Atomic/session memory leak

[Tristan Croll]

The following bug report has been submitted:
Platform:        Linux-5.15.0-60-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35
ChimeraX Version: 1.6.dev202301180300 (2023-01-18 03:00:03 UTC)
Description
Just had a long-running ISOLDE session (working on a particularly big model - 8em7) die unexpectedly, killed by the system out-of-memory killer. Investigation reveals a few possible culprits - it looks like the OpenMM `Topology` objects aren't being cleaned up (possibly a circular reference issue?), but It also looks like there's a big memory leak in session saving. Toy example below, but in my real case it eats about 55 MB per save (which I do fairly regularly in case of disaster).

open 7lto
show

#in the shell

m = session.models[0]

import tracemalloc

tracemalloc.start()

before = tracemalloc.take_snapshot()

pwd
Out[5]: '/home/tcroll/my-gits/isolde/isolde'

cd ~
/home/tcroll

from chimerax.core.commands import run

for i in range(10):
    run(session, 'save test.cxs')
    

after = tracemalloc.take_snapshot()

top_stats = after.compare_to(before, 'lineno')

for stat in top_stats[:10]:
    print(stat)
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chimerax/atomic/molobject.py:1954: size=17.1 MiB (+17.1 MiB), count=197119 (+197119), average=91 B
<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>:647: size=448 KiB (+448 KiB), count=4140 (+4140), average=111 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/qtconsole/console_widget.py:1713: size=64.0 KiB (+64.0 KiB), count=1 (+1), average=64.0 KiB
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:228: size=30.1 KiB (+30.1 KiB), count=253 (+253), average=122 B
/usr/bin/../../usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/abc.py:123: size=28.5 KiB (+28.5 KiB), count=350 (+350), average=83 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chimerax/core/serialize.py:65: size=27.5 KiB (+27.5 KiB), count=151 (+151), average=187 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/ctypes/__init__.py:510: size=25.5 KiB (+23.7 KiB), count=383 (+326), average=68 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pygments/formatters/html.py:507: size=20.1 KiB (+20.1 KiB), count=242 (+242), average=85 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/numpy/core/_internal.py:255: size=20.1 KiB (+13.1 KiB), count=161 (+105), average=128 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chimerax/core_formats/__init__.py:81: size=11.3 KiB (+11.3 KiB), count=51 (+51), average=226 B

for i in range(10):
    run(session, 'save test.cxs')

after = tracemalloc.take_snapshot()

top_stats = after.compare_to(before, 'lineno')

for stat in top_stats[:10]:
    print(stat)
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chimerax/atomic/molobject.py:1954: size=34.1 MiB (+34.1 MiB), count=394269 (+394269), average=91 B
<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>:647: size=447 KiB (+447 KiB), count=4137 (+4137), average=111 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/tracemalloc.py:115: size=95.9 KiB (+95.9 KiB), count=1227 (+1227), average=80 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/tracemalloc.py:129: size=78.1 KiB (+78.1 KiB), count=1111 (+1111), average=72 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/site-packages/chimerax/mouse_modes/mousemodes.py:514: size=64.0 KiB (+64.0 KiB), count=1 (+1), average=64.0 KiB
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/tracemalloc.py:193: size=62.3 KiB (+62.3 KiB), count=1330 (+1330), average=48 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/tracemalloc.py:498: size=58.2 KiB (+58.2 KiB), count=1234 (+1234), average=48 B
/usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/ctypes/__init__.py:510: size=52.8 KiB (+51.0 KiB), count=686 (+629), average=79 B
<frozen importlib._bootstrap>:228: size=30.1 KiB (+30.1 KiB), count=253 (+253), average=122 B
/usr/bin/../../usr/lib/ucsf-chimerax-daily/lib/python3.9/abc.py:123: size=28.5 KiB (+28.5 KiB), count=350 (+350), average=83 B

Log:
> isolde shorthand
    
    
    Initialising ISOLDE-specific command aliases:
    Alias	Equivalent full command
    -------------------------------------------------
    st	isolde step {arguments}
    aw	isolde add water {arguments}
    awsf	isolde add water {arguments} sim false
    al	isolde add ligand {arguments}
    aa	isolde add aa $1 sel {arguments}
    ht	isolde mod his sel {arguments}
    so	setattr sel atoms occupancy {arguments}
    ab	isolde adjust bfactors {arguments}
    ss	isolde sim start sel
    rt	isolde release torsions sel {arguments}
    rd	isolde release distances sel {arguments}
    ra	rd; rt
    pf	isolde pepflip sel
    cf	isolde cisflip sel
    cbb	color bfactor {arguments}
    cbo	color byattr occupancy {arguments}
    cbc	color {arguments} bychain; color {arguments} byhet
    cs	clipper set contourSensitivity {arguments}
    

  
UCSF ChimeraX version: 1.6.dev202301180300 (2023-01-18)  
© 2016-2023 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.  
How to cite UCSF ChimeraX  

> open 7lto format mmcif fromDatabase pdb

7lto title:  
Nse5-6 complex [more info...]  
  
Chain information for 7lto #1  
---  
Chain | Description | UniProt  
A | Non-structural maintenance of chromosome element 5 | NSE5_YEAST 1-556  
B | Ubiquitin-like protein SMT3,DNA repair protein KRE29 chimera | SMT3_YEAST
-98--1, KRE29_YEAST 1-464  
  

> ui tool show Shell

> show

> save test.cxs

[Repeated 19 time(s)]




OpenGL version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 515.86.01
OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation

Python: 3.9.11
Locale: en_GB.UTF-8
Qt version: PyQt6 6.4.0, Qt 6.4.0
Qt runtime version: 6.4.2
Qt platform: xcb

XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
DESKTOP_SESSION=ubuntu
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=ubuntu
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME
DISPLAY=:1
Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
Model: XPS 8950
OS: Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish
Architecture: 64bit ELF
Virtual Machine: none
CPU: 20 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700
Cache Size: 25600 KB
Memory:
	               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
	Mem:            31Gi        17Gi       8.3Gi       710Mi       5.5Gi        12Gi
	Swap:          2.0Gi       956Mi       1.1Gi

Graphics:
	0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Lite Hash Rate] [10de:2488] (rev a1)	
	Subsystem: Dell GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Lite Hash Rate] [1028:c903]	
	Kernel driver in use: nvidia

Installed Packages:
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    appdirs: 1.4.4
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    backcall: 0.2.0
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    ChimeraX-Clipper: 0.20.0
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    ChimeraX-ESMFold: 1.0
    ChimeraX-ExperimentalCommands: 1.0
    ChimeraX-FileHistory: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-FunctionKey: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-Geometry: 1.2.1
    ChimeraX-gltf: 1.0
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    ChimeraX-RotamerLibsRichardson: 2.0
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    ChimeraX-StdCommands: 1.10.1
    ChimeraX-STL: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-Storm: 1.0
    ChimeraX-StructMeasure: 1.1.1
    ChimeraX-Struts: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-Surface: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-SwapAA: 2.0.1
    ChimeraX-SwapRes: 2.2
    ChimeraX-TapeMeasure: 1.0
    ChimeraX-Test: 1.0
    ChimeraX-Toolbar: 1.1.2
    ChimeraX-ToolshedUtils: 1.2.1
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    ChimeraX-UnitCell: 1.0.1
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    ChimeraX-VIPERdb: 1.0
    ChimeraX-Vive: 1.1
    ChimeraX-VolumeMenu: 1.0.1
    ChimeraX-VTK: 1.0
    ChimeraX-WavefrontOBJ: 1.0
    ChimeraX-WebCam: 1.0.2
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    wcwidth: 0.2.6
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    wheel: 0.37.1
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    zipp: 3.11.0

[Tristan Croll]

Continuing from the saved session file on my Windows Laptop (as opposed to
Linux yesterday) shows no sign of the accumulating OpenMM topology cruft I
saw yesterday - memory usage started at 3 GB and was 3.2 GB after about 6
hours of fairly continuous work involving innumerable simulations (I also
opened a new 1600-residue AlphaFold model and its PAE matrix in the
meantime). So either that's something Linux-specific or the garbage
collection was just being a bit sluggish. Saving the session ten times over
in a loop permanently increased memory usage by about 1GB.

On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 7:01 PM ChimeraX <ChimeraX-bugs-admin@cgl.ucsf.edu>
wrote:

[Eric Pettersen]

Was under the misapprehension that appending to a list works the same as list insertion (which steals a reference). It doesn't -- it adds a reference. Added a bunch of Py_DEREFs to the code.