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Fixed on Beta: (long standing) Memory leak with visiting neighbors

Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
World: zz1, de8
Browser and Version: 1.22.21775 (18.03.2014 8:05), Andi47 (73349), zz1, en_US, WIN 12,0,0,77, Windows 7, Firefox/27.0, 1920x948, Legacy (bug is present since several versions of the game)
Overview of the bug: when you do certain things in the game (visiting neighbors, motivating, fighting, probably also researching and opening GvG and PvE maps) unused memory will not be purged. (at least one memory leak)
Screenshots: n/a
How often this occurs: always
Urgency: it's ABOUT TIME to investigate and fix this ancient bug, please!
Preventative Actions: repeatedly refresh the browser during motivating/polishing rounds, and other actions (like GvG) you are doing in the game
Summary:
There is a memory leak (since ages) with motivating / polishing, which causes this - and it gets worse when you (and your neighborhood) advance in eras:
To reproduce
1.) refresh - and open the windows task manager
2.) motivate and polish (or attack with or without plundering) as many neighbors as you can, and motivate /polish as many guild-mates and friends as you can (Edit: Also try other types of actions, like visiting GvG and GvE maps, fighting consecutive battles, viewing the research tree, etc. and monitor the memory use)
2a.) Monitor the memory use of the flash player while doing step 2 (best take a look after each motivation / polish or attack)
Result: Depending on your current era you are (the more advanced, the worse), the memory use will successively increase up to several gigabytes(!) - or until the game crashes.

I have performed a quicksearch of the forums using a select few keywords relating to my bug to see if it has already been reported: There is one bug report here where it seemed to be resolved when turning off animations in visited cities (but in fact it does not resolve). There is also one report in the German forum dating back to August(!) 2013 (and with status "Prüfung" (equal to [Investigating] here) since then) (and a thread in the "Allgemeines" forum where players complain about poor performance since ages). I thought I re-report it before it becomes forgotten and ignored... Any news about this???

Have you tried fixing it by using these methods?: refreshing the browser eases the symptoms of the bug, but it does not fix it.
 
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NormaJeane

NormaJeane

Viceroy
Thank you for reporting this. I cannot reproduce - since I am on an iMac - and in my activity monitor I see mainly an increased CPU-useage. However I am well aware of these kinds of slow-downs/Flash-crashes - and will continue to investigate this. Anyone who can contribute to what causes this prob, please place your comments!!! It obviously needs to be resolved...
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
Maybe I should add for reproducing the memory leak and performance problems:

1.) test it on a windows-PC which is affordable for average players. On a Supercomputer with terabytes of RAM you would not see any problems. ;)
 
NormaJeane

NormaJeane

Viceroy
Thank you Andi47 :)
The problem is known & under investigation by the developers.
Additional info is always appreciated!
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I concur with original poster, this long standing issue needs some looking into. It occurs to me whenever I polivate for en1,2,5,7 and zz1.
In addition to this, does a web-based game really need 500+ MBytes of ram to just load the game interface? Even without polivating neighbours the game frequently goes above using 500MBs RAM. I'm sure some garbage collection and some tweaking would improve this. The memory usage was low while I was Iron age and below but after EMA/HMA it goes up a lot.

Please don't ignore the issue, I am on a PC with 4GB RAM but even here the system struggles (of course it's because I have other - important - processes that are memory heavy, office suite, browsers, netbeans..) not easy to make time to close my heavy apps in order to take a look in the game.

ty
 
NormaJeane

NormaJeane

Viceroy
Rest assured that it is being looked into chain.reader...

My comment as a player:
I do agree - my poor little iMac crashes on Flash too: every 15/20/25 visits for mopo :eek:

For now, my work-around is typically female :cool: ... after doing 10-15 visits, I refresh or login again ...
(both with pretty much the same result I guess, which is: no Flash Crash)

As far as I have googled and asked around on this subject it seems to me that this is not a singular prob of FoE vs Flash, but more so a collision between Adobe Flash and several Operating Sytems ( Windows, OSX, Linux etc.).

Anyone with any additional feedback: please feel free to do so!
 
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NormaJeane

NormaJeane

Viceroy
My reaction as a player:
What I was trying to communicate is that this problem is not exclusive for FoE.
Maybe we should also be barking upon another BIG FLASH-tree to get it solved... perhaps a tree in front of an adobe hut...

Try any flash-based game with some substance and you will encounter the same kind of probs :rolleyes:
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
If it is an upstream issue, they should make it clear by stating that it is. IF they do so then we'll go bug the flash devs... ;) but until then... it's an open and unresolved issue.
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
I have the impression that the memory leak is becoming worse again - not only with visiting (motivatin/polishing) guildmates and neighbours, but also with fighting (doing several fights e.g. in GvG, ...), visiting the campaign map, the research tree, or simply being in the game for an hour or two....
 

DeletedUser

Guest
yup it is.
it was somewhat better for a while, but then it's been going back to being crapish recently :/

perhaps it takes a little bit more effort and lazyness gets in the way of better code?
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
and perhaps they "optimized" away all those lines to purge unused memory? (errrmmm... DOES the source code even contain a single line to purge unused memory? Or does the game just allocate some memory, allocate some more, and... and.... and .... and allocate some more.... and then crash when it reaches 3 or 4 GIGABYTES??)

how to reproduce:
1.) open the windows task manager
2.) log into the game
3.) Play (and TAKE YOUR TIME TO TEST, but DO NOT POSTPONE THE TESTING TO THE YEAR 3000), motivate/polish guild members and neighbours, look at the tech tree, fight at the campaign map, do 30 and more battles in GvG (if you manage to do THAT MUCH in a row, etc.....)
4.) constantly watch the memory use of the flash player plugin while doing 2.) and 3.)

Browser and version:
beta server: 1.31.25214 (29.07.2014 10:30), Andi47 (73349), zz1, en_US, WIN 14,0,0,145, Windows 7, Firefox/31.0, 1920x939, DirectX9Ex (352 MB VRAM)
live server: 1.31.25214 (29.07.2014 10:30), Andi47 (868769), de8, de_DE, WIN 14,0,0,145, Windows 7, Firefox/31.0, 1920x939, DirectX9Ex (352 MB VRAM)
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
*bump*

Seems with the new update 1.37 it is possible to pin down one of the memory leaks to city animations: until version 1.36 (previous one) memory usage the flash player plugin skyrocketed upward by hundreds of megabytes (without exaggeration!) when polivating the guild and / or neighborhood, browser and version see above, for game version insert any version between 0.85 (or so...?) and 1.36.
Now with 1.37 I just gave it a try and turned off city animations before doing my polivation round. With this settings, change of memory use of the flash player plugin while polivating and visiting city after city was quite minimal, indicating that the (or let's say one of the biggest) memory leaks can be tracked down to city animations.
I do some more tests soon, do see if other known memory leaks (GVG!!!, switching to research window or campaign map and back, ...) resolve when turning the city animations off.
I will also do more tests (especially when I can do my next polivation round) with city animations on to see if anything has changed since 1.36.
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
just a note, "since version 0.85 or so" is just a guess, the memory leaks are *very* long standing bugs; at least for polivating I observe them since I started playing, which was with an early "1.something" version last year in early summer.

As for GvG memory leaks: Our guild did not have a fight in GvG since 1.37 was released, so I was not able to test yet, but until 1.36, when doing several consecutive fights (or start fight, click surrender several times, this will also trigger the memory leak), at some point the sound does no longer work (just silence, no matter what I or the opponent is doing in battle, or what I am clicking in city), and a few battles later the game will crash due to excessive memory use of the flash player (aka memory leak; 2 gigabytes RAM or more).
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
Hmmm... I just did an other test, polivated ~35 guildmates and friends with city animation OFF, memory use increased from ~350 MB to 507 MB (I got a blueprint in between and clicked "show inventory" to check if I already have enough blueprints of that building. Hmmm... seems that also switching to a guildmate city and back to the own city triggers a memory leak).

1.37.26759 (09.10.2014 11:22), Andi47 (73349), zz1, en_US, WIN 15,0,0,152, Windows 7, Firefox/32.0, 1920x917, DirectX9 (336 MB VRAM)

I will do a test tomorrow with city animations on.
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
Andi47 said:
Hmmm... I just did an other test, polivated ~35 guildmates and friends with city animation OFF, memory use increased from ~350 MB to 507 MB (I got a blueprint in between and clicked "show inventory" to check if I already have enough blueprints of that building. Hmmm... seems that also switching to a guildmate city and back to the own city triggers a memory leak).

1.37.26759 (09.10.2014 11:22), Andi47 (73349), zz1, en_US, WIN 15,0,0,152, Windows 7, Firefox/32.0, 1920x917, DirectX9 (336 MB VRAM)

I will do a test tomorrow with city animations on.
Click to expand...

I just polivated the same number of guildmates and friends as in my test above with city animations ON:
Before polivating (half a minute after reloading): memory usage: 511 MB
after polivating: memory usage: 680 MB

Hmmm.... there seem to be some more memory leaks in here (not just polivating) - when I just leave the game open (two tabs of my firefox browser) for several hours, I frequently observe the memory usage going up to 2 or even 3 gigabytes. (from 1.1 gigabytes with two tabs just a few seconds after reloading both)
 
Andi47

Andi47

Overlord
Amy Steele said:
This issue should be fixed or vastly improved for most players since changelog 1.39

See the section 'Hardware Acceleration' in the 1.39 Regression Mission

FOE-20557 and FOE-20559
Click to expand...

vastly improed....
with polivating yes, but with things like
* klicking through the eras in GvG to check if none of your sectors is under siege
* clicking to the tech tree
* clicking to the campaingn map
* fighting *whereever*
* trying to do more than 10 consecutive battles in GvG
* leaving the game open for a few hours...
...urmmmm... no.
 
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