Memory leaks

[Cool]

Hi @Devs what about memory leaks in vcmp squirrel official plugin when you guys will fix it or its not going to happen

[Xmair]

bump

[NicusorN5]

Hi @Devs what about memory leaks in vcmp squirrel official plugin when you guys will fix it or its not going to happen

Wot memory leaks? Give us examples.

[KAKAN]

Hi @Devs what about memory leaks in vcmp squirrel official plugin when you guys will fix it or its not going to happen

Wot memory leaks? Give us examples.

Code Select Expand

for( ;; ) NewTimer("abc",10000,0);
function abc(){ print("SUCKS!"); }
Your server will crash after some time.

[Thijn]

Hi @Devs what about memory leaks in vcmp squirrel official plugin when you guys will fix it or its not going to happen

Wot memory leaks? Give us examples.

Code Select Expand

for( ;; ) NewTimer("abc",10000,0);
function abc(){ print("SUCKS!"); }
Your server will crash after some time.

And how would you expect them to fix an infinite loop?

[Stormeus]

Hi @Devs what about memory leaks in vcmp squirrel official plugin when you guys will fix it or its not going to happen

Wot memory leaks? Give us examples.

Code Select Expand

for( ;; ) NewTimer("abc",10000,0);
function abc(){ print("SUCKS!"); }
Your server will crash after some time.

Believe it or not, the server actually requires memory to store information about timers. So yes, an infinite loop of timer creation will cause you to run out of memory.

[NicusorN5]

BTW Setting a timer to null, is a memory leak too?

[KAKAN]

And how would you expect them to fix an infinite loop?

ok well, set a limit for it. SLC was talking about it. The timer has a memory leak in it. So, create a few hundred timers and watch it.

[Stormeus]

Yes, because that timer runs every 10 seconds forever. The server still needs to keep track of it, of course it's going to use memory. Try to reproduce it using timers that only fire once.

[KAKAN]

Yes, because that timer runs every 10 seconds forever. The server still needs to keep track of it, of course it's going to use memory. Try to reproduce it using timers that only fire once.

Code Select Expand

function onPlayerJoin(){
NewTimer("abc",1000,1);
}Now, lets think that every 1 min, a player joins. Keep using this timer and after some days the server will automagically crash. That timer runs only once.

[Stormeus]

Yes, because that timer runs every 10 seconds forever. The server still needs to keep track of it, of course it's going to use memory. Try to reproduce it using timers that only fire once.

Code Select Expand

function onPlayerJoin(){
NewTimer("abc",1000,1);
}Now, lets think that every 1 min, a player joins. Keep using this timer and after some days the server will automagically crash. That timer runs only once.

Code Select Expand

function TestFunc1() {
        print("test1");
}

function TestFunc2() {
        print("test2");
}

function End() {
        print("End of test");
}

function MoreTimers() {
        local i;
        for (i = 0; i < 250; i++) {
                NewTimer("TestFunc2", 1000, 1);
        }

        NewTimer("End", 1500, 1);
}

function onScriptLoad() {
        local i;
        for (i = 0; i < 250; i++) {
                NewTimer("TestFunc1", 1000, 1);
        }

        NewTimer("MoreTimers", 1500, 1);

        print("Starting test");
}

There's currently a maximum of 255 timers that can be running at any time on the Squirrel plugin. Here, 250 timers are created that run once, then another timer is created to run another 250 timers before ending. All of the timers get run. No memory gets leaked. If you're leaking timers that run indefinitely, that's another issue entirely.

[EK.IceFlake]

Yes, because that timer runs every 10 seconds forever. The server still needs to keep track of it, of course it's going to use memory. Try to reproduce it using timers that only fire once.

Code Select Expand

function onPlayerJoin(){
NewTimer("abc",1000,1);
}Now, lets think that every 1 min, a player joins. Keep using this timer and after some days the server will automagically crash. That timer runs only once.

Code Select Expand

function TestFunc1() {
        print("test1");
}

function TestFunc2() {
        print("test2");
}

function End() {
        print("End of test");
}

function MoreTimers() {
        local i;
        for (i = 0; i < 250; i++) {
                NewTimer("TestFunc2", 1000, 1);
        }

        NewTimer("End", 1500, 1);
}

function onScriptLoad() {
        local i;
        for (i = 0; i < 250; i++) {
                NewTimer("TestFunc1", 1000, 1);
        }

        NewTimer("MoreTimers", 1500, 1);

        print("Starting test");
}

There's currently a maximum of 255 timers that can be running at any time on the Squirrel plugin. Here, 250 timers are created that run once, then another timer is created to run another 250 timers before ending. All of the timers get run. No memory gets leaked. If you're leaking timers that run indefinitely, that's another issue entirely.

I'm guessing that's because you use raw arrays for storing timers. Why don't you use std::vector?

[Stormeus]

<snip>

There's currently a maximum of 255 timers that can be running at any time on the Squirrel plugin. Here, 250 timers are created that run once, then another timer is created to run another 250 timers before ending. All of the timers get run. No memory gets leaked. If you're leaking timers that run indefinitely, that's another issue entirely.

I'm guessing that's because you use raw arrays for storing timers. Why don't you use std::vector?

Because I only barely knew C++ when the Squirrel plugin was written (fun fact, this was during private betas five years ago) and a lot of the current code is just a mess of patches on top of that. std::list would probably be a better alternative anyway since I don't need random access.

I've been meaning to get around to rewriting the plugin but some other priorities ended up taking precedence.

[.]

Code Select Expand

for( ;; ) NewTimer("abc",10000,0);
function abc(){ print("SUCKS!"); }


That loop will fail after the first 255 iterations because that's the limit hard-coded in the plugin. The memory leaks will come if you begin to create new timers as you destroy old ones. Let this run for 2-3 minutes and watch your server memory usage:

Code Select Expand

function xyz(a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k) NewTimer("xyz",10,0,a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k);
for (local n = 0; n < 200; ++n) NewTimer("xyz",10,0,n+1,n+2,n+3,n+4,n+5,n+6,n+7,n+8,n+9,n%2,n*2);
The parameter count plays an important role as the memory is never released. The more parameters and the shorter the timers the faster the memory goes out.

@Stormeus I've made an attempt a while back to fix the timers and they could easily be made compatible with the official implementation. As shown in the various snippets given towards the end of the topic.

And while I was uploading that image, it got to: