Support Assist Memory Leak Windows 11 in supportassistagent.exe

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Welcome to the Dell Community @IMR-7400 

Did you check your Driver Support page for an updated Support Assist???

Did you compare the SA reading to that of the Task Managers performance readings???

Have you tried to submit Feedback to the Microsoft Developers to see if it is a W11 problem???

It would help if we knew the exact model number of the laptop???

Did you upgraded from W10 to W11???

Best regards,

U2

"I have uninstalled the support assist and installed the latest software"

Does that mean that you uninstalled SA (SupportAssist), then reinstalled SA?

If you uninstalled SA and did NOT reinstall it, then SA Agent is no longer using resources. That points to other software running. Run the Resource Monitor Memory again and sort it by Commit (KB) high to low.

I own a Dell Vostro 5415 and I also confirm that the SupportAssistAgent.exe program on my new notebook is using a very high amout of RAM in the background, in my case it has a commit working set in KB of 596572. After a fresh restart.

Seems to be indeed a bit high.

Hi @DELL-Chris M :

What is the best way to diagnose a memory leak from SupportAssist?

After reading IMR-7400's post I wanted to see if I could detect a memory leak from SupportAssist v3.10.4.18 on my Win 10 v21H1 machine with 8 GB of RAM. I used the Windows Resource Monitor to monitor memory usage over 4 days (no re-boot, laptop was plugged in and used normally during the day, and unplugged and left in Sleep Mode overnight). I didn't detect a serious memory leak from SupportAssistAgent.exe, although Commit size did seem to increase slightly over time, but I was surprised to see that the SuportAssistAgent.exe procees was constantly consuming 600 MB to 630 MB of Commit memory (which I understand is the physical memory used by the process plus the amount of virtual memory reserved for the paging file), even minutes after a power shutdown and fresh restart. That memory usage by SupportAssistAgent.exe is well in excess of the Commit size of my Microsoft Defender antivirus and Malwarebytes Premium anti-malware (which also runs in real-time protection mode), and that doesn't even include the memory used by other Dell processes like dsapi.exe (Dell Hardware Support), FusionSerivce.exe, etc.

Note that I have most background tasks in SupportAssist disabled, including all scheduled update and system optimization scans, notifications, and System Repair (Dell SupportAssist Remediation service is also disabled - I have Macrium Reflect Free installed for emergency recovery). The only automated SupportAssist process that runs in the background is submission of telemetry data (Settings | Privacy | I authorize Dell to collect my Service Tag and system usage details mentioned above | ON). The only on-demand scans I run manually from the SupportAssist Home tab are "Get Drivers & Downloads" and "Scan Hardware".

Here's a few screenshots of Resource Monitor I captured over the a 26 hour period with processes sorted from highest to lowest Commit size. Note that all third-party software like MS Office, Firefox, etc. were closed when the screenshots were captured and the only open programs were Task Manager and Resources Monitor unless other wise noted (see images D and F). My laptop was plugged in during the entire test and was left in Sleep Mode when not in use (i.e., no re-boot throughout test).

A. Immediately After Fresh Re-boot and Login to Windows (Dec 6 @ 6:13 AM)

• No SuportAssistAgent.exe listed in processes (39% Physical Memory used in total)

B. Two Minutes After Re-boot (Dec 6 @ 6:15 AM)

• Commit = 596.5 MB, Private = 66.3 MB (46% Physical Memory used in total)

C. Three Hours After Re-boot (Dec 6 @ 9:22 AM - Boot-up)

• Commit = 599.9 MB, Private = 28.7 MB (42% Physical Memory used in total)

D. Seven Hours After Re-boot While Running Manual SupportAssist "Get Drivers & Downloads" Check (Dec 6 @ 1:27 PM)

• Commit = 616.5 MB, Private = 69.6 MB (53% Physical Memory used in total)
• All  other programs like Firefox, MS Outlook, etc. closed
• SA update check found 2 available updates (SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools v5.5.0.16046, Realtek Memory Card Reader Driver v10.0.18362.31252, which I unchecked/declined before closing the SupportAssist interface

E. Seven Hours After Re-Boot, Five Minutes After SupportAssist GUI Closed (Dec 6 @ 1:39 PM)

• Commit = 623.0 MB, Private = 74.7 MB (48% Physical Memory used in total)

F. Twenty-Six Hours After Boot-up with Multiple Programs Open (Dec 7 @ 7:48 AM)

• Commit = 623.4 MB, Private = 17.2 MB (69% Physical Memory used in total)
• Left computer in Sleep Mode over night, took computer out of Sleep Mode at ~ 6:15 AM and used computer normally for ~ 1.5 hours
• When screenshot F captured, Firefox v94 (multiple tabs open), MS Outlook 2019, Windows File Explorer and Notepad were open

G. Twenty-Six Hours After Boot-up with Programs Closed (Dec 7 @ 7:52 AM)

• Commit = 623.4 MB, Private = 17.3 MB (45% Physical Memory used in total)
• As for F, but closed all open programs and waited a few minutes for memory usage to stabilize

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64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H1 build 19043.1348 * Firefox v95.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v.4.18.2110.6-1.1.18700.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.4.11.149-1.0.1513 * Dell SupportAssist v3.10.4.18 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.0.16041 * Dell Update for Windows 10 Universal v4.4.0 * Dell Power Manager v3.10.0 
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

same problem here

I also am having this same issue.  My Inspiron 5577 freezes often even after startup.  When I end the task for supportassistagent.exe  I can work on my laptop again.

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@CelticDev wrote:

I also am having this same issue.  My Inspiron 5577 freezes often even after startup.  When I end the task for supportassistagent.exe  I can work on my laptop again.

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Hi CelticDev:

Please note that this thread was started in Oct 2021 just after SupportAssist v3.10.3.3 was released and discussed a possible memory leak from SupportAssistAgent.exe.  A memory leak from SupportAssistAgent.exe would typically occur if the RAM memory used by this executable was not released back into the pool of free memory each time SupportAssist finished running a scheduled background task and the amount of memory used by  SupportAssistAgent.exe slowly increased over time until the system began to run out of free memory.

Has your system updated to the current SupportAssist v3.11.4.29 (released 23-Jun-2022)? Many users have encountered problems either installing or running this new version of SupportAssist, so if you require assistance with this software it would be best if you start your own topic in the SupportAssist for PCs board. Be sure to include your full Inspiron 5577 model (i.e., Inspiron 15 Gaming 5577), the version and build of your Win 11 OS (shown at Settings | System | About | Windows specifications) and whether you have a Home or Pro edition of Win 11, your current version of Dell SupportAssist shown at Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features, and whether you have the latest Dell Inspiron 5577 System BIOS v1.1.3 (rel. 09-Jul-2022) listed <here> on the support page for the Inspiron 15 Gaming 5577 (open a Run dialog box, enter msinfo32 to open your System Information panel, and look for the “BIOS Version/Date” field). It would also help to know if your service warranty is still valid and whether the .NET (Core) Runtime v5.0.17 discussed in samsuzzoha's 28-Jul-2022 thread SupportAssist Not Updating is installed at Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Feature, since this .NET Runtime v5.x is a new system requirement for SupportAssist v3.11.4.29.

If your system has already updated to SupportAssist v3.11.4.29 and you believe that your system freezes are caused by an actual memory leak by SupportAssistAgent.exe (i.e., where the memory used by this executable steadily increases over time and never drops until you re-boot your computer) it would help if you could post a few screen shots of your Resosurce Monitor like the images posted in this thread (Task Manager | Performance tab | Open Resource Monitor | Memory tab) showing the amount of memory your SupportAssistAgent.exe is consuming over time. It's always possible that you don't have a slow memory leak, but that SupportAssistAgent.exe is simply hogging huge amounts of CPU and/or RAM memory while SupportAssist is either trying to auto-update to v3.11.4.29 or is running a background scheduled task (e.g., installing a large update like the Dell SupportAssist OS Recovery Tools) and causing your system to freeze.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1826 * Firefox v103.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2205.7-1.1.19400.3 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.5.12.204-1.0.1725 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.6867 * Dell SupportAssist v3.11.4.29 * Dell Update Windows Universal v4.5.0 * Inspiron 5583/5584 v1.18.0
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

My Dell support assistance service was consuming a ridiculous 21GB of ram which took 98% or the memory available on the system and grounded Win11 to a halt.

How is it possible that an app like this can be so badly designed and doesn't have resource limits in place.?

The worst part is that this problem seems to be around for years.