How to figure out memory leak in node process

Question

My nodejs application is leaking memory, so I was trying to use heapdump to compare the memory changes, unfortunately, memory does not change in headdump, but my nodejs process is leaking memory.So I was thinking native-modules could be one culprit, then I was using mtrace to figure it out. But I could not understand Module "/lib64/libstdc++.so.6" is increasing the size.

Does anyone could help give me some suggestions of tools or ways to figure out memory leak that does not happens in heap itself.

Many appreciate.

Here's great article about it that helped me https://www.nearform.com/blog/self-detect-memory-leak-node/ — LazyCat01, Jun 02 '18 at 19:33

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '18 at 14:04

I would advice to start your node.js application with a restricted amount of heap memory (--max_old_space_size=100 for example) and wait for an out of memory to happen.

If it happens, install node-oom-heapdump and start the process again. When it goes out of memory now, a heapdump is automatically generated, showing you the culprit. It it doesn't happen, there is no memory leak.

The reason your heapdump is not showing a rise is probably because of the garbage collector; before a heapdump is made, the garbage collector kicks in. So i'm not sure you actually have a leak; if a garbage collect fixes the heap usage, there is no leaking.

How to figure out memory leak in node process

1 Answers1