goauthentik / goauthentik/authentik

Massive resource/memory leak in worker in 2026.8.0

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#25,470 6 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
bug
Dominant language
Python
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Description

### Describe the bug

I have upgraded to 2026.8.0 about 3 days ago, and just today noticed a massive memory leak in the worker, rendering authentik to be barely usable due to memory constraints.

Dedicated VM to Authentik:
Image

Docker stats clearly pointed towards the worker:
```text
# docker stats
CONTAINER ID NAME CPU % MEM USAGE / LIMIT MEM % NET I/O BLOCK I/O PIDS
...
7c605995bbce ak-outpost-op-rac01 0.16% 10.38MiB / 3.824GiB 0.26% 7.94MB / 13.5MB 53.2GB / 2.24GB 10
fa5f5dc1c6a8 ak-outpost-op-proxy01 0.00% 5.746MiB / 3.824GiB 0.15% 397kB / 274kB 6.55GB / 77.2MB 6
17bf7a618d76 authentik-worker-1 0.12% 3.098GiB / 3.824GiB 81.02% 2.6GB / 929MB 256GB / 105GB 19
f0fed836692f authentik-server-1 15.47% 95.86MiB / 3.824GiB 2.45% 2.17GB / 2.38GB 120GB / 12.6GB 28
```

Unfotrunately the logs were rather quiet, so I don't know what could be causing this. Nor am I sure how to check what exactly was consuming up as much memory.

Happy to continue observing and perform specific troubleshooting steps once it re-occurred. Raised this now for reasons of awareness and help with further troubleshooting.

Possibly related to #25416 or #25469 due to repeatedly failing sync?

### How to reproduce

Unclear yet. Still observing.

### Expected behavior

No memory leak.

### Screenshots

_No response_

### Additional context

_No response_

### Deployment Method

Docker

### Version

2026.8.0

### Relevant log output

```shell

```

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No source file, test, or reproducible sequence is identified. Start by observing the Docker worker while the leak recurs, collect diagnostics, and compare the suspected failing syncs in #25416 and #25469; done means identifying the trigger and demonstrating that worker memory remains stable afterward.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, python
Domain
backend, performance
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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