ipad application compiled for release and am seing memory warnings once in a while.
When I run the app on the device and connect Instruments, I see that the app never passes 40MB of real memory, but the warnings are still occurring.
What might be causing this? How can I better track down the reason?
40 MB of real memory is a lot, for an iPad. Even if it was not, the system will deliver the low-memory warning to you from time to time anyway, without your application being the main culprit. Tracking down precise memory usage in your application is sometimes hard, I’d suggest to spend some time with the Object Allocation instrument while working with the app. If you are not getting killed and you are sure that you do not leak the memory, you can also simply ignore the warnings.
40MB is high for the iPad considering it only has 256MB to start with. There could be other applications holding on to memory which will be killed off as more memory is needed. Just make sure you aren't leaking anything. Also use NSAutoReleasePools where applicable to reduce peak memory usage in memory intensive loops.