No, it is not a virus or any other software issue. I know how to maintain a system, please don't insult me.
I have already formatted the system and the issue persists even with a clean install.
Unfortunately your failure to acknowledge that this bug actually does exist does nothing positive for your image.
It appears that we will indeed be looking for alternate software.
Memory leak
Moderator: Staff
19 posts
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Semper Vaporo - Posts: 331
- Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:51 am
Re: Memory leak
No insults have been offered... just friendly suggestions based on other's experiences and no knowledge of your system components (hardware or software) or your level of experience.
I remember only a few other complaints in this forum about memory leaks in VDV and those issues were addressed, but your system seems to be unique... well... maybe it is common, but you are unique in being the only person to take the time to bring the issue to the fore here.... maybe the others lack the understanding that it is something fixable.
I have used VDV on 3 different brands/models of PC and not had a problem like you describe. Thus I am confused about it. I am not an employee of VDV, I am just a very happy user. Thus I do not have access to the source code and so cannot offer help in that realm. All I can do is ask questions based on my experience to try to feret out what might be the underlying problem.
Anti-malware software gets it fingers into all sorts of places in an operating system and quite rightfully gets the blame for lots of problems with other software, and thus is the first thing people jump on when some odd things happens.
I have also, more than just once or twice, run into problems where a program installs a replacement library (.DLL, etc.) file that does some process differently and that breaks a totally unrelated program. This is often the reason why people will also jump on the "make sure your system is up-to-date" bandwagon... But I have found that sometimes it is the NEWER library file that is causing the problem!
Thus I am back to asking the questions like I asked before...
What computer brand/model is this?
What hardware is installed? (Video card, Mass storage, I/O cards, etc.?)
What O.S.?
What other programs as installed? (Not necessarily running when the problem is manifest, but just installed as a matter of course when creating the system!)
What cameras are you using? How many? Are there special interfaces (other than USB or Network?)
At the risk of losing VDV business, have you tried other software to run the cameras? Is there still a problem? Did they come with a recording program?
And to repeat what Ryan asked, did you submit a bug report through VDV? This will send some log files to the techs that MAY shed some light on the problem.
One more thing that I have experience with is that Windows USB drivers for cameras assume you will never have more than one, and thus do not enumerate multiple instances. i.e.: plug in two identical (or nearly identical!) cameras and they both get just one name, thus programs, like VDV, cannot tell one from the other and things get screwy in hurry (and create quite a panic in this here old programmer/user!). The computer will randomly swap which camera is being displayed in which window (sometimes only one view in multiple windows) and then there will be either a BSOD or a spontaneous reboot (closest thing to spitting the cables out that are teathering it down and taking a flying leap off the edge of the desk!). That is not VDV's fault. But I have never heard of anyone else having that problem!
I remember only a few other complaints in this forum about memory leaks in VDV and those issues were addressed, but your system seems to be unique... well... maybe it is common, but you are unique in being the only person to take the time to bring the issue to the fore here.... maybe the others lack the understanding that it is something fixable.
I have used VDV on 3 different brands/models of PC and not had a problem like you describe. Thus I am confused about it. I am not an employee of VDV, I am just a very happy user. Thus I do not have access to the source code and so cannot offer help in that realm. All I can do is ask questions based on my experience to try to feret out what might be the underlying problem.
Anti-malware software gets it fingers into all sorts of places in an operating system and quite rightfully gets the blame for lots of problems with other software, and thus is the first thing people jump on when some odd things happens.
I have also, more than just once or twice, run into problems where a program installs a replacement library (.DLL, etc.) file that does some process differently and that breaks a totally unrelated program. This is often the reason why people will also jump on the "make sure your system is up-to-date" bandwagon... But I have found that sometimes it is the NEWER library file that is causing the problem!
Thus I am back to asking the questions like I asked before...
What computer brand/model is this?
What hardware is installed? (Video card, Mass storage, I/O cards, etc.?)
What O.S.?
What other programs as installed? (Not necessarily running when the problem is manifest, but just installed as a matter of course when creating the system!)
What cameras are you using? How many? Are there special interfaces (other than USB or Network?)
At the risk of losing VDV business, have you tried other software to run the cameras? Is there still a problem? Did they come with a recording program?
And to repeat what Ryan asked, did you submit a bug report through VDV? This will send some log files to the techs that MAY shed some light on the problem.
One more thing that I have experience with is that Windows USB drivers for cameras assume you will never have more than one, and thus do not enumerate multiple instances. i.e.: plug in two identical (or nearly identical!) cameras and they both get just one name, thus programs, like VDV, cannot tell one from the other and things get screwy in hurry (and create quite a panic in this here old programmer/user!). The computer will randomly swap which camera is being displayed in which window (sometimes only one view in multiple windows) and then there will be either a BSOD or a spontaneous reboot (closest thing to spitting the cables out that are teathering it down and taking a flying leap off the edge of the desk!). That is not VDV's fault. But I have never heard of anyone else having that problem!
Semper Vaporo,
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DrBunsen - Posts: 38
- Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:57 am
- Location: Fate, TX
Re: Memory leak
Lincoln,
Like Semper, I'm another happy user who hasn't experienced what you're experiencing. Also, I read Joe's reply three times and I cannot see anything insulting in there. He could indeed be right about infection (there isn't an antivirus scanner available that can catch everything, and even scanning with 2 or 3 scanners is no guarantee). But he is wrong about the dust and such since that wouldn't cause memory usage to grow (though what he suggested about anti-dust procedures is a good practice). At the very least he was trying to help, and didn't call you names or otherwise disparage you. This next thing I'm going to say might be construed by you to be insulting, but I mean it in the best possible way: try not to be so sensitive, especially with volunteers who are trying to help.
In any case...
It may be that you've thrown in the towel already and given up on VDV, but if you're open to more troubleshooting then you're already halfway to isolating the symptoms since what you're experiencing is very reproducible. I suggest the following:
If you only have one PC, image it (e.g. with Clonezilla, FOG, Ghost, whatever) so that you can get back to how it is now, if desired. If you have a spare PC that you can play with then you're golden.
Install Windows fresh 'n' clean on the PC. Don't install antivirus or any other programs. Disable the firewall.
Install VDV. Do what you normally did that caused the leak to show up, i.e. let it run overnight.
If the memory leak shows up then come in here and raise holy hell (well, actually, I'd prefer that you just post the results - it's just nicer).
If it behaves properly then add your antivirus and other security software (e.g. if you use a 3rd party firewall). Those seem to be the most likely things to trip up VDV. If it works overnight with that, then add half of any other software that was originally on the PC, and then the other half the next day. It's a process of elimination, though in this case it's more like a process of addition.
If you're able to get back to having all the software installed and VDV is working properly, then the issue was with Windows itself not acting well. It just eventually breaks and needs to be reinstalled. I've had Windows XP/7 installations last for years and years without issue, but others that went bad after just a few months, and with no clues as to why it became flakey. And I've had Windows mess up such that everything was fine except for a single program. It happens.
In any case, let us know what the results are.
Like Semper, I'm another happy user who hasn't experienced what you're experiencing. Also, I read Joe's reply three times and I cannot see anything insulting in there. He could indeed be right about infection (there isn't an antivirus scanner available that can catch everything, and even scanning with 2 or 3 scanners is no guarantee). But he is wrong about the dust and such since that wouldn't cause memory usage to grow (though what he suggested about anti-dust procedures is a good practice). At the very least he was trying to help, and didn't call you names or otherwise disparage you. This next thing I'm going to say might be construed by you to be insulting, but I mean it in the best possible way: try not to be so sensitive, especially with volunteers who are trying to help.
In any case...
It may be that you've thrown in the towel already and given up on VDV, but if you're open to more troubleshooting then you're already halfway to isolating the symptoms since what you're experiencing is very reproducible. I suggest the following:
If you only have one PC, image it (e.g. with Clonezilla, FOG, Ghost, whatever) so that you can get back to how it is now, if desired. If you have a spare PC that you can play with then you're golden.
Install Windows fresh 'n' clean on the PC. Don't install antivirus or any other programs. Disable the firewall.
Install VDV. Do what you normally did that caused the leak to show up, i.e. let it run overnight.
If the memory leak shows up then come in here and raise holy hell (well, actually, I'd prefer that you just post the results - it's just nicer).
If it behaves properly then add your antivirus and other security software (e.g. if you use a 3rd party firewall). Those seem to be the most likely things to trip up VDV. If it works overnight with that, then add half of any other software that was originally on the PC, and then the other half the next day. It's a process of elimination, though in this case it's more like a process of addition.
If you're able to get back to having all the software installed and VDV is working properly, then the issue was with Windows itself not acting well. It just eventually breaks and needs to be reinstalled. I've had Windows XP/7 installations last for years and years without issue, but others that went bad after just a few months, and with no clues as to why it became flakey. And I've had Windows mess up such that everything was fine except for a single program. It happens.
In any case, let us know what the results are.
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Lincoln - Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:14 am
Re: Memory leak
As in my post above, "I have already formatted the system and the issue persists even with a clean install." Even without any antivirus or any other software at all installed.
Attached a screenshot, I'm not making this stuff up. As you can see, it will leak away until it has completely consumed the memory even without antivirus or any other software at all installed on a clean install.
Once the disconnection occurs, I have attempted to close Vitamin and try another application to access the camera however it becomes unavailable to all other applications as well "Graph cannot preview", as does the other camera on the device, despite not even being the same interface (in-built webcam).
Attached a screenshot, I'm not making this stuff up. As you can see, it will leak away until it has completely consumed the memory even without antivirus or any other software at all installed on a clean install.
Once the disconnection occurs, I have attempted to close Vitamin and try another application to access the camera however it becomes unavailable to all other applications as well "Graph cannot preview", as does the other camera on the device, despite not even being the same interface (in-built webcam).
- Vitaminvideo.png (55.43 KiB) Viewed 3967 times
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Lincoln - Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:14 am
Re: Memory leak
... and this has just happened again, after almost a fine week, I thought it may have been fixed. We have just lost over four hours of recordings. Not happy at all.
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Semper Vaporo - Posts: 331
- Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:51 am
Re: Memory leak
CONSTERNATIONS!
Here is the same view on my system, running 5 cameras. As you can see my system has been up and running for 24 days 10 hours +.
So what is different?
My PC has more physical memory than yours (6GB vs 4GB), but that should not be the problem. Besides, I am only using 36% of it with 5 cameras so I "should" only need 2GB! so your 4GB should be more than enough.
My Cache is much bigger (4GB vs 64MB) but I would not expect that to be a problem as I am not really using it for anything. I have heard in days of yore that Winders does "need" a cache defined, but I would expect the system minimum to be enough and I cannot fathom what "more" would do.
My system is showing 16K handles in use but yours shows 46K and that seems quite excessive for a bare bones system running. I even have an extra program running in the background that shows the date/time on screen in big numbers (and can have alarms set, so it is busy every second processing to see if an alarm message should be displayed). I am not running any anti-malware since this PC is not on the internet.
I have half as many "Threads" (672 vs 1237) and half the "Processes" (54 vs 99). What are the extra "Processes" in your system? I have
9 "Vitamin D Agent.exe *32"
1 "Vitamin D Video.exe *32"
12 "svchost.exe"
and 32 other processes (most of which I have no idea what they do!)
so a total count of 54, which is what the display above shows.
Your Kernel Memory is way over the top, too. The relative distribution is reversed from mine, too. Most of mine is out in the "Page" file (also known as the "Swap" file). This implies to me that your operating system is hung up trying to perform some action for a user program that it cannot get done. Like maybe VDV is asking to write to the disk or to the network and it is not occuring so the OS is stacking the requests until memory is full (the "leak").
I wonder how many "svchost" processes you have running? Or if you have some other process that shows multiple instances in the process list (be sure you enable "Show processes for all users" if/when you look).
Thimkin' whilst I am typing, I wonder what size your swap file is set to be. I wonder if the OS is tied up trying to write something to it and the writes are stacked up too deep to ever process.
I also wonder what the "Indexing" options are set to. Maybe the system is trying to index all the VDV files and can't keep up for some reason? Might help to shut off indexing altogether. (and, obviously, might not!)
Wish I knew more about the whole thing... that would make the "guessing" a lot simpler! Sorry I cannot just pinpoint the problem right away.
Here is the same view on my system, running 5 cameras. As you can see my system has been up and running for 24 days 10 hours +.
- VitaminVideo.png (25.71 KiB) Viewed 4044 times
So what is different?
My PC has more physical memory than yours (6GB vs 4GB), but that should not be the problem. Besides, I am only using 36% of it with 5 cameras so I "should" only need 2GB! so your 4GB should be more than enough.
My Cache is much bigger (4GB vs 64MB) but I would not expect that to be a problem as I am not really using it for anything. I have heard in days of yore that Winders does "need" a cache defined, but I would expect the system minimum to be enough and I cannot fathom what "more" would do.
My system is showing 16K handles in use but yours shows 46K and that seems quite excessive for a bare bones system running. I even have an extra program running in the background that shows the date/time on screen in big numbers (and can have alarms set, so it is busy every second processing to see if an alarm message should be displayed). I am not running any anti-malware since this PC is not on the internet.
I have half as many "Threads" (672 vs 1237) and half the "Processes" (54 vs 99). What are the extra "Processes" in your system? I have
9 "Vitamin D Agent.exe *32"
1 "Vitamin D Video.exe *32"
12 "svchost.exe"
and 32 other processes (most of which I have no idea what they do!)
so a total count of 54, which is what the display above shows.
Your Kernel Memory is way over the top, too. The relative distribution is reversed from mine, too. Most of mine is out in the "Page" file (also known as the "Swap" file). This implies to me that your operating system is hung up trying to perform some action for a user program that it cannot get done. Like maybe VDV is asking to write to the disk or to the network and it is not occuring so the OS is stacking the requests until memory is full (the "leak").
I wonder how many "svchost" processes you have running? Or if you have some other process that shows multiple instances in the process list (be sure you enable "Show processes for all users" if/when you look).
Thimkin' whilst I am typing, I wonder what size your swap file is set to be. I wonder if the OS is tied up trying to write something to it and the writes are stacked up too deep to ever process.
I also wonder what the "Indexing" options are set to. Maybe the system is trying to index all the VDV files and can't keep up for some reason? Might help to shut off indexing altogether. (and, obviously, might not!)
Wish I knew more about the whole thing... that would make the "guessing" a lot simpler! Sorry I cannot just pinpoint the problem right away.
Semper Vaporo,
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ryan - Posts: 1015
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:52 pm
- Location: Palo Alto, California
Re: Memory leak
Hiya Lincoln,
Can you send me either a private message with your email so I can look up your support history, or shoot me a direct email, ryan@vitamindvideo?
Can you send me either a private message with your email so I can look up your support history, or shoot me a direct email, ryan@vitamindvideo?
Learn more about Sighthound Video in our support pages - Reference Guide | All Articles
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Lincoln - Posts: 9
- Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2012 2:14 am
Re: Memory leak
ryan wrote:Hiya Lincoln,
Can you send me either a private message with your email so I can look up your support history, or shoot me a direct email, ryan@vitamindvideo?
I don't have any support history, this is my only issue.
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ryan - Posts: 1015
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:52 pm
- Location: Palo Alto, California
Re: Memory leak
Hi Lincoln,
In a previous post you mentioned that you had submitted a bug report, presuming you included an email address that is what I was hoping to look up.
You posted a screenshot of all your memory in use, could you do this but show the processes tab sorted by memory use? That would provide more information and direction.
Thanks,
- ryan
In a previous post you mentioned that you had submitted a bug report, presuming you included an email address that is what I was hoping to look up.
You posted a screenshot of all your memory in use, could you do this but show the processes tab sorted by memory use? That would provide more information and direction.
Thanks,
- ryan
Learn more about Sighthound Video in our support pages - Reference Guide | All Articles
Are you a developer? Check out our cloud APIs - Demo | Docs
Are you a developer? Check out our cloud APIs - Demo | Docs