Huge spike in RAM usage

Help & Support
1

Hi,

Lately I've been noticing huge spikes in the usage of system resources, including CPU and RAM. I'm attaching a few screenshots and let me know how I can give you some more information to narrow down this problem.

It is a serious problem for me even though I've got 192 GB RAM. Dopus sometimes uses up to 80%, 90% of my RAM so I think there is a problem here.

Screenshot 2026-09-30 111035
Screenshot 2026-09-30 111035577×105 5.08 KB

Screenshot 2026-09-29 174446
Screenshot 2026-09-29 174446642×109 5.35 KB

2

When does the memory usage increase?

Is it only happening when entering certain folders, or ones with certain file types in them, or when certain columns are turned on?

Or when showing thumbnails or using the viewer?

If you do the same thing in File Explorer, does that also trigger a lot of memory usage by its processes?

3

Hi Leo.
Thanks for reply. This is only happening with DOpus. I think there are some tabs that are stuck. even after closing them they keep appearing. But these are old folder tht now have been renamed. Dopus starts off really low and then keeps going up and up on RAM. Should I try REinstalling? CAn I share some log or something with you ?
Screenshot 2026-09-30 141859

4

Is it only happening when entering certain folders, or ones with certain file types in them, or when certain columns are turned on?

Or when showing thumbnails or using the viewer?

5

I am not exactly sure when it is happening. It just crashed last night so I thought maybe it just crashed. There might have been a problem. Today I noticed that it is using up so much RAM so I posted here. Mostly my folders are the same as what is open in Directory Opus. I sometimes open new folders and close new folders but when I open Directory Opus, it is usually in the same state as I closed it. I'm not sure whether it's happening on certain files, certain file types, or certain folders. I will test and let you know. but this is aproblem for me because DOPUS is one program that is always open and one monitor only runs DOpus. One thing I noticed which i wrote above, one tab is glitched. comes back even after closing.

6

One thing to be aware of is that Opus normally stays running in the background, even after closing all windows/tabs. You can use File > Exit Directory Opus to shut it down and then restart it.

Working out which files / folders / operations trigger the memory usage is key, as it could be a lot of different things doing it, many of them not part of Opus itself.

(E.g. Shell extensions installed by something else are often the cause of memory leaks when they happen. There have also been cases where Opus itself was to blame, but those bugs are usually ones that have been found and fixed already unless they're in something quite obscure that no one else is running into. Working out what triggers it is the first step in working out where the problem is coming from and what needs fixing.)

7

Hi Leo, Jon,
CLAUDE GAVE ME THIS.

Thanks for the pointers. I've spent the evening narrowing it down, always shutting down with File > Exit (or killing dopus.exe) between tests. Here's what I found.

WHAT TRIGGERS IT

  • Only Thumbnails view in one folder: D:\DOWNLOADS 2019 (~3,000 files + ~150 sub-folders, 210 GB: archives, audio, video, installers, images, PDFs).
  • Opening the folder in Thumbnails view is fine. It starts the moment I scroll down to roughly the middle of the folder (it's sorted folders-first, by Created date). Within 2 seconds memory starts climbing.
  • The same folder in Details view: memory stays flat at ~100 MB, no matter how long I leave it.
  • Switching the same Opus session back from Details to Thumbnails sets it off again straight away.
  • Once it starts, it never stops by itself, even if I leave the folder. It only stops when dopus.exe is killed.
  • File Explorer on the same folder in Large icons view: [no memory growth / also grows]

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

  • One thread at 100% of a core; all other threads idle.
  • Private bytes grow 15-35 MB/s without limit. I've seen 8.9 GB, and once 127 GB committed.
  • VMMap: it's all Heap. At 3.5 GB it was 66,779 blocks, almost all 32 KB and 64 KB allocations. Private Data / Mapped File stay small.
  • About 300,000-400,000 ReadFile calls per second, each only ~4 bytes (about 1 MB/s of actual data).
  • The leaked blocks aren't file contents or bitmaps; ~85% look like internal structures.
  • The spinning thread's stack is mostly dopus.exe, one return address repeating (dopus.exe+0x18E6608). A second thread in the same snapshot was in msi.dll -> wintrust -> msisip (signature check on an .msi), and WebP.dll was on the stack of the busy thread.

WHEN IT STARTED

  • 29 Sep. That night Opus crashed: dopuslib.dll 13.25.0.0, exception 0xc0000409, offset 0xb5905 (I have the crash dump).
  • Every file in my thumbnail cache (%LOCALAPPDATA%\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\Thumbnail Cache, 1,634 files) was rewritten from 28 Sep, 10:52 PM onwards. So I think the cache got reset, and Opus is now regenerating thumbnails it previously had cached, and choking on one of them.
  • Opus itself hasn't changed since the 13.25 install on 24 Aug.

WHAT I'VE RULED OUT

  • The "stuck tab"/renamed folder: not related.
  • Clipboard managers (Pasteboard, Wispr Flow): killing them mid-leak didn't slow it, and it happens with both closed.
  • Sub-folders I tested on their own in Thumbnails view are fine (a DVD VIDEO_TS folder, two PowerGrade/LUT folders).
  • Deleting three suspect sub-folders from the area where it starts (incl. a multi-part RAR set missing part 1) didn't stop it.

SHELL EXTENSIONS LOADED IN dopus.exe
Nilesoft Shell, IDM (IDMShellExt64), Google Drive (drivefsext), pCloud (OverlayIcon64), Adobe CoreSync, OneDrive (FileSyncShell64), Bitdefender (atcuf64 / bdhkm64).

I have a full memory dump (2.1 GB) taken while it was leaking, plus the crash dump from the 29th, if you'd like them. Tell me where to upload.

If it helps, I can also try disabling specific thumbnail plugins or shell extensions to pin it down. Let me know which ones you'd like me to try first.

Thanks!

8

Is any of it factual, or did Claude just make all this up?

What does that mean? It both does and doesn't grow??

Please don't post AI-generated garbage to our forum. It just wastes everyone's time.

Please show us the full stacks rather than describe small parts of them.

9

Sorry to Post Ai content. But its not really AI, it has access to my machine. I was trying to solve the problem on my own the whole of yesterday because I use dopus A-LOT and being without it stalls my work.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Restore my settings from a back up. Then the same problem started again. As soon as I move the lister my downloads frolder to Thumbnail view. it starts again. to hog my ram. Any suggestions ?

10

You need to work out what type of files in the Downloads fólder is triggering the problem.

11

The problem goes away if i reinstall. but the moment i restore my backups the problem starts again. That means I have to fix up all my settings and customisation all over again. :frowning:
Is there any way for me to get only my interface customisations back ?

12

Have you tried disabling all scripts and plugins, or checking the built in opus task manager?

13

Work out which file is triggering the problem. That will make it easier to work out what is doing it.

The columns, scripts and plugins you're using may also be a factor. But you'll probably still need to know which file causes the issue so that whoever is responsible (whether it's us or someone else) can investigate, so I would still start there.

14

I couldnt find the problem. But I have extracted all my settings from the backup file. so now I have to manually set everything back the way it was. Thanks.