I have a TabControl in WPF / MVVM that is bound to an ItemsSource on top of an ObservableCollection. Each tab has its own collections and bindings with components such as Images, Richtextboxes, and user input boxes, and everything seems to work well.
However, I have noticed that each time I switch a tab, it uses about 100k of system memory which never gets reclaimed! If I hold ctrl-tab down to cycle through all tabs, I can use up 200 megs of memory within a minute.
Now – I created a blank WPF app with just a tab control, and it also uses memory for each tab switch (albiet MUCH less). Is this just some .NET bug, or a feature? Maybe it stores a breadcrumb trail, maybe its used for debugging (although I compiled in release mode).
How do I reclaim my memory? Or better yet, not lose memory to tab switchings?
Good advice, but in the end I decided a bindable textblock was more useful and simpler than a richtextbox. I never found out what was causing the leak – but it was definitely in the bindablerichtextbox code (OnInitialized was being called each time a tab switched, which was beyond my control).
The leaks are gone, and my app runs quicker because of the use of the simpler bindable textblock.