LiveCode 5.5.0 Linux Memory leak... Again!

[mwieder]

mwieder, it would help the judgement if you could tell us what graphic card and driver in your system.

Well, as I mentioned, I'm running a Thinkpad t410 with an Acer external 24" monitor, so I've got the standard built-in graphics card, which is an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M. The external monitor is configured with a 1920x1080 resolution.

[ghettocottage]

LC 4 .6.4 is running fine on my wife's laptop. No memory leaks. Xorg memory stays steady at 1.6%

The laptop has ATI with latest ati drivers, and is also running 12.04 latest updates.

I think I might just switch my Desktop video-card (nvidia) with an ATI card I had. The Nvidia card has slightly better perfomance, but there is one other minor bug that has to do with Nvidia and Compiz that has been annoying me for some time now.

I will report back if I have better luck with my ATI card on my desktop

[FourthWorld]

I've had good experiences with the proprietary NVidia driver on Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier.

Given the wide variety of configs and symptoms among those who've tested here, is it entirely unthinkable that this may be yet another leak in Xorg, or some other component?

[X]

LC 4 .6.4 is running fine...

The problem is in LC 5.5* - not 4.* My LC 4.* works fine (apart from historically persistent performance issues which is another matter).

[X]

...I've got the standard built-in graphics card, which is an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 3100M...

If you have not installed proprietary NVidia driver and using system default open-source driver (nouveau), then you would not have this problem.
On all my test systems with NVidia grapchics LC 5.5 works fine untill I install NVidia driver, only then the problem kicks in.

[FourthWorld]

On all my test systems with NVidia grapchics LC 5.5 works fine untill I install NVidia driver, only then the problem kicks in.

Could the problem lie with the NVidia driver?

Trying to find additional info on this, I searched Google and came up with 237,000 results for this query:
http://www.google.com/search?q=nvidia+l ... +leak+2012

In all fairness to NVidia, such a large set of results there may not be relevant to this issue, but it'll take some more research to determine whether that's the case.

It may be LC, but since most drivers are working well and we have no reason yet to believe that LC has any forking code specific to the NVidia driver, this may be the sort of thing the original inventor of the LiveCode engine (then called MetaCard) described when he wrote in the old Read Me: "MetaCard is very good at exposing bugs in video drivers."

[mwieder]

On all my test systems with NVidia grapchics LC 5.5 works fine untill I install NVidia driver, only then the problem kicks in.

Ah. OK. That finally sank in.

And LC 4.x works fine for you with that NVidia graphics driver, but 5.5 does not.
Given that memory leaks are the result of allocating memory and not freeing it after it's no longer needed, it's a little hard to pin this down on LC if the standard drivers work. I suppose it's possible that after memory allocation an internal error prevents the execution of the free() call.

You might try saying "set gREVDevelopment to true" in the messagebox and see if you can throw any errors that way.

[X]

I've had good experiences with the proprietary NVidia driver on Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier.

Given the wide variety of configs and symptoms among those who've tested here, is it entirely unthinkable that this may be yet another leak in Xorg, or some other component?

Obviously this is not NVidia's or X Server's fault. Everything else, including RunRev 2, 3, LC 4 works fine.
But something is causing LC 5.5 + Xorg to leak bad in some configurations, we just don't (can't) know what, neither we can do anything about it other than make some noise in hope RunRev team would hear it and take a look at it. I'd be happy to donate a Linux box if they don't have one.

[X]

Could the problem lie with the NVidia driver?

... and with ATi, and with Matrox, and... ?

"MetaCard is very good at exposing bugs in video drivers."

Oh, that is nice quote. But it is Linux we're talking about - a big sandbox full of kids where all have to play nice with each other - and not "leak" into other's kids sand

[X]

...it's a little hard to pin this down on LC if the standard drivers work...

Then how to explain open-source ATi driver that causes no problems in Ubuntu 10.04, but does in Ubuntu 11+ ??

...I suppose it's possible that after memory allocation an internal error prevents the execution of the free() call...

Sounds very much like it. I know Linux is quite a moving target, so I feel the pain of RunRev dev team accounting on every single scenario and variations, but it makes it even harder to troubleshoot if the bug is not persistent. At least this bug can be reproduced relatively easy with right ("wrong") hardware.

You might try saying "set gREVDevelopment to true" in the messagebox and see if you can throw any errors that way.

Could you elaborate on this?
Is this a global property or local to some stack/object?
Because all I got in response is this:

Script compile error:
Error description: set: no property specified

[FourthWorld]

But something is causing LC 5.5 + Xorg to leak bad in some configurations, we just don't (can't) know what, neither we can do anything about it other than make some noise in hope RunRev team would hear it and take a look at it. I'd be happy to donate a Linux box if they don't have one.

They do have some Linux machines there, but perhaps not one with your particular config. Certainly difficult to pin down the root cause on this end; a Google search for Xorg leaks shows 121,000 results:
http://www.google.com/search?q=xorg+memory+leak+2012

Complex stuff, these interactions.

Rather than continue this here in this user-to-user forum, you may want to extend your invitation to them at support@runrev.com

[mwieder]

You might try saying "set gREVDevelopment to true" in the messagebox and see if you can throw any errors that way.

My bad - trying to type faster than my brain can keep up with...

Code: Select all

global gREVDevelopment; put true into gREVDevelopment

Its a rev system global that normally you don't want to enable or even think about (it can cause endless loops and other such badness), but it's useful in tracking down IDE or engine-level problems sometimes.

And I second Richard's suggestion to file a report to support@runrev.com, since they don't read this web forum.

[X]

I'd be happy to donate a Linux box if they don't have one.

They do have some Linux machines there, but perhaps not one with your particular config.

That was my a bit of sarcasm to this sad story, as one may get an impression they don't have any. Out of 7 stock hardware set-ups (Dell, HP machines), only 3 (with intel graphics) did not show this bug. They can't be serious if they don't test on most common hardware configurations, with NVidia cards and NVidia drivers at least.

Certainly difficult to pin down the root cause on this end; a Google search for Xorg leaks shows 121,000 results:
http://www.google.com/search?q=xorg+memory+leak+2012.

It would be real pleasure if LiveCode on Linux was as bad as Xorg.

Rather than continue this here in this user-to-user forum, you may want to extend your invitation to them at support@runrev.com

Already did, a week ago, no response (apart from ticket autoresponse), so that is why I came here.

I love LiveCode, but my company given up on it and making transition to Qt.

[FourthWorld]

I love LiveCode, but my company given up on it and making transition to Qt.

Thanks for the clarification. It's helpful to know this a non-issue for you.

I sincerely wish you the best success with Qt or any toolkit you use.

If you haven't seen this yet, the Ubuntu team finally put together a good site for third-party devs, which includes some good resources for getting started with Quickly:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/

[X]

It's helpful to know this a non-issue for you.

Sometimes I feel like that "last samurai", fighting for and standing by RR/LC Empire which unfortunately is losing ground on the Linux landscape

...If you haven't seen this yet, the Ubuntu team finally put together a good site for third-party devs, which includes some good resources for getting started with Quickly:
http://developer.ubuntu.com/

Thanks Richard for the tip.
Even though we have C++ devs in our team, Qt Quick did caught our attention, and the fact that Ubuntu Unity 2D Desktop was created in Qt Quick - is wonderful example of its capabilities.

I really hope this issue will be fixed in 5.5.1 release, though not holding my breath. In the past it took ages to fix similar bug in RR v. 2.9 through to 3.5.
We still have many CGI site backends developed in RR 3.5 on Linux, that work great. So I guess soon I'll be left alone maintaining them... enjoying last days of RR 3.5 usable life-cycle. But will keep my eye on it anyway.