MagicStack / MagicStack/asyncpg

Asyncpg does not seem to clear memory allocated to Pool object after db.disconnect() (possible memory leak)

Open
#929 1 comment 5 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Python
Stars
8.1k
Forks
468
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

* **asyncpg version**: 0.25.0 (tried with 0.23.0 and 0.24.0)
* **PostgreSQL version**: 11.16
* **Do you use a PostgreSQL SaaS? If so, which? Can you reproduce
the issue with a local PostgreSQL install?**: No, using the postgres:11.16 docker image directrly
* **Python version**: 3.10.5 (+ latest 3.9 and 3.8)
* **Platform**: Ubuntu 64 and docker
* **Do you use pgbouncer?**: No
* **Did you install asyncpg with pip?**: Yes
* **If you built asyncpg locally, which version of Cython did you use?**: N/A
* **Can the issue be reproduced under both asyncio and
[uvloop](https://github.com/magicstack/uvloop)?**: I only tried asyncio

We observed PODs running out of memory.
They are reading from a queue constantly and calling this function

```python
async def process_request(message, db : ):
await db.connect()
# do_something(message, db)
await db.disconnect()
```

I am confident this is related to asyncpg as here are some of the objects that are created in memory with every iteration of connect/disconnect.

```
asyncpg.pgproto.pgproto.ReadBuffer | 1000 | 132.81 KB
collections.OrderedDict | 1000 | 125.00 KB
asyncpg.pool.PoolConnectionHolder | 1000 | 117.19 KB
asyncio.events.TimerHandle | 1001 | 109.48 KB
```

I have tried:
- waiting for the TimerHandle to expire (60s)
- calling engine.dispose() manually
- calling the garbage collector manually

Sometime in the past we encountered a problem that made 10000s of connections in a few seconds (crashing the DB) that was fixed by abandoning this connect/disconnect pattern, so maybe these two are related.

The db is initialised as such
```python
databases.Database(db_uri)
```

This problem does not exists in the sqlite driver.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start by reproducing the repeated db.connect() and db.disconnect() pattern described with asyncpg 0.25.0, PostgreSQL 11.16, Python 3.10.5, and the postgres:11.16 Docker image. Inspect whether asyncpg.pgproto.pgproto.ReadBuffer, OrderedDict, PoolConnectionHolder, and asyncio.events.TimerHandle objects remain after disconnect and garbage collection. Compare the behavior with the sqlite driver and determine whether the retained allocations represent a leak.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
postgresql, python
Domain
backend, databases
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.