Question

I currently have a strange memory leak with WPF TreeView. When I select an item in the TreeView, the corresponding bound ViewModel is strongely hold in the TreeView EffectiveValueEntry[] collection. The issue is that it is not released when the ViewModel is removed from it’s parent collection.

Here is a simple code to reproduce the issue :

MainWindow.xaml

using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls.Primitives;

namespace TreeViewMemoryLeak
{
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = this;
        }

        public ObservableCollection<Entry> Entries
        {
            get
            {
                if (entries == null)
                {
                    entries = new ObservableCollection<Entry>() { new Entry() { DisplayName = "First Entry" } };
                }
                return entries;
            }
        }

        private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { entries.Clear(); }

        private ObservableCollection<Entry> entries;

    }

    public class Entry : DependencyObject
    {
        public string DisplayName { get; set; }
    }
}

MainWindow.xaml.cs

<Window x:Class="TreeViewMemoryLeak.MainWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:TreeViewMemoryLeak"
    Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="250">

    <Window.Resources>
        <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:Entry}">
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding DisplayName}" />
        </DataTemplate>
    </Window.Resources>

    <StackPanel>
        <Button Content="delete item" Click="Button_Click" Grid.Row="0" Margin="10"/>
        <TreeView x:Name="treeView" ItemsSource="{Binding Entries}" Grid.Row="1" Margin="10" BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" />
    </StackPanel>

</Window>

To reproduce the issue

Select the item, then click the button to clear the ObservableCollection. Now check the EffectiveValueEntry[] on the TreeView control : the ViewModel is still there and is not flagged for garbage collection.

Answer 1

Well I finally came up with a rather violent solution. I remove the reference from the EffectiveValues collection myself when deleting the last object in the TreeView. It may be overkill but at least, it works.

public class MyTreeView : TreeView
{
    protected override void OnSelectedItemChanged(RoutedPropertyChangedEventArgs<object> e)
    {
        base.OnSelectedItemChanged(e);

        if (Items.Count == 0)
        {
            var lastObjectDeleted = e.OldValue;
            if (lastObjectDeleted != null)
            {
                var effectiveValues = EffectiveValuesGetMethod.Invoke(this, null) as Array;
                if (effectiveValues == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();

                bool foundEntry = false;
                int index = 0;
                foreach (var effectiveValueEntry in effectiveValues)
                {
                    var value = EffectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod.Invoke(effectiveValueEntry, null);
                    if (value == lastObjectDeleted)
                    {
                        foundEntry = true;
                        break;
                    }
                    index++;
                }

                if (foundEntry)
                {
                    effectiveValues.SetValue(null, index);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    protected MethodInfo EffectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod
    {
        get
        {
            if (effectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod == null)
            {
                var effectiveValueEntryType = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().SelectMany(a => a.GetTypes()).Where(t => t.Name == "EffectiveValueEntry").FirstOrDefault();
                if (effectiveValueEntryType == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();

                var effectiveValueEntryValuePropertyInfo = effectiveValueEntryType.GetProperty("Value", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance);
                if (effectiveValueEntryValuePropertyInfo == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();

                effectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod = effectiveValueEntryValuePropertyInfo.GetGetMethod(nonPublic: true);
                if (effectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();

            }
            return effectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod;
        }
    }

    protected MethodInfo EffectiveValuesGetMethod
    {
        get
        {
            if (effectiveValuesGetMethod == null)
            {
                var dependencyObjectType = typeof(DependencyObject);
                var effectiveValuesPropertyInfo = dependencyObjectType.GetProperty("EffectiveValues", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly | System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance);
                if (effectiveValuesPropertyInfo == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();

                effectiveValuesGetMethod = effectiveValuesPropertyInfo.GetGetMethod(nonPublic: true);
                if (effectiveValuesGetMethod == null)
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();
            }
            return effectiveValuesGetMethod;
        }
    }

    #region Private fields
    private MethodInfo effectiveValueEntryValueGetMethod;
    private MethodInfo effectiveValuesGetMethod;
    #endregion
}