I have a question regarding garbage-collection in google chrome (Version 20.0.1132.47, Ubuntu 11.04 64bit).
While comparing heap-dumps and checking for memory-leaks, I discovered some instances, that are never cleaned up. Normally this behaviour can be tracked down to a programmer-error, but in this case I'm rather clueless..
Take a look at the following screenshot
The instance 'child @610739' is referenced only by 'bound_this' instances that belong to functions of the child-instance itself. So to my understanding, the child-instance should be garbage-collected, as the only other reference keeping hold of it is the child-instance itself (through the 'bound_this' functions).
I'm using underscore.js' 'bindAll' utility function (underscore.js#bindAll) that maps to the 'native_bind' function of chrome (ECMA Script wiki on bound_this)
Am I missing something obvious here and if so, could someone explain what's keeping these instances alive?
UPDATE:
In the meanwhile I tested the same application in chrominium (18.0.1025.168 (Developer Build 134367 Linux) Ubuntu 11.10) which does not show these dangling instances..
UPDATE 2:
Following Esailijas hint to provide a jsfiddle snippet, I created one (http://jsfiddle.net/8gSTR/1/) that mimics what I'm basically doing. Running this fiddle unfortunately does not show the misbehaviour I'm experiencing in my application. A heap-dump taken while 'a'-instances are still referenced looks kind of similar though despite of the reference from the window.o array which keeps the instances alive:
As such a reference is missing in my case (screenshot 1) I don't know what keeps chrome from freeing these instances...
UPDATE 3:
Followed loislos advice to enable hidden properties. The result (with one of the branches expanded) can be seen in the following screenshot but it does not take me any further.
