LabVIEW Tip: Performance & Memory Profile Tool

[AustinNiki]

Got a VI that runs for a while (say a day) but then eventually crashes? Maybe it shows a message like the below:

Then its likely that you’re running out of memory (often referred to as a memory leak). Find out for sure by using the Performance and Memory Profile tool.

This can be access from the menu of any VI by selecting Tools>Profile>Performance and Memory.

This tool allows the user to see how much memory each VI in the application instance is using and how long it takes to execute each VI. VI’s will automatically be organised largest/longest first. If you see a VI that is using more time or memory than all the others, or the amount of memory is increasing then it’s likely that that VI is causing the problem. It’s probably worth leaving this to run for a little while (say an hour).

Common causes of memory leaks are Arrays that simply get larger and larger, references that aren’t closed (especially on file writes), and Clusters within Arrays within Clusters within Arrays (clustersauruses) so see if this could be the problem. Also note that its good practice to always initialise Arrays with their max size.

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