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Figma Helper (Renderer) is using excessive memory, why?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
June 7, 2021
107 replies
24590 views

Hello everyone, I’m trying to discern what the underlying issue is here. This has only been really presenting itself as a problem in the past few days, but for some reason almost any Figma project I have open winds up consuming essentially all of my system memory.

I’ve noticed that this happens regardless of how many project files I have open. While I’m not experiencing any crashing of the application, it does bring my work laptop to a grinding halt and creates an essentially unusable experience. Is there any reason Figma is utilizing so much memory? Are our working files just too large?

For reference, I’m using the desktop app on macOS 10.15.7 and as far as I am aware this is the latest version available.

I’m really scratching my head over this one as to why it’s popped up as an issue so suddenly. Granted this Macbook Pro is just a base configuration, so it may just be a performance limitation, but I wouldn’t expect Figma to be stressing the machine out worse than Adobe’s Creative Suite. Any insight is most welcome! Please let me know if you need any specific information.

Thanks Figma Community!

Ask the community

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Best answer by djv

Hey All, sorry for the lack of acknowledgement here!

Historically, the forum has been primarily run by the community, and I didn’t start at Figma until August 30th, 2021.

As a browser-based app, Figma uses available browser memory (~2GB per browser tab) while loading and saving, but it shouldn’t use much CPU.

Where you’re seeing the Agent or Helper using a lot of your available CPU, we suggest clearing the cache on your browser and/or desktop app. And if that doesn’t help, use an app cleaner to fully uninstall all Figma apps and then reinstall from our Downloads page.

Here’s how to clear the desktop app cache on a Mac:

Quit the Figma desktop app
Open Terminal.app and enter the following command:
rm -rf "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Figma/"{Desktop,DesktopProfile}
Try opening the desktop app again

And here’s how to clear the desktop app cache on Windows:

Close the Figma desktop app
Open the Start menu, and paste in this, followed by enter: %APPDATA%\Figma
In the window that opens, delete the Desktop and DesktopProfile folders if they exist
Launch the desktop app again

If this doesn’t help, can you reach out directly to our technical quality team here: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Please use your Figma account email, and let us know if this is affecting the Desktop app, browser or both, and provide a screenshot of your Activity monitor.

If this is affecting the Desktop app, please also save and send over your Desktop App debug info file. On Mac you can find this in the Help menu under Troubleshooting, and on Windows, you can find this under the toggle-arrow at the right of the top toolbar under Help > Troubleshooting.

Lastly, the community moderation team here on the forum does not own Figma_support, so please note that tagging this profile will not notify us.

Show previous replies

AbramAuthor

I haven’t had any resolution yet as I mentioned in my last post. I’ve been trying to diagnose & resolve the issue with Figma since originally posting in June, but we never came to a conclusion and now it appears the developer I was working with has left the company.

So unfortunately, no, we don’t have a solution yet, but I’m not giving up and I will keep this thread active in hopes we can get it resolved.

Sergey_Fomichev

Hello everyone! I have the same problem and have no solution from figma help. But! I have my own solution! I found out that Memory grow depends of Internet speed! If i turn off my internet connection while figma project loads, RAM grow stops too!!! I think it depends of lots of saves or copies in cloud. Please check it out on your PC

Apple

I think it’s a feature, not a bug /s

Edward_Battistini

This is definitely network related good spotting. @Sergey_Fomichev
But what i’m weirdly not understanding is that even if I’m not doing anything it keeps growing until It stops to grow.

Not wanting to solutionise but I looks like there is some sort of loop somewhere in the network that causes to increase the memory use to a certain point.
And that is directly related to the number of tabs open in the app.

This is observed in both the app and browser client with a single file open

Screenshot 2021-09-15 at 15.51.56

Apple

One thing I’ve noticed is that now the app uses a ton of animations for everything, even for opening a file.
I think there might be something to do with that?

Apple

There’s a new beta released today 102.9, feels a little bit snappier, but too soon to tell.

Seems initial loading animations have been modified to mitigate RAM usage.

EdwardB

New Member

Did not change much for me…

Apple

Same, still need to close tabs…

Sergey_Fomichev

I have the same and with Only ONE tab) Just a big project

Vladimir_Mikulic

I can confirm that this issue occurs for me on both, Linux and MacOS.
On Linux, it eats up all 8 GB of my laptop’s RAM and it does the same on MacOS. (16 GB of RAM!)

Figma team, could you please take a look at this bug?
The product is unusable!

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