Discovery of a 64GB Memory Leak in VS Code Despite Never Using the Software
By
brucedawson
A baker's-dozen of insight crammed into one ring.
Summary
The author describes discovering a massive memory leak in VS Code that consumed 64GB of memory and had no upper limit, despite never having used the software and the leak being invisible in Task Manager. The discovery was made during lockdown while working remotely, using a custom memory monitoring tool that revealed the leak through system-wide memory consumption patterns rather than individual process monitoring.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledI found a huge memory leak in VS code, totalling around 64 GB when I first saw it, but with no actual limit on how high it could go.
The memory leak didn't show up in Task Manager – there was no process whose memory consumption was increasing.
I had never used VS Code. In fact, I have still never used it.
How did I find an invisible memory leak in a tool that I have never used?
This was during lockdown and my whole team was working from home.
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