Re-produceable per-process Memory-leak in POL.EXE

[Gwydion]

Platform: Windows 10 (any)
ISP: Verizon FIOS
Type of Internet Connection: Fiber-optic
Internet Connection Speed: 1GBps
Date & Time: Any time
Frequency: Always
Character Name: Any
Race: Any
World: Any
Main Job: Any
Support Job: Any
Area and Coordinates: Any (Tested in starting cities and mog houses)
Party or Solo: Any
NPC Name: Not applicable
Monster Name: Not applicable

Steps:
1. Login to character#1. (Observe both Private Bytes and Virtual Bytes in Windows Performance Monitor).
2. Force at least one model texture change by zoning to any zone that is different from the one you are currently logged in.
3. An acceptable and thorough way to accomplish this is to walk from one mog house to another, in any starting city. (say from Port Sandoria Mog House to Southern Sandoria Mog House).
4. You may now /logout on Character #1.
5. Proceed with steps #2,3,4 on Character #2.
6. You may return to Character #1 to record Private Bytes and Virtual Bytes again in Windows Performance Monitor. At this point, you've observed a memory leak in POL.exe.
7. You may continue with Characters #2-16 on the account, all of which result in continuous memory consumption without being freed.

Summary:
A memory leak exists in pol.exe that is evidenced by logout and login of characters on the same account. It can invoked by simply muling to an alt account and returning to your main character, or logging into every character on the account, such as during a login points campaign. The issue appears to be more prominent when any zoning occurs.

Sample:
Here is a sample from Windows performance monitor for a pol.exe process that has been running for 1600 minutes (26 hours, 40 minutes) from the moment that the servers have been available since yesterday's maintenance. (Personally, I do not think this is related to yesterday's server maintenance).



Thank you for your hard work and keeping the game we enjoy so much alive in 2025!

[Alhanelem]

This should absolutely be fixed, though I'm not sure if they will because that's still not a ton of memory by today's standards and it doesnt seem like you can leak more memory once you have swapped between all of your characters, and in practice I don't think a majority of us log into 16 characters every single time or for long periods of time.

Just setting expectations I suppose, but it's a legit bug and frankly I'm impressed at your thoroughness. Wish everyone else went so far to identify problems like this.

[Gwydion]

This should absolutely be fixed, though I'm not sure if they will because that's still not a ton of memory by today's standards and it doesnt seem like you can leak more memory once you have swapped between all of your characters, and in practice I don't think a majority of us log into 16 characters every single time or for long periods of time.

Just setting expectations I suppose, but it's a legit bug and frankly I'm impressed at your thoroughness. Wish everyone else went so far to identify problems like this.

Thank you for your reply! I must point out that you are incorrect on a few fronts. Please allow me to clarify:

1.) The program POL.EXE is a 32-bit application capable of addressing (2-4GB of memory only). It is simply incapable of utilizing more RAM than this. All memory requests for POL.exe occur within this 2-4GB of virtual address space.
2.) As time goes on, a process requests more memory on the heap (RAM), so the operating system marks those memory pages as claimed when needed and frees them the process no longer needs them. When a process doesn't free memory regularly, Memory Fragmentation occurs. The process is now unable to allocate a contiguous block of memory that it needs to function. This will cause instability, black screens and process crashing.
3.) To be specific, the memory leak occurs for ANY amount of logout and logins. Every time you logout and login you are losing memory. It doesn't matter if it's 1 character, 16 characters or any number in between.

I hope this helps.

[Alhanelem]

Let me preface this by noting, none of the content of this post is a suggestion the issue shouldn't be addressed. It absolutely should. I'm just discussing why I don't think this is going to be a priority. Because discussing things is what I do. Devil's advocate maybe, but I actually find this stuff interesting.

1.) The program POL.EXE is a 32-bit application capable of addressing (2-4GB of memory only). It is simply incapable of utilizing more RAM than this. All memory requests for POL.exe occur within this 2-4GB of virtual address space.

Firstly, you only used half of the possible 4GB, so I wouldn't say its close to a big deal yet.
Secondly, This is easily fixable- By the end user by simply running a patcher to make the EXE Large Address Aware, which can also fix a different crash caused by changing areas rapidly via home point warp; and by SE by simply setting the flag that patching the EXE does.

2.) As time goes on, a process requests more memory on the heap (RAM)

You established that the game only leaks memory when you perform a specific action- And that action is only realistically going to be performed a maximum of 16 times or so by someone who is actually going through the trouble of doing daily stuff on every single character, which isn't something everybody does. I think you overestimate the number of people who actually max out their accounts like this- In fact I think more people have multiple accounts with one character on them than have one account with the maximum characters.

3.) To be specific, the memory leak occurs for ANY amount of logout and logins. Every time you logout and login you are losing memory. It doesn't matter if it's 1 character, 16 characters or any number in between.

Same as point above, I don't think ordinary players usually log in and out enough times to make this a big problem.

The fact that you discovered it means it could happen, but I don't think it's much cause for worry. And someone with enough knowledge can actually fix it themselves whether or not SE bothers to.

(Note, the patcher I refer to can be used on any such 32-bit application to allow it to address more memory; I'm not going to link it for obvious reasons, but this has become a problem with a number of older applications, so thats why it exists). Technically, just allowing the game to use more memory doesn't truly fix the problem, but it makes it immensely less likely to have any impact.

[Gwydion]

Let me preface this by noting, none of the content of this post is a suggestion the issue shouldn't be addressed. It absolutely should. I'm just discussing why I don't think this is going to be a priority. Because discussing things is what I do. Devil's advocate maybe, but I actually find this stuff interesting.

The POL process in question has already been patched (2GB is what is visible to user-mode address space for this process and 2GB for kernel address space for this process, and this is where the 4GB patched value comes from).

Firstly, you only used half of the possible 4GB, so I wouldn't say its close to a big deal yet.
Secondly, This is easily fixable- By the end user by simply running a patcher to make the EXE Large Address Aware, which can also fix a different crash caused by changing areas rapidly via home point warp; and by SE by simply setting the flag that patching the EXE does.

Because the process has already been patched for LargeAddressAware functionality, the user-mode address space visible to this process is 2GB. Instability, black screens, graphical glitches and negative impact to the user's experience occurs at 1.4-1.8GB memory utilization. In fact, the process just self-closes at about 1.6-1.8GB of Private Bytes. This is due to being unable to find a continguous block of memory to load incoming assets, models, inventory (or whatever other memory is requirement for a game as dynamic as FFXI).

You established that the game only leaks memory when you perform a specific action- And that action is only realistically going to be performed a maximum of 16 times or so by someone who is actually going through the trouble of doing daily stuff on every single character, which isn't something everybody does. I think you overestimate the number of people who actually max out their accounts like this- In fact I think more people have multiple accounts with one character on them than have one account with the maximum characters.
Same as point above, I don't think ordinary players usually log in and out enough times to make this a big problem.

1.) The POL process will fail to load zone data (black screen) at around 1.6-1.8GB Private Bytes. Nothing will fix this besides /shutdown and re-running a new instance of POL.
2.) Please don't use the quantifier "only". The memory leak is evidenced during /logout and login but it is very likely occurring in situations that are much harder for us to observe. I personally think this is a broader issue, as 1 character, without zoning still slowly increases memory consumption, that cannot be reclaimed.
3.) This is not correct. Any amount of login attempts cause memory to leak and graphical glitches start at 1.4-1.8GB memory utilization depending on how much inventory, resolution and graphical settings are configured. Not all characters and zones are created equal. Switching between characters for muling purposes causes zone model changes and subsequent data loading. The same is true for inventory and other character-specific data. We just don't know what the source of the leak is, so you shouldn't speculate in this regard. (See #2).

The fact that you discovered it means it could happen, but I don't think it's much cause for worry. And someone with enough knowledge can actually fix it themselves whether or not SE bothers to.

Again, game instability happens. It's not that it "could happen". It most certainly does happen. I must reiterate that it is unfair of you to cast aspersions or diminish the significance of this impact. There is simply no fix that we can apply. We simply play FFXI until it consumes enough memory that it crashes. This crash can happen during Omen, Sortie and Odyssey and hurt everyone's experience.

I appreciate your input and that you find this topic interesting, but you're taking too many creative and editorial liberties in your interpretation of the bug and its' impact. Here are some resources for understanding memory leaks and dynamic memory allocation.

Overview of high memory consumption issues: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/tr...ssues-overview

C++ Dynamic Memory allocation for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc19HhHKtrA

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply.

[Alhanelem]

3.) This is not correct. Any amount of login attempts cause memory to leak and graphical glitches start at 1.4-1.8GB memory

Again, I think you overestimate the impact. I have had this type of crash before, but that was caused by using... things that would cause much higher memory usage by the game, and when not using those things, I don't have a problem. I don't think the average player logs in and out so many times that this is likely to happen to them.

The only way I've ever caused a crash like this to happen is by using things that we're technically not supposed to be using.

I appreciate your input and that you find this topic interesting, but you're taking too many creative and editorial liberties in your interpretation of the bug and its' impact. Here are some resources for understanding memory leaks and dynamic memory allocation.

I am not taking "creative and editorial liberties." Despite your polite wording, I find this comment insulting to my intelligence. Especially you linking to beginner programming resources when I have a comp sci degree. I understand how memory allocation works, I know what memory leaks are, I don't need you to tell me these things. A memory leak isn't always a serious problem, it depends entirely on what causes it to happen and how often that is likely to occur. (and again, all bugs should be fixed at some point, the only problem is they can't fix everything, so they have to prioritize). Perhaps you didn't mean it to come out this way, but I don't appreciate the implication of this.

I consider the impact to be low simply because typical players don't routinely engage in the behavior that results in the leak. Most players don't have a dozen or more characters that they swap back and forth from constantly. There are some that do, but even among hardcore players, my observation is they tend to use multiple accounts (for multiboxing) rather than many characters on one account.

[Gwydion]

Again, I think you overestimate the impact. I have had this type of crash before, but that was caused by using... things that would cause much higher memory usage by the game, and when not using those things, I don't have a problem. I don't think the average player logs in and out so many times that this is likely to happen to them.

I'll try to re-iterate this as plainly as possible. This is not a function of "number of characters". You can have one character, logout and log back in and observe the memory leak. As players, we cannot determine if the memory leak occurs from zoning itself or a combination of logins/logouts and zoning. You can stay logged into one character for days and watch memory utilization creep upward as well. Logging out and back in, is just a more visible way to reproduce this issue.

I consider the impact to be low simply because typical players don't routinely engage in the behavior that results in the leak. Most players don't have a dozen or more characters that they swap back and forth from constantly. There are some that do, but even among hardcore players, my observation is they tend to use multiple accounts (for multiboxing) rather than many characters on one account.

You're welcome to follow the steps I outlined and open Windows Performance Monitor and observe POL.EXE's memory utilization. In doing so, you can qualitatively assess that amount of memory loss that you are personally comfortable with.

I am not taking "creative and editorial liberties." Despite your polite wording, I find this comment insulting to my intelligence.

I appreciate you taking the time to sharing your opinion, but it is unfortunately, anecdotal and without data, neither myself nor SE can really act upon it. You can take a look at my previous replies and corrections and if necessary, feel free to brush up on your previous coursework and I hope it starts to make sense. If you'd like to discuss this in a separate thread, please feel free to create one and I'll try my best to answer any and all questions you have. Until then, this thread is intended to be a bug report and not a discussion of the personal opinions and feelings, so I'm going to disengage from this thread so that SE can do their work. I'm sure they're very busy!

Thanks and be well!

[Alhanelem]

I appreciate you taking the time to sharing your opinion, but it is unfortunately, anecdotal and without data, neither myself nor SE can really act upon it.

I don't disagree with that- And I'd certainly love to see the stats on this. For various reasons we're not likely to find out how many people or what portion play multiple accounts. So ancedotal is all we have. But multiboxing is far from uncommon these days, you can see it everywhere you go.

One of those reasons is really the only way you could link different accounts together is if they are multiple POL accounts under one SQEX account, or if they're all being paid for with the same payment method (which would be unreliable as you certainly don't have to do that)

I can tell you that I personally only have two characters, and I haven't used the mule in years. I've never even considered paying more to be able to claim more daily bonuses etc. So I rarely log out without exiting the game entirely.

But since you've done some research- FFXI is really a DLL that's called by POL.EXE. does going back to the POL viewer clear the leaked memory or do you need to entirely close it out and launch it again? I should hope that it does, particularly since there used to be multiple different applications called by the Viewer, and it would be horrible practice not to free all the memory used by one before calling another.

Until then, this thread is intended to be a bug report and not a discussion of the personal opinions and feelings, so I'm going to disengage from this thread so that SE can do their work.

If they didn't want players to discuss and investigate bugs together, they could have the forum automatically lock threads after posting. But they don't. Absent any rules, there's nothing wrong with discussing a bug in its own thread.

Also, respectfully, please leave out the implications that I don't know the subject matter I went to college for. Thank you for your understanding.