How to use IntelliTrace Standalone Collector to detect memory leaks in production .Net applications?

Question

Visual Studio 2012RC has the ability to use externally collected trace files of IIS app pool data collected by the IntellitTrace Standalone Collector. I know that in my production app there is some kind of memory leak that is apparent after a few hours of monitoring.

I now have my large iTrace file ready to plug into VS2012, but would like to know how to find the questionable object.

I am also in the process of using the Debugger tools and following these instructions. However, run into an error indicating that the appropriate CLR files (or something like that) are not loaded when trying to do the .load SOS or any other command.

I was hoping to see a similar address list and consumed memory in the IntelliTrace analyzer - is this possible?

Some assistance would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Intellitrace only profiles events and method calls. You won't get information on individual objects or memory leaks because it's not tracking memory. There's also no event provided for object creation/destruction so you can't infer that in any case.

To track memory you will have to use the profiling tools on your app, though don't attach them to your production server! Use a test environment for it and see if you can replicate the problem.