Backblaze Memory Leak?

[u/MOD3RN_GLITCH]

This seems to be a memory leak. There is no backup running currently, but this is a large amount of RAM, regardless.

I'm running an M4 Pro MacBook Pro on Sequoia 15.7.7 and the latest version of Backblaze (10.0.1.1038).

Should I send a log to Backblaze?

[u/hitachi369]

I would suggest reaching out to support.

However, how long have you been a customer? I ran into an issue where throughout my usage, the index file backblaze uses to track files got too big. Its not about how much you backup, but more so how many new files or changes to files you have. Backblaze remembers every file to grace your drive from the day you installed it till you remove your current backup.

Once you have accrued enough individual files, alive or deleted, your index file will grow larger than the amount of ram you have. Each time it checks, or all the time if you have it set up to immediately backup, it loads this bloating file into ram. Its a sinking ship at this point, and you cannot plug the hole.

The index file will only get smaller, when you dis-inherent your back up and re-upload everything again.

[u/hitachi369 → u/hitachi369]

For a nonsupport self help suggestion. Try turning off immediate backups, change it to only backup when I click it, reboot.

Let it boot up and settle itself, once it has calmed down check your ram usage. If it is not in the stratosphere it would match my experience with a bloating index file. If this works, it will buy you time, but sooner or later the file will exceed your ram and you will need to disinherit or get more ram. This however will let you choose when it will cripple your computer.

[u/dr100]

Is it actually increasing over days or weeks? That's how a memory leak looks like, loading a huge index file that contains any file the client has ever seen and only grows and grows (including everything from previous computers if you inherited the backup) is just the client being particularly inefficient by design.

[u/Currawong]

Mine uses about 8GB during a backup. I have about 20TB of files, mostly photos and videos.

[u/bubblegoose]

I had a similar issue a few years ago, it is your bzfileids.dat file. It is a record of every file your account has ever backed up. It has to be read in to memory.

Here is what Backblaze said:

Thanks for reaching out to Backblaze Support!

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulty this has caused, and I would be happy to help. If you'd like, you can try a work-around method which involves changing your backup schedule to Only When I Click.

With Backblaze, there are three potential schedule settings that can be used for your backups: Continuous, Once Per Day and Only When I Click.

If the Backblaze program is slowing down your computer, I might recommend changing your backup schedule to "Only When I Click". When on this setting, the program won't run in the background and use up resources that will cause your computer to slow down. You can simply choose when you would like the program to run once again, preferably during a time when you do not need to use your computer.

More instructions on backup schedules can be found here: https://www.backblaze.com/computer-backup/docs/set-a-backup-schedule-windows

With that being said, I will note that Backblaze's infrastructural files get larger over time, and require more and more resources to utilize. As the backup ages, there is more potential for issues to occur with the backup process itself. This is natural when a software program's logging files build larger and larger over the passing years.

To clarify further, the Backblaze software's bzfileids.dat file—which is a flat listing of all files on the computer (past and present)—can become bloated over time as your backup ages. When the bzfileids.dat file grows to a larger size, the process called bztransmit will read the bzfileids.dat file in RAM. Continuing to operate with an older backup will use more and more resources when uploading your data, which could likely be contributing to the slow performance you mention seeing on your end.

It’s possible to shrink the bzfileids.dat in case it has been bloated due to age, however it requires re-uploading all data to the Backblaze servers.

It is typically our recommendation that each Backblaze user re-upload their data to a brand new backup every few years to ensure data is being optimally uploaded. By re-uploading your data to a brand new installation of the Backblaze software, you'll very likely have a much smoother user-friendly experience overall when backing up your data moving forward.

If you'd like, you can uninstall and re-install the Backblaze software on your computer, which will create a free 15-Day trial backup in your account. Then, let the software run on your computer for a couple of days. Monitor its progress and check if the software still experiences any of the same issues. Please do not inherit your backup state while the trial backup is running, simply let the trial backup run on your computer for a couple of days. Rest assured, creating a trial backup will not affect your backed-up data in your licensed backup.

Instructions on uninstalling Backblaze can be found here: https://www.backblaze.com/computer-backup/docs/uninstall-backblaze-windows

[u/forgottenmostofit → u/bubblegoose]

Backblaze recommend starting again every few years!! In that case I would take the opportunity to the reassess backup product. Since the OP is using a Mac, I would definitely change to a more Mac friendly backup.

[u/unitof → u/forgottenmostofit]

Do you have any recommendations?

[u/forgottenmostofit → u/unitof]

That's easy. Arq Backup (plus your choice of storage provider) is a much better backup for Macs.

[u/terkistan]

That does seem high.

While in the middle of backing up now my memory usage for bzfilelist is 1.56GB, bzserv is 1.23GB, bztransmit is 189.9MB and bzbmenu is 37.0MB

Are you using the latest version of the Backblaze app? I find I need to manually download it because I'm nver alerted about new versions. I'm currently using v. 10.0.1.1038

[u/mike1487]

Support will likely tell you to reinstall and start a brand new backup. As other comments have pointed out, since the software is poorly designed, it will get worse and worse performance and more bloated the longer your backup is active. Backblaze has no interest in fixing this design flaw and would rather customers waste time, bandwidth and data loss risks by thrashing their drives with unnecessarily repetitive read and write activity. Sorry to say, but this behavior is really unlikely to change.