Freezes up on large log files, eats all memory, crashes Explorer, etc.

Johnny Appleseed — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 16:49:47 GMT

Accidentally tried to open a postgres.log file that was 22GB (didn't realize it was that huge) and LVP took ages to parse. After a few hours I just went to bed and it was only about 1/8 done parsing.

Woke up this morning and it had entirely crashed explorer. It also killed my entire Docker server and all of it's services because it ran out of memory as well. I looked at it's resource usage and it looked like this:

Granted no one should really be trying to view a 22GB log file, but it also seems like some bad handling by LVP as well. Perhaps some initial warning about it's size being too big when trying to open it? And/or only loading it in chunks that still load fast and don't eat up infinite memory, only showing as much as can fit in the viewing pane plus a bit in the buffers above and below for short scrolling and making it appear smooth, or some other similar wizardry? And/or only allowing a max mem usage of x percent of system mem and then it stops trying to load/parse, the log. And so on?

RE: Freezes up on large log files, eats all memory, crashes Explorer, etc.

LogViewPlus Support — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 16:49:47 GMT

Hi Johnny,

Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention.

We actually had a memory check in an earier version of LogViewPlus, but it looks like we removed this in Feb 2024. I have now re-added the check. In future, if a user attempts to open a file which will likely exceed the available system memory, we will display the message:

Unfortunately, we will need to make a some assumptions about whether or not Windows has enough memory to open the file. We have set these assumptions on the low end. This means that it will still be possible to exceed the available memory while avoiding the notification.

For more information on how LogViewPlus uses memory, please see Performance Profile.

Thanks again,

Toby

LogViewPlus Support » LogViewPlus Support » Help & Support » Freezes up on large log files, eats all memory, crashes Explorer, etc.

Freezes up on large log files, eats all memory, crashes Explorer, etc.

RE: Freezes up on large log files, eats all memory, crashes Explorer, etc.