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Asked: 2026-05-15T08:56:30+00:00

I have a js function for playing any given sound using the Audio interface

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I have a js function for playing any given sound using the Audio interface (creating a new instance for every call).

This works quite well, until about the 32nd call (sometimes less). This issue is directly related to the release of the Audio instance. I know this because I’ve allowed time for the GC in Chromium to run and it will allow me to play another 32 or so sounds again.

Here’s an example of what I’m doing:

<html><head>
<script type="text/javascript">
function playSound(url) {
    var snd = new Audio(url);
    snd.play();
    snd = null;
}
</script>
</head>

<body>
<a href="#" onclick="playSound('blah.mp3');">Play sound</a>
</body></html>

I also have this, which works well for pages that have less than 32 playSound calls:

var AudioPlayer = {
    cache: {},
    play: function(url) {
        if (!AudioPlayer.cache[url])
            AudioPlayer.cache[url] = new Audio(url);
        AudioPlayer.cache[url].play();
    }
};

But this will not work for what I want to do (dynamically replace a div with other content (from separate files), which have even more sounds on them – 1. memory usage would easily skyrocket, 2. many sounds will never play).

I need a way to release the sound immediately. Is it possible to do this? I have found no free/close/unload method for the Audio interface.

The pages will be viewed locally, so the constant loading of sounds is not a big factor at all (and most sounds are rather short).

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This is not an exhaustive answer, but to the question “Is there any way to force the chrome js engine to do garbage collection?”, a chromium.org guy replied:

    In general, no, by design. For testing purposes there is a flag you can pass
    on the command line to enable a javascript command “window.gc()” to force
    garbage collection.

    --js-flags '--expose_gc'

    UPDATE: However, as @plash noted in a comment below, this flag will only work in debug builds.

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