vSphere client memory leak

[TXGeoff]

Just upgraded from 4.0 to 4.1 and now if I allow the vSphere client (build 258902) to run overnight it consumes over 1.2Gb of memory and eventually throws an "Out of memory" message on the screen and I have to kill the process to recover. I tried using the "report this problem to VMware" button that appears after the client runs out of memory, but it fails creating the zipped diagnostics file.

THe VIClient has never been the most stable software I've ever used (being polite - who still uses J++ besides VMware???) and I would occasionally see this behavior with the 4.0 client, but it would usually take weeks to appear, not 24 hours.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

Thanks,

Geoff

[Troy_Clavell]

although the VpxClient.exe is usually the top memory consumer on my system, I have never noticed a memory leak. I have a monitoring station that I leave online for weeks at a time, and I have never seen the processes vary.

I too am using vSphere Client 4.1 Build 258902. Maybe you should run perfmon for 24 hours to see if there is anything else that may possibly have something to do with the amount of consumed memory the client is using.

[tmancini]

I have noticed the same condition after the update to 4.1. I now no longer leave the vSphere client running overnight to avoid a non-responsive PC in the morning.

[TXGeoff]

I should mention this is on a Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit machine, and I'm see the exact same memory leak behavior on another Win7 Ent. 64-bit machine. You can actually watch the memory being consumed just by opening task manager and looking at the vpxclient.exe *32 process. When I restarted the client it was consuming about 160K of memory; 30 minutes later it's already at 280K - and climbing (on both machines).

What's interesting is you can see the VIClient window flicker as it updates the values (doesn't really seem to matter what you're looking at) and each time it flickers the memory usage goes up. The only plug-in installed is Update Manager, and that's only installed on one of the machines, so I don't think it's a plug-in issue.

Geoff

[Troy_Clavell]

being that the vSphere Client is a 32bit application, that may be part of the reason you are seeing a memory leak, but I can't say for sure. My clients all run on 32bit OS's.

[TXGeoff]

Interesting. I'm going to install the client on an XP (32-bit) VM and see what happens.

[mgossa]

I'm noticing the same issue. I'm running vSphere client 4.1 (clean install) on Server 2003 Enterprise x64 and am connecting to two vCenter servers in linked mode. On connection, it uses 130MB of memory but then goes up past 500MB if left overnight.

That server is also a vCenter server and it would be nice if it didn't run out of memory overnight :smileywink:

I've got a Win7 32bit machine and I'll leave that vSphere client connected and see what happens to it tomorrow.

[TXGeoff]

After installing on a Win32 XP machine and watching it for only 20 minutes, I can see already that the client behaves much differently with respect to memory usage. No continual increase - in fact, quite the opposite. I actually see the vpcxlient giving back memory to the OS after it's through using it. So far, I haven't been able to get it to use more than about 185K no matter what I do, including viewing performance graphs, checking host hardware, etc. And when the client is idle for a while memory utilization drops back down to under 130K. Total opposite from what I see when it runs in a 64-bit environment.

Guess I need to open a ticket and officially report this behavior.

Geoff

[TXGeoff]

For anyone else experiencing this problem, according to VMware tech support the answer is - known issue. Apparently engineering is currently working on the problem but there is no fix posted yet. The official workaround is '...to not leave the client open for long periods of time for now'.

Geoff

[TXGeoff]

One last update... I think I'm going to take back all the good things I said about running the client on a 32-bit OS. I just checked the version I had installed on a 32-bit XP machine, and memory utilization was up to 430K (from less than 130K) after the client had been open and idle for about four hours. I'd be inclined to believe the leak isn't only on 64-bit OS installs, although support didn't confirm this one way or the other.

Geoff

[WonderingWhy]

Hi There,

Did this issue ever get solved in any meaningful way?

I am using client 4.1.0 build 345043, installed on Windows Vista (32bit)

My vCenter server is 4.1.0 build 258902

After a few days of stable behaviour, my client rapidly starts to use memory, and I killed the process when it was using 837mb and rapidly rising (1mb every few seconds).

NK