Persistent Memory Leak Issue Causing Severe Performance Impact

Hello Blizzard Team and Community,

I am writing to bring attention to a critical memory leak issue in World of Warcraft that has been affecting my gameplay for over two years. Despite numerous bug reports and forum posts, the problem remains unresolved, and I hope this detailed account will help prioritize its resolution.

Issue Description:

The memory leak issue causes my pagefile.sys file to grow excessively, reaching up to 30GB, which severely impacts my computer’s performance. This problem is particularly evident when engaging in bulk crafting activities.

Steps Taken:

  1. Bug Reports: I have submitted multiple bug reports through the in-game system over the past two years.
  2. Forum Posts: I have posted about this issue on the technical support forums several times.
  3. Technical Support: I have contacted Blizzard Customer Support multiple times. Each time, I received the same generic response to submit a bug report and post on the forums.

Impact:

  1. Hardware Upgrades: On the advice of IT specialists, I upgraded my SSD and RAM at significant personal expense.
    • The first IT specialist recommended upgrading to a larger SSD.
    • The second specialist advised adding more RAM.
    • The third specialist thoroughly examined my PC to identify the root cause, ultimately concluding that the issue lies within the game itself.
  2. Performance Degradation: The excessive size of the pagefile.sys file drastically slows down my computer, making it difficult to use for other tasks while playing WoW.

Frustration with Support Responses:

Despite following all the recommended steps, the issue persists, and I continually receive generic responses from Blizzard support. These responses suggest:

  • Submitting bug reports.
  • Posting on the forums.
  • Checking the known issues list.

Request for Resolution:

Given the severity and duration of this issue, I urge the development team to:

  1. Prioritize this Issue: Acknowledge the memory leak problem and treat it as a high-priority bug.
  2. Provide Clear Communication: Offer a clear action plan or timeline for addressing this issue.
  3. Improve Support Pathways: Establish a more effective process for escalating high-impact bugs directly to the development team.

I hope this post will help bring more attention to this critical issue and lead to a timely resolution. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best regards,
Mesmart

1 Like

Are you playing with the base UI? Or using addons to manage all these crafts?

I haven’t experienced any issues with my pagefile size, and definitely haven’t seen it hit 30GB… ever. Sounds like something else is chewing through memory besides the base game.

2 Likes

I understand your point. To clarify, I have experienced this issue both with and without addons. Even when using the base UI, the memory leak still occurs. The problem becomes particularly evident during bulk crafting sessions, where the game’s memory usage gradually increases, leading to the pagefile.sys file growing excessively.

Here’s a detailed description of what happens:

  1. Initial State: When I start the game, the memory usage is normal.
  2. Crafting Sessions: As I begin bulk crafting, the memory usage starts to increase steadily.
  3. Extended Play: Over an extended period, this increase becomes substantial, and the pagefile.sys file grows accordingly, sometimes reaching up to 30GB.
  4. Performance Impact: This growth causes significant performance degradation on my computer, affecting both in-game performance and overall system responsiveness.

I have tried various troubleshooting steps, including:

  • Disabling all addons.
  • Running the game in a clean state with no other applications running.
  • Monitoring memory usage through the Task Manager + TitanPanel addon.

Despite these efforts, the issue persists. It seems to be a problem with how the game handles memory during extended bulk crafting sessions. I encourage others to replicate this by engaging in prolonged crafting activities and monitoring their system’s memory usage.

I hope this additional information helps in understanding and potentially addressing the issue. Any insights or suggestions from the community are greatly appreciated.

Is there a hard drive in your system with a pagefile on that drive?

Just a note…
The game use to make you restart after each change in a macro, that has changed.

I have seen my share of extended crafting sessions while binging a Netflix series, so roughly 6hrs+ at a time. I have never encountered the pagefile growing like that, so that’s why I think something else is occurring to cause this.

Please add a DxDiag here (can use Pastebin and link it).

1 Like

The pagefile.sys file is located on an SSD

There are also several posts about this on the WoW Economy reddit

Page File: 25172MB used, 2295MB available

Is this from running WoW or is this before you even open the game?

Drive: C:
Free Space: 13.8 GB
Total Space: 237.8 GB
File System: NTFS

This SSD is relatively small and doesn’t have enough space to function properly, and that’s before worrying about the WoW issue. You need to keep 15–20% free space on any SSD for it to perform as intended (38GB minimum in this case).

N zev ud losti: APPCRASH
Reakce: Nen k dispozici.
ID souboru CAB: 0

Podpis probl mu:
P1: dwm.exe

This is the desktop window manager, a core function of Windows OS. When these crashes are appearing (there are several in your report), they point to an overall system issue, so you may need to run a check on your Windows install. They could also be the result of the strained space on the SSD.

Edit:

Unfortunately, many people may be in the same position of pushing their available system resources to the limit before taking crafting into account. This is not a common problem that other players mention.

2 Likes

It’s from running WoW. When I reboot the PC, the size is reduced a lot more, and I’ve also now reduced the size of this file manually in the system settings.

Trouble is, I basically only have the system and WoW installed on this PC. I don’t play any other games. Do you think reinstalling the system would help?

I store my other files in the cloud or on a USB drive.

/EDIT: Trying “Using System File Checker in Windows” ATM

I think you want someone on the Microsoft forum to evaluate that reinstall idea. They may also be able to look into more system data regarding the pagefile.

If the RAM resources are exhausted, the computer will start using more of the pagefile. But why that’s happening is beyond me because I cannot recreate this issue at all.

1 Like

That’s okay, but thank you very much anyway. I was at a standstill, and at least you sent me in a direction.

//edit:
1st part: The operation completed successfully.
2nd part:
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

//edit2:
I just find it weird that it only happens when crafting and then I have to /reload every hour, otherwise I can’t work with the PC normally. I can go into raids with max graphics set and not have a single lag, but I do the crafting with the lowest graphics set in garrison and this happens.

//edit3: The Microsoft forum sent me back here because they are aware that there is a problem on Blizzard’s side and that I am far from the only one this is affecting.

//edit4: I completely reinstalled the whole operating system, which partially solved the problem, because now when the memory leak happens, so I monitor and timely /reload the game. Free disk space is now 82gb.

1 Like

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