Providing information about Paratext 9 memory usage

Question

We have received some reports about Paratext 9 becoming slow because it is using a lot of memory, but so far have not been able to get a way to reproduce the problem.

We are considering a upgrade to the Firefox based component that is used in most of our displays, but we don’t have firm data yet to know if that will help.

If you do encounter this problem, please do the following:

1. Hold down the Shift key and click the main Paratext icon.
2. Select: Support and Development > View memory status
3. Note the amount of memory in use in the top pane
4. Click the GC button in the “Free memory” section of the lower pane
5. Click the “Measure and save”
6. Create a problem report
7. Send the file created in step 5 in a reply to the confirmation email.

Hopefully we will be able to get some data that will help us determine the cause of the memory problem.

John+Wickberg
Paratext Support

Answer 1

John+Wickberg:

If Paratext is using more than 1G of memory, it’s probably a sign of a problem.

Paratext on Linux regularly goes over 1 GB of memory… I’m currently at 3.4 GB (virtual) and 1.4 GB (resident). This kind of usage makes me restart PT once or twice a day, which has its own issues: the “Main” process has to be terminated manually (with, for example, System Monitor) as it stays resident even after “closing” PT.
Is this related to using a Firefox component? Because Firefox also uses memory and doesn’t release it…
I’d be happy to submit a report, but I think your instructions apply to Windows and not Linux.

Comments

The Linux version of Paratext is already a 64-bit application, so the memory limits I was concerned about on Windows don’t apply to it.

With Paratext 9.1 (to be released soon), the Windows application will also be 64-bit and this 1G limit will no longer apply.

For the 32-bit versions of Paratext, performance normally degrades after it reaches 1G since more time is spent trying to free memory. This shouldn’t happen on 64-bit versions since all available memory on the computer can be used.

John+Wickberg

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OK. Thanks, John+Wickberg. Must just be the sluggish nature of Paratext on Linux–click and wait for operation X to happen… Like opening the three-bar menu in the project window, selecting a Note tag from the dropdown, even typing at times (type a word and wait for it to appear on the screen to see if it’s spelled correctly). And the only windows open are my project, a text collection (with five resources), and the source language window. Sadly, Fieldworks on Linux is worse, but much the same–a lot of waiting for things to happen. In fact, the Linux version is so slow, I run the Windows version of Fieldworks in a virtual machine…
I’ll ask what seems to me to be a related question: is it normal for a program to use 25% CPU (i.e., 100% of one core) for much of the time it’s running? According to System Monitor, Paratext does… I don’t have the newest machine (Lenovo x250, i5-5300U CPU @ 2.30GHz), but with 16 GB of RAM it does OK with most other programs. Of all the programs I run, Paratext strains the machine most–even more than Fieldworks in a VM.

Answer 2

Is there a certain threshold of memory use that’s considered excessive? (My PT in general hasn’t become slow, but certain functions have, e.g. closing/resolving a note. Is it worthwhile submitting a report? PT uses around 700 MB.)

Paulus+Kieviet

Comments

If Paratext is using more than 1G of memory, it’s probably a sign of a problem. It’s hard to give a firm figure since it will depend a lot upon how many windows you have open and which tools are being used.

There are two types of memory being used by Paratext. One is normal data in .Net - the total .Net memory in use is the figure shown in the top pane of the memory status window. The Firefox component also allocates memory that is not controlled by .Net and this is the memory usage that is shown in the generated report. So we are looking for a case where the .Net memory is significantly lower than the total memory in use.

One difference between Paratext 8 and Paratext 9 is that we upgraded the Firefox control so that it is based on a newer version of the Firefox browser (we went from version 45 to version 60). Because of changes in the Firefox architecture, this upgrade required a lot of work and there may be a memory issue in the new implementation - but it’s one that isn’t easy to create.

John+Wickberg