Memory leak after Windows 10 Creators Update?

[Clorix]

Brief description of the issue:  After updating today from the Windows 10 Anniversary Update to the Creators Update, Spotify seems to be leaking memory when I start Spotify, to the point that it causes my computer to run completely out of memory within a minute or two.  I have narrowed it down to Spotify by means of starting one program at a time and observing memory usage as reported by Task Manager.  This has never been an issue before updating to the Creators Update.  I can get Spotify to start without a memory leak after a few attempts.

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Update Windows 10 to Creators Update (version 1703, OS Build 15063.138)
2. Start Spotify.
3. As Spotify loads (which takes quite a while ever since Spotify updated a while back, but that's another topic), check Task Manager's Performance>Memory window to see that memory usage is rising quickly.
4. To stop my computer from freezing before running out of memory, I must force close Spotify using Task Manager>Details>Spotify.exe>End Process Tree, at which point memory usage returns to normal values.

What steps you’ve tried already:  Uninstalling Spotify, then restarting my computer, and finally reinstalling Spotify.

Your device and operating system:  

Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703, OS Build 15063.138)

Core i7-2600k @ 4.2 GHz, 16 GBs DDR3 memory, 500 GB OS HDD (Spotify installed here), 2 TB RAID 0 data drive (most music stored here), 400 GB network-attached storage drive (a bit more music stored here), Nvidia GTX 770 2 GB graphics card (unsure if relevant).

Type of Spotify account you have:  Free

The app version of Spotify you’re using:  1.0.52.725.g943b26a8

Any screenshots, if they can help to explain your issue:Completely out of memory. This was taken as my computer was frozen. As you can see, 100% memory usage in only 12 minutes of computer uptime. Spotify used up about 11 GBs of memory in less than two of those minutes.Here's a before and after opening Spotify memory usage curve. Graph width is 60 seconds.Another attempt to open Spotify. Graph width is 60 seconds.Weirdly, neither Resource Monitor or the Details tab in Task Manager reports any extreme memory usage (for any process, not just Spotify!)

[stripe_]

It is not only Spotify that seems to cause this. Even without running Spotify after an hour or so of running other programs Task Manager shows there is plenty of memory available but it also shows that all the memory is committed. Resource monitor shows that the majority of memory is "Standby" and there is almost zero "Free Memory". Shortly after this a popup will report the system is low on memory and will attempt to recover some. It closes down and restarts numerous programs but nothing works properly after this process.  The machine will then crash a few minutes later. My pagefile is system managed and I have plenty of disk space so the problem is not there. I never had any issues before the Creator update.

[Clorix]

I also noticed that it all goes into the non-paged pool according to Task Manager.  As soon as I force close Spotify, it gets released.  The memory usage doesn't start increasing until 30-40 seconds after opening Spotify as the loading animation is shown.  This isn't the only issue I'm having with the Creators Update so I may downgrade back to the Anniversary Update until this newer one can mature a bit more.

[sw4rfega]

I can confirm issues with Creator's Update.

Since installing CU, Spotify will try to load and take a very long time before eventually causing a BSOD with the following:

APC_INDEX_MISMATCH

I use Spotify a lot and would be lost without it so I hope a fix is coming soon.

[ACOTTAWA]

I was also getting the BSOD and found an article that suggested running CMD in administrator mode and typing in 'netsh winsock reset'. You then need to restart. No BSODs since. As well, my Spotify also takes forever to load. I start it, minimize it and then check back 10 minutes later. This started occuring a month or so ago after a Spotify update

[Markus144]

I have this too. I installed the creators update after updating spotify. Spotify was taking 2-4 minutes to load even after removing followers. I have tried uninsatlling and reinstalling not but no joy. Eventually I updated to the creators edition and reinstalled. It worked three times ok then overnight the orginal fault of not starting up and the teatimer animation rotation and then eventually the laptop either reports out of memory error or BSOD with memory dump. 

Any help would be gratefully recieved. 

[sw4rfega]

Sadly, today's update didn't fix this problem.

[sw4rfega]

My internet went down this morning and strangely, Spotify opened "properly" but when the connection returned it continued as before. So its some online aspect.

[Marcwa19197]

I can confirm this behavor too.

Running Windows 10 Creators Update, opening Spotify ends in an BSOD with error of Nonpages-Memory.

[Sebasty]

I have been reading about this and it seems that Superfetch may be the culprit.

It's a part of system with the following task:
"It analyses your usage patterns and the software you use, and attempts to predict which software libraries will be used and when. It then pre-loads those into memory to speed up program load time."
That would explain why there's so much memory on 'standby', but not free. @stripe_

Disabling Superfetch may work. Doing so will most likely make programs load slower.

There's a lot of conversation about that here: https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/3fcttp/memory_leak_in_windows_10/

[sw4rfega]

Superfetch should be disabled if your on an SSD.

Nice find!

[sw4rfega]

Disabling it didnt fix the problem for me.

[jtoselli]

Same thing happens to me after updating to Creators. Same symptoms and same ending 😞

[Sebasty]

How peculiar...
Inspecting further I've found a few reasons that could cause your memory to leak.

1. Malware. Scan your computer with Malwarebytes, Adwcleaner and your own antivirus of choice. Windows Defender should run once too. SuperAntiSpyware is an excellent tool as well.
Uninstall Adwcleaner and SuperAntiSpyware after using them. Malwarebytes.. You may leave it on or you may uninstall. Your choice.

2. Runtime Broker. It's a system process that, when it's using lots of memory, could cause memory leak.

Here's how to disable it:

Step 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc simultaneously to launch Task Manager

Step 2. Select the Processes tab

Step 3. Select Runtime Broker in the list and right-click on it

Step 4. Select End task

Step 5. Reboot your computer

3. Outdated drivers could cause that. Network drivers were pointed out especially.

4. Get rid of unnecessary startup programs.
on Win10 you can ctrl-shift-esc your way to Task Manager and find the Startup tab there.
Disable those that you recognise, but never use. Google about those that you don't recognise.

5. Defragmenting hard drives can improve memory management.

6. Disable Windows Tricks And Tips.
Now here I am not sure how horribly helpful it would be, but it can free up some memory, so why not.
Here's how:

1. Go to the Start Menu > the Settings app

2. Go to System > Notifications & actions

3. Find Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows, and uncheck it

If none of the above helps, here is a link to tomshardware, there is a video that's worth checking out (it's nibbling in Registry) and a few other things that might prove useful. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2784702/memory-leak.html

Yours,

SebVAIO

[Frikomid]

I have the same problem. Spotify was running right as always, but I installed Creators Update and now I can't open Spotify unless I want my computer to freeze. When I start Spotify it won't load, and 10-20 seconds after my computer freezes.

I can do nothing else besides opening the browser version https://open.spotify.com/. 

Is there some announcement about this or anything...? are they working on anything...?

Edit: I installed, reinstalled and Spotify was running but in the very moment I synchronized the local music library my pc froze... again. So I uninstalled and instaled again Spotify, and this time I haven't synchronized the music local library, which I can't synchronize if I don't want my pc to freeeze again. It seems to be working.

Oh, this ^ and not let Spotify to run automatically as soon as Windows does. 

[sw4rfega]

Not sure why this has been marked as the solution  because it didn't work for me. It would  be nice to hear an official response. 

[Scanspeakman]

Same here; disabled superfetch and prefetch and still the same problem. Spotify please fix this!!! I am paying for a premium account and now I cant use it.

[hernanr76]

Same problem here.

Spotify was running right as always, but I installed Creators Update and now I can't open Spotify unless I want my computer to freeze. When I start Spotify it won't load, and 10-20 seconds after my computer freezes.

[Rheingauer75]

Same problem here.  I've tried to reinstall Spotify but after that I'm not even able to log on because I'm out of memory before Spotify presents me the login mask, and I have to kill the task to prevent my box from a BSOD.

[roflmaooooo]

Hi,

Spotify was working fine for me after installing the Creators Update but when I turned on cloud-based protection, the same problem occurred, PC freezes10-30 seconds after starting Spotify. I tried turning it off and Spotify started to work properly again.

Shared this to confirm that the cloud-based protection thing was really the problem. Hoping for others' feedback. Hope this helps.