Huge memory spike on one HEIC file

[urthling]

Hi,

Memory usage for a 10MB (16k x 3k) is about 300MB. However, the attached file uses over 2GB.

Note, to allow this to upload, I changed the file extension to GIF but this is a HEIC

Any thoughts?

[catdad]

Hmm... I do see that the attached image uses quite a bit of memory. I see that the memory is being used by the libheif decoding code, and I am not entirely sure what is or isn't expected there.

You mentioned "a 16k x 3k image is about 300MB". Where does this value come from? Do you have one such heif image that uses 300MB and this second attached one uses 2GB? If you have a second image like that, can you please upload that as well so that I can compare them?

[urthling]

First off, thank you for putting this project out there, this is the only project I've found that works for me, so great job!

Ah, the rest of the images are actually JPGs my bad. So this was the only HEIC. My environment is restricted, so I'm going to limit HEICs to 8K for the time being.

Mmm, the process doesn't seem to spike in the same way with this decoder:
https://strukturag.github.io/libheif/

[catdad]

Interesting. This project uses the same library as your link, just a newer version. Let me see what I can find

[suan]

I'm getting the same issue. Basically any "Live" image taken from an iPhone results in a huge >1GB memory spike when being converted, even if just using the first frame.

[suan]

Could strukturag/libheif#493 have fixed this?

[mohammed-almujil]

Hi,

I appreciate the work done to put together this library.

I am getting a huge memory spike when converting HEIC to JPEG using a pic taken from an iPhone 4032x3024. I am using Node/docker with 1gb RAM, it spikes from 92mb to to 500mb and keeps on leaking causing OOM after several image conversions.

I am not too concern about the spikes but more about the OOM. I found a workaround by converting to PNG instead of JPEG. It still spikes but at least it clears to around 140mb which is not too bad and seems consistent so far.

[catdad]

Hey all. Thanks for these reports. I don't have a lot of time these days to investigate. To make it easier, having repro steps would help, including attaching any necessary images. Some further information might help, like whether you are seeing issues with all images or only specific ones. And as always, PRs are welcome!

[markoffk]

@catdad Here is example file (sample1.heif) which eats 3GB of RAM during convert from HEIF to JPG:
https://filesamples.com/formats/heif

[jalik]

Hello, I have the same issue with the sample file given by @markoffk.
I also have the following error:

Image to composite must have same dimensions or smaller {"error":{"message":"Image to composite must have same dimensions or smaller","name":"Error","stack":"Error: Image to composite must have same dimensions or smaller"}}

[yamiteru]

So basically this library is completely useless unless you want to convert heic to png. And it seems the author doesn't maintain this repo. Great.

[jalik]

So basically this library is completely useless unless you want to convert heic to png. And it seems the author doesn't maintain this repo. Great.

Maintaining one or more libraries is hard and not often rewardful (in open source world).
Don't forget that these people were kind enough to share their projects with us.
Today they may not be able to continue for whatever reason, thus you have several options:

• find a workaround (if possible) in your project until a fix is released (like converting HEIC to PNG, then to JPEG with another tool)
• investigate and submit a pull request with a fix
• fork the project and add/fix what you want yourself (don't depend on anybody, rely on yourself)
• fork the project and pay someone to do the work for you (need money)
• find an alternate library

Hope you'll find the way to go.