Shapes memory leak using VBA

Question

I believe I have found a memory leak in using Shapes from VBA. I'm losing around 300k for every 30 or so shapes I create/delete from my worksheet. It also seems to reflect in the performance of my macro over time.

Answer 1

Thanks for the example.

With it I can reproduce the problem (in 2010 and in 2013 on Windows 7) and so I will pass it on to Microsoft.

If it is causing you a serious problem then you should also report it to Microsoft as a support incident.

Answer 2

This should do it. After doing some testing it seems to be specifically related to using 'pline.Placement = xlFreeFloating'. I have a specific reason for using it but I can probably live without it in the general case. I do realize that this isn't really an intended use case, the entirety of this project is pretty much completely out of the realm of every day Excel use.

Private running As Boolean

Sub main()

    running = True

    While running = True

            render

    Wend

End Sub

Public Sub render()

    Dim shp As Shape

    Dim pline As Shape

    Dim i As Long

    Dim faceArray(1 To 5, 1 To 2) As Single

    For Each shp In Sheet1.Shapes

            shp.Delete

            Set shp = Nothing

        Next shp

    For i = 0 To 30

                faceArray(1, 2) = 1

                faceArray(1, 1) = 1

                faceArray(2, 2) = 1

                faceArray(2, 1) = 10

                faceArray(3, 2) = 10

                faceArray(3, 1) = 10

                faceArray(4, 2) = 10

                faceArray(4, 1) = 1

                faceArray(5, 2) = faceArray(1, 2)

                faceArray(5, 1) = faceArray(1, 1)

                Set pline = Sheet1.Shapes.AddPolyline(faceArray)

                pline.Placement = xlFreeFloating

                Set pline = Nothing

    Next i

    DoEvents

End Sub

Answer 3

If you would like this to be reported to Microsoft, it would be helpful if you can provide steps to reproduce the problem.