AEM committed Heap Memory is not getting released.

[rajatkumar]

Hi All,
I'm running AEM Forms 6.5 JEE for WebSphere with the latest Service packs and hotfixes.
During the installation I have given the max heap size to 16 GB. 
In the configMgr Memory usage, the highlighted heap memory is getting increased as per load and reaching 100% but never getting released until the server is restarted itself while the used memory sits comfortably around ~50ish %.



On the actual server the command free -h gives high memory usage due to the committed not being released.
is this the normal behavior?
or Garbage collection as a whole is not happening in the background?

[Pulkit_Jain_]

@rajatkumar 

What are the implementations/services that you're using on this AEM Forms JEE set-up?

OOTB services won't occupy much heap unless there is a customization part of the use case that is not releasing the memory. 

Could you enable GC on this server to review the GC cycles and capture a heap dump once you notice this behavior the next time?

Heap dump will help us understand the memory footprint at the time of the issue or a possible memory leak if any.

[rajatkumar]

@Pulkit_Jain_ 
Hi Pulkit, thanks for engaging in this!!
We have few custom Applications made to serve some 600 around forms and some processes.
As highlighted, yes, may be they can be contributing to the Heap Memory not getting released.

Can you please provide an article for enabling GC in WebSphere and reviewing the GC cycles.
Also if we change the highlighted config to say 1800 or so, can it help in releasing memory ??



For further analysis of the custom Applications, will capture the heap dumps and raise a support ticket.

[Pulkit_Jain_ · Accepted solution]

@rajatkumar, I assume that might be the case. 

You can enable verbose GC in Websphere following this help doc- https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/enabling-verbose-garbage-collection-verbosegc-websphere-applicatio....

Also, the setting mentioned in the screenshot is specific to heap dump, so mightn't help clear memory.

[Mayank_Gandhi]

@rajatkumar Have you captured heap dumps?