Memory leak on mac and zotero 7

Bardeamu · June 20, 2025

I have been using zotero for years now but recently I have been consistently forced to close the app because it went to appropriate over 10 GB of ram and almost crashing my computer. I am on a mac, with the latest update of osx and I do not use Zotero's pdf reader but google chrome. Would greatly appreciate any support to resolve the issue.

dstillman · June 20, 2025

Can you reproduce this in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”), which temporarily disables all plugins?

Bardeamu · June 22, 2025

Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I did that for the last two days and the problem remains. I have attached screenshots of activity monitor.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5861911/sdok8okonloy9sw8qq6f.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5861911/3j2kq105a8g60n0h804w.png

dstillman · June 22, 2025

And what do you have to do to get it to go up that high? Can you identify a particular action that's causing the memory usage to go up incrementally and not go back down?

Can you provide a Report ID?

Bardeamu · June 22, 2025

Really nothing special. I have zotero running on the background while I write on Scrivener and Obsidian. Every now and then, I will add a new reference to my Zotero Library, or use it to generate a citation. Thats about it.

dstillman · June 23, 2025

You didn't provide a Report ID.

But we'll need you to keep an eye on it and let us know what specific actions cause a spike in memory usage that doesn't later subside. We're not aware of any causes of this other than malfunctioning plugins. The reader can use a decent amount of memory, but it sounds like you're not using that (for EPUB or webpage snapshots either?), and even with large files that shouldn't get anywhere >10 GB in normal usage.

jeremyvancleve · July 19, 2025

I'm also seeing **huge** RAM usage on macOS when I leave Zotero open for a long time.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u2209856/x4pphwu94r9cq78f8c97.png

I thought maybe it was the reader because I had probably 60 PDFs open but closing half of them didn't alter the RAM usage at all.

Other than the RAM usage, Zotero is operating fine and is responsive.

Report ID: 474537332

dstillman · July 21, 2025

@jeremyvancleve: Same answer as above. Note that your report is with various plugins enabled. It's only worth reporting here if you can reproduce with no plugins enabled, and in that case we'd need the kind of info I describe above.

dstillman · July 21, 2025

And if you can reproduce with no plugins, please also go to Tools → Developer → Run JavaScript, run Zotero.openInViewer("about:memory"), click "Measure and save…" under "Save memory reports", and email the report to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread.

jeremyvancleve · July 21, 2025

ok, got it, will try to reproduce with no plugins.

jeremyvancleve · July 25, 2025

I think the problem is one of the plugins I'm using, but I wasn't able to reproduce the high RAM usage with a few minutes of activating one plugin at a time.

Is there a way I can debug the memory usage with all of them activated, possibly by looking at the output of the memory report you suggested above?

Edit: I have run the "about:memory" code above and am looking at the "memory-report.json". Anything in particular I should look for?

dstillman · July 26, 2025

@jeremyvancleve: If you send us the memory report, we can take a look.

jeremyvancleve · 2025-08-03T01:39:49+00:00

Ok, it took a few days of Zotero open with all my plugins enabled to get to very significant RAM usage:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u2209856/u8nqv3ogrdbxvp3bke7g.png

I've sent the memory report and generated a debug report with ID 1805603432.

jeremyvancleve · 2025-08-26T20:50:05+00:00

I've deactivated and activated all my plugins and the culprit seems to be Know Ur Zotero.

I have a filed an issue there: https://github.com/windingwind/know-ur-zotero/issues/16