Memory profiler soruce file

bmerz

Just a quick question about the source file column of the all objects tab when doing a memory profile. Some of my identical objects do not have a source file listed. Are these objects ready for collection the next time the garbage collector runs? Are they zombies?

Thanks!

Brian Donahue

Hello,

If the objects are listed in the all objects tab, they were still live after a garbage collection. Now, some of these objects may just be waiting to be finalized, meaning they would go after the next snapshot (or using the force GC button). There is normally a darn good reason why the objects are still live, such as being referenced by other objects. The trick is to find the reason, which involves going up the hierarchy to find the parent or 'root object'.

Missing source code could just mean that the object was not one allocated in your own source code (like a System or Microsoft namespace) or it could be missing or problem PDB files. Maybe these objects get created by a different assembly (dll) that's missing a PDB.