Memory Leak in Android Service with Retrofit Calls in Background Thread
Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I'm encountering a memory leak in my Android application that uses a Service to make Retrofit network calls on a background thread. The Service is intended to fetch data at regular intervals, but I've noticed that it continues to hold onto references even after it's been stopped. I'm using Android 14 and Retrofit 2.9.0. After conducting some profiling with Android Studio, I see that the Service's context is retained in memory, leading to increased memory usage over time. I've implemented the Service using the `IntentService` class, hoping that it would manage its lifecycle effectively: ```java public class MyDataFetchService extends IntentService { public MyDataFetchService() { super("MyDataFetchService"); } @Override protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) { fetchDataFromApi(); } private void fetchDataFromApi() { Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder() .baseUrl("https://api.example.com/") .addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create()) .build(); MyApiService apiService = retrofit.create(MyApiService.class); Call<MyData> call = apiService.getData(); call.enqueue(new Callback<MyData>() { @Override public void onResponse(Call<MyData> call, Response<MyData> response) { // Process response } @Override public void onFailure(Call<MyData> call, Throwable t) { Log.e("MyDataFetchService", "Error: " + t.getMessage()); } }); } } ``` Despite using `IntentService`, my Service seems to be leaking memory. I've tried stopping the Service explicitly in the `onDestroy` method and releasing references to Retrofit: ```java @Override public void onDestroy() { super.onDestroy(); // Attempt to null references to avoid leaks apiService = null; } ``` However, the memory usage keeps growing, and eventually, I get the error: "OutOfMemoryError: Failed to allocate a 256-byte allocation with 2 free bytes and 4GB until OOM" when running the app for extended periods. Any suggestions on how to effectively manage the Service's lifecycle and avoid memory leaks? What best practices should I follow when making network requests in a Service? This is part of a larger application I'm building. How would you solve this? For context: I'm using Java on Debian. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this.