How do I troubleshoot a memory leak in µTorrent?

I am trying to download torrents with µTorrent on Windows Vista (I tried multiple versions, from 2.0 to 3.0) but it keeps leaking and reaches up to 500 MB on memory before being terminated.

Does anybody have this issue? Could it be because I'm downloading many files at the same time? How can I solve this problem?

EDIT: I've also noticed that it tends to get stuck while checking torrents (it has to check them after crashing). Might that be the problem?

Gabriele Cirulli

Posted 2011-08-10T22:00:57.597

Reputation: 825

1are you sure that its not the read and write buffers using the ram. Under heavy usage utorrent will use a good bit of ram for buffers. – Lamar B – 2011-08-10T22:07:11.100

Answers

I've also noticed that it tends to get stuck while checking torrents

Oh, now it all makes sense.

It seems that one of your torrents got corrupt and that could cause a memory leak...

I'm afraid I have to say so, but you should get back-up and get rid of your current torrents and try 1-by-1.

Tamara Wijsman

Posted 2011-08-10T22:00:57.597

Reputation: 54 163

It started all of a sudden, I didn't install anything new or controversial lately. – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-10T22:16:21.557

@Gabriele: Updated, I believe one of your torrents is broke. – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-08-10T22:21:53.513

Ah okay, I didn't know that could happen. I'll give that a try. – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-10T22:23:54.713

I deleted all of my incomplete torrents and data, then restarted 2 of them. The memory still keeps going up. – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-10T22:31:46.733

@Gabriele: Restarted as in redownloaded the .torrent? What if you download a random .torrent? – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-08-10T22:42:37.223

I haven't tried downloading any new torrent, I'm only redownloading the ones I had before after deleting them. I can tell you though, that the program is still lagging (takes a good 10 seconds to respond) and leaking memory (memory usage keeps going up constantly) – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-11T06:25:50.233

Is there a way to completely reset µTorrent? Re-installing won't change the settings. – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-11T19:44:38.577

@Gabriele: You would be amazed by what information %AppData%\uTorrent keeps. – Tamara Wijsman – 2011-08-11T20:00:48.907

I have not seen this behaviour on version 2 and never used version 3.

From what I have seen, Utorrent has always been very stable and a ultra low footprint - I recommend trying to reset any settings if you have tried to tweak them.

Alternatively, I would recommend using Utorrent 1.8.2 build number 14458. If you do not need any of the new features (which you don't if all you want to do is download Torrents), then this is by far the best build out there.

Link for download

William Hilsum

Posted 2011-08-10T22:00:57.597

Reputation: 111 572

Trying that build now. I'll keep you updated. Thanks. – Gabriele Cirulli – 2011-08-10T22:16:49.327