MadCap Software Forums

I have been using Flare v8 for a little over a year now on an almost 3KB project. I have an 8GB, 64bit machine running Windows 7 Pro. I have been having issues for months now, where Flare slows down and ultimately crashes as memory usage builds and never releases. I am currently in contact with support, but I don't feel I'm getting a direct answer in regard to a possible memory leak, so I'll ask here.

Has anyone had issues with Flare v8 where the memory consistently builds and does not release. Memory seems to build the most when switching from the GUI to html view and when using preview mode (no matter the target type being viewed). Memory typically builds to approximately 1.2 or 1.3GB, at which point it crashes. A substantial slow down is also apparent prior to the crash at around 800,000KB. If you have seen this issue, what have you done to remedy the situation and has anyone upgraded to v9 and seen an improvement or complete eradication of this issue?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I use Flare 9 and I experience similar problems when building PDF targets from large projects within Flare. I click Build in the target, an hour or more passes and then I get and out of memory error sometimes followed by a crash.

The only workaround in this case has been using madbuild to build my targets. They still take 20-30 minutes, where Frame took 2 or 3.

Right now I am experiencing a new problem with similar symptoms in a file containing a very large table. If I don't fix this one, I am going to have to create the document in FrameMaker to meet a short deadline.

As the guy who sold my company on the move to Flare, this is really disheartening.

I am still communicating with Madcap's support team on this one, but I discovered that disabling the Enable background status checks (File > Options > Source Control tab) has drastically improved Flare v8's performance. Because the interval was a short period of time, Flare was not finished with the initial background status check, prior to beginning the next, hence the memory build. I also found that disabling Auto Save and Auto check out and performing these tasks manually has improved performance. Down to one crash a day when memory reaches 1.3 GB as opposed to every hour or so.
Hope this helps some of you struggling with the same issues. I'll let you know if I get a full fix from the Flare support team.