Content Server High Memory Usage

[Patrick Sparkman]

We've been noticing our Content Server this morning has been using a lot of memory, up to around 93%.  The top process is "helper.exe", it hasn't been transcoding or sending media files to external storage for about an hour now.

What is the typical memory used when the server is at idle?

[Martin Koch]

This is from a non clustered 2nd generation TCS with S5.3 (and hd option key):

which is up for around 1 month with dayly recordings. This is in "idle mode":

Maybe Magnus or somebody else has some comment on what causes the high load on the TCS helper process.

If you think it should do nothing and no transcoding or whatever job is queued, I would start with a reboot

and keep on monitoring the load.

[Patrick Sparkman]

This is our TCS (unclustered) last night under no load, which has daily recordings all the time.  The helper process has been sitting high for days.  I'm about to restart the server to see if there is any change, and monitor for the next few days.

[Magnus Ohm · Accepted solution]

Hey Patrick. What you see is not normal. Either reboot or try running the tcs repair procedure and see if it rectifies the issue.

/Magnus

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Patrick Sparkman]

We restarted the server this weekend, and the memory usage is back to normal.  At idle after reboot it was around 1.25GB, and right now while recording it's sitting around 2.5GB.  The helper.exe process that was at the top of the memory usage, is now in the middle way below what is was.

I'm not sure what caused the memory to spike in the first place, but glad at least a reboot corrected it.  I'm planning to monitor it for this coming week to see if it happens again.

Thanks!

[Martin Koch]

Besides the higher memory usage, did you see any issues?

If not (like extense swapping) I would just ignore it and see it as ok :-)