SteamVR has a major memory leak after version 2.5 was released

[Outlaw Doggo]

During VR game play VRserver.exe will get a memory leak causing it to use almost 100% of all physical memory and around 80 gigs of virtual memory causing event code 2004 in event viewer and after around an hour of game play SteamVR and other programs will crash or freeze, it sometimes also gets to the point of needing to restart the computer due to it causing all of the displays going black. Reverting to SteamVR version 2.4.4 in the beta fixes this issue for the time being

[Loup Garou]

Thanks, reverting to the previous build solved my memory leak problem as well. Oddly, I would only get the memory leak when using my HP Reverb G2 headset - if I use my Valve Index, the leak doesn't occur.

[GmoLargey]

Someone in Pico community has found issue still present even after reverting to 1.27.5

Their finding below:
Appears to still be happening on 1.27.5 after a SteamVR critical crash and there is no process using the ram/CPU

```Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x0009e3bb
Faulting process id: 0x0x4630
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DABABAE2381C1E
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\ucrtbase.dll```

```Faulting application name: vrmonitor.exe, version: 1.27.5.0, time stamp: 0x64f0e026
Faulting module name: ucrtbase.dll, version: 10.0.22621.3593, time stamp: 0x10c46e71
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x000000000007f6fe
Faulting process id: 0x0x59A4
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DABABAFF78EDF2
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SteamVR\bin\win64\vrmonitor.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\ucrtbase.dll```

At a closer look it appears to be Visual C++ runtime being broken causing the crashes

[hund]

Hi this is said person from PICO community, I can confirm that I have reverted back to the Beta steamVR build and after repairing/removing most of my VC++ runtime packages all my memory leak problems seem fixed, and the instability/random crashes also do seem fixed. This running on the latest SteamVR build(beta).
Tripped me out seeing as my Valve Index worked perfect but my Pico 4 Pro was causing these mem leaks
So basically it was broken VC++ runtime packages that was breaking my PICO and leaking a bunch of memory, forcing me to reboot my PC to get a decent performance again, I've now been in VR on PICO for many hours and can't see any problems, so yeah if any one has this it's definitely worth trying repairing your VC++ Runtimes.
GL

[Loup Garou]

Originally posted by doggo:

Hi this is said person from PICO community, I can confirm that I have reverted back to the Beta steamVR build and after repairing/removing most of my VC++ runtime packages all my memory leak problems seem fixed, and the instability/random crashes also do seem fixed. This running on the latest SteamVR build(beta).
Tripped me out seeing as my Valve Index worked perfect but my Pico 4 Pro was causing these mem leaks
So basically it was broken VC++ runtime packages that was breaking my PICO and leaking a bunch of memory, forcing me to reboot my PC to get a decent performance again, I've now been in VR on PICO for many hours and can't see any problems, so yeah if any one has this it's definitely worth trying repairing your VC++ Runtimes.
GL

Do you happen to know specifically which Visual C++ runtimes this applies to? I have about a dozen of them installed, and don't want to go uninstalling them as many other apps rely on them. I'm not 100% convinced this will work in my case, as I went as far as going a clean Windows install when trying to resolve this issue and it didn't help. Currently the only fix that works for me is to use the previous build (v2.4.4).

**edit: I repaired all VC++ redistributables that had the option to repair. The only ones I couldn't repair were the 2008 and 2010 packages which only gave the option to uninstall. After this I tried both the current 2.5.5 and beta 2.6.2 builds, and both still cause vrserver.exe to swallow up memory.

[hund]

Originally posted by Loup Garou:

Do you happen to know specifically which Visual C++ runtimes this applies to?

Yeah we just don't have the same crash at all, it's both memory leaks, but it's just not the same crash.
Check SteamVR logs & Windows logs as well, maybe you too can make a discovery like me

[Loup Garou]

Adding a link to this related page for visibility:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/4338733821678839470/

[Bedmonster]

They updated steamVR today, and it seems the previous version is no longer available. All current available versions of steam VR have this bug and forcing 110 gigs of swap on my SSD is prematurely destroying this hardware through constant read/writes on the swap.

My post on this:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/4338733821678839470/

[Bedmonster]

If you need more proof, here is the "VR Server" Application after 1.5 hours of VR chat. Only SteamVR is running, VR chat is off.
Task manager showing 16 gigs allocated for the one program (maximum allowed by the OS maybe?) and then the full 32 gigs +108gig swap filled up on the performance page. Also on the performance page, showing not much is going on on the computer, GPU is practically idle and I'm guessing the CPU is just mostly juggling that swap.
https://imgur.com/a/OPhDY77

[EngineGears]

On Linux. It crashed my entire system a few times and then I ran SteamVR via commandline: ~/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/vrstartup-helper.sh and it was able to run for hours without a crash. Maybe it was just luck? I'm running Steam and SteamVR beta's but it only showed up with the recent update to Steam ( not SteamVR ?).

[Loup Garou]

Originally posted by Bedmonster:

They updated steamVR today, and it seems the previous version is no longer available. All current available versions of steam VR have this bug and forcing 110 gigs of swap on my SSD is prematurely destroying this hardware through constant read/writes on the swap.

My post on this:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/4338733821678839470/

Yeah that's frustrating. I've also raised the issue as a support request and was directed to post here in the discussion forum. I was advised that the developers do read the threads here and "use a number of community sources to help investigate the frequency and severity of issues like this." Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

[Haley]

Originally posted by Bedmonster:

If you need more proof, here is the "VR Server" Application after 1.5 hours of VR chat. Only SteamVR is running, VR chat is off.
Task manager showing 16 gigs allocated for the one program (maximum allowed by the OS maybe?) and then the full 32 gigs +108gig swap filled up on the performance page. Also on the performance page, showing not much is going on on the computer, GPU is practically idle and I'm guessing the CPU is just mostly juggling that swap.
https://imgur.com/a/OPhDY77

Yep this is how mine looks too when it starts happening. I have a 6900XT and was fine on the previous version but today was the first day that I started getting this issue again.

[Bedmonster]

I would like to add this issue continues now on previous, current and beta versions of SteamVR, just tried the beta variant today.

[Loup Garou]

Originally posted by Haley:

Yep this is how mine looks too when it starts happening. I have a 6900XT and was fine on the previous version but today was the first day that I started getting this issue again.

I also noticed that everyone who's mentioned their GPU model is on an AMD 6 series - I wonder if that's a common factor as well? Bedmonster has a 6700xt, I'm on a 6800xt and you have a 6900xt.

[Outlaw Doggo]

Originally posted by Loup Garou:

Originally posted by Haley:

Yep this is how mine looks too when it starts happening. I have a 6900XT and was fine on the previous version but today was the first day that I started getting this issue again.

I also noticed that everyone who's mentioned their GPU model is on an AMD 6 series - I wonder if that's a common factor as well? Bedmonster has a 6700xt, I'm on a 6800xt and you have a 6900xt.

I also use a 6900xt

[Loup Garou]

Out of curiosity I tried putting my old GTX 1070 into my PC and started SteamVR, and memory usage remained stable. It was a bit too much to ask of the 1070 to actually try running a VR game, but this lends credence to the theory that the issue is between AMD cards and the latest SteamVR builds.

Also FYI, I tried rolling back to the 1.27.5 build available in the beta options, and this seems to be stable as well, if anyone's looking for a temp fix that currently works. This build is from Sept last year so it's old but not *that* old.