Memory leaks

[bergalas]

Apparently the server has some rather large memory leaks in about 3 hours idle 5 dynamic zones ate 2+ gigs of ram. Has anyone else noticed such problems?

[gaeorn]

I know there were some memory leaks, but nothing that large. I've been pretty busy in RL lately, but I'm hoping when things settle down I will have time to go through and do a bit of cleanup on the code. Memory leaks were one of my planned targets to fix.

[drakelord]

Here is some logs that might assist you with fixing the memory leaks.

Used valgrind to log world and zone servers on Debian 5 using revision 964.

http://www.netherealm-studios.com/world_log.rtf

http://www.netherealm-studios.com/zone_log.rtf

[drakelord]

Err, I should have said Rev 961. Silly typo, and I can't go back and edit it, :X

[AndMetal]

Here's a fix for a smaller leak based on the logs:

 14 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 5 of 55
    at 0x402209E: operator new[](unsigned) (vg_replace_malloc.c:268)
    by 0x817BC51: Database::GetZoneLongName(char const*, char**, char*, float*, float*, float*, unsigned*, unsigned*) (database.cpp:1112)
    by 0x82C9A81: Client::ZonePC(unsigned, unsigned, float, float, float, float, unsigned char, ZoneMode) (zoning.cpp:473)
    by 0x82CA3BC: Client::ProcessMovePC(unsigned, unsigned, float, float, float, float, unsigned char, ZoneMode) (zoning.cpp:447)
    by 0x82CA5E4: Client::MovePC(unsigned, float, float, float, float, unsigned char, ZoneMode) (zoning.cpp:404)
    by 0x82CA627: Client::GoToDeath() (zoning.cpp:711)
    by 0x8118406: Client::Death(Mob*, int, unsigned short, SkillType) (attack.cpp:1557)
    by 0x81190CC: Mob::CommonDamage(Mob*, int&, unsigned short, SkillType, bool&, signed char, bool) (attack.cpp:3013)
    by 0x8119D23: Client::Damage(Mob*, int, unsigned short, SkillType, bool, signed char, bool) (attack.cpp:1287)
    by 0x8115D11: NPC::Attack(Mob*, int, bool) (attack.cpp:1745)
    by 0x813F481: Mob::AI_Process() (MobAI.cpp:1179)
    by 0x8104F73: NPC::Process() (npc.cpp:623)

Index: T:/svn/trunk/EQEmuServer/zone/zoning.cpp
===================================================================
--- T:/svn/trunk/EQEmuServer/zone/zoning.cpp	(revision 966)
+++ T:/svn/trunk/EQEmuServer/zone/zoning.cpp	(working copy)
@@ -476,6 +476,7 @@
 
 	if(!pZoneName) {
 		Message(13, "Invalid zone number specified");
+		safe_delete_array(pZoneName);
 		return;
 	}
 	iZoneNameLength = strlen(pZoneName);
@@ -655,6 +656,8 @@
 			}
 		}
 	}
+
+	safe_delete_array(pZoneName);
 }
 
 void Client::GoToSafeCoords(uint16 zone_id, uint16 instance_id) {

[prickle]

I haven't noticed any memory leaks with dynamic zones, yet (running rev 974). However, I HAVE noticed that some PoP zones (e.g. poinnovations and a couple of others) like to chew on 200+ MB of RAM when launched statically.

I'm running ~most~ zones on my server statically because I've noticed certain anamolies with running them dynamically that detract from the "MMORPG"/persistent world aspect of the game. A couple of things I've noticed when all zones are dynamic:
-the lack of weather change if you only spend a few minutes in a zone
-the ~same~ thing happening if you pass the same point in a zone in approximately the same time every time you enter the zone (e.g. Lodizal ALWAYS just spawns, and ALWAYS wandering around the gnolls in Iceclad)
-wandering mobs can almost always be found in the same location
-"Spawn cycles" in zones like Frontier Mountains don't work right if the zone is dynamic, and you die a lot....

Right now, I'm working on a balance of dynamic and static zones to maintain server performance, minimize RAM usage, and maintain a "persistent feel" to the world on my personal server...

[ChaosSlayerZ]

you can turn on Persistent Zone state. What this will do for dynamic zones- it will RECORD what/where things were when zone was shutdown and when it reboots - it will put things back exactly how they were last time on

[prickle]

I missed that. I've enabled that so the zones on my server that are still dynamic will be more persistent when I come back to them. Though, I don't think it'll be exactly like a statically loaded zone, but it will will be better than a zone that just relaunched everytime I enter it.

Thanks for the pointer; I thought that was enabled by default. Obviously, I was mistaken

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Important note - the Persistent state will carry on even after entire world server has been shut down and restarted, which leads to an issue that, when persistent state was turned on - ANY alterations to DB would prevent server from booting again until you turned it off - since the recorded data was using the DB as base and once base would be altered it would no longer match the PS recording, causing the crashes.
This was a year ago however, so changes to the code may have already addressed this issue.

[KLS]

Lucky for you I completely disabled persistent state loading a while back.

No one really ever had good experiences with persistent state loading, it was unmaintained and filled with bugs and exploits.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

LOL I always thought it was nice alternative to running crap load of static zones =P