"gogdl" runaway memory usage

[Kieni1]

Describe the bug

When auto-updates/background downloads are enabled, gogdl ‘update’ gets stuck (download 0MB/s) and one gogdl process grows unbounded RSS (tens of GB) while additional gogdl processes remain after closing Heroic.

Observed behavior
gogdl memory increases continuously (on my system ~1% RAM per second) and reaches tens of GB RSS → system runs out of memory.
Reproducible while updating games and/or when “Run downloads in background” is enabled.
System kills Heroic due to RAM usage after ~20min with official RPM, ~5min with Flatpak (Flathub).
gogdl processes are not stopped when Heroic is closed.

two minutes after starting heroic:
ps -eo pid,ppid,cmd,%mem,rss --sort=-rss | head -6
PID PPID CMD %MEM RSS
216686 216642 ./gogdl --auth-config-path 6.4 4248184
217008 216960 ./gogdl --auth-config-path 4.5 2984740
3276 1799 /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox 0.7 468456
8956 8884 /home/myPC/.local/share/Ste 0.6 426808
192906 3367 /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox 0.5 380156

Notes
gogdl processes continue running even after Heroic is closed.
Killing gogdl immediately frees memory.
Clearing ~/.var/app/com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl/data/heroic/gogdl fixes it temporarily.
Flatpak exhibits faster memory growth than RPM on my system (likely due to fewer constraints).
Game updates fail/crash observed regularly starting with Heroic v2.18.1.

Add logs

Logs (shortened)
(13:53:52) [DEBUG]: [Gog]: Logging to file(s) ".../logs/runners/gog.log"

# Normal progress
(13:53:59) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Progress for Manor Lords: 9.99%/357.99MB/... Down: 81.81MB/s / Disk: 188.6MB/s

# Enters stall (download drops to 0 and stays there)
(13:54:05) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Progress for Manor Lords: 11.19%/655.38MB/... Down: 0MB/s / Disk: 1MB/s

# Repeated warnings during stall
(13:54:04) [WARNING]: No clientId in goggame-1460731635.info file. Cannot resolve save path

# Heroic repeatedly executes gogdl auth during stall
(13:54:18) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Running command: .../gogdl --auth-config-path .../auth.json auth
(13:54:24) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Running command: .../gogdl --auth-config-path .../auth.json auth
(13:56:31) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Running command: .../gogdl --auth-config-path .../auth.json auth

# Auto-update trigger
(13:54:16) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Found 3 game(s) to update
(13:54:35) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Auto-Updating Svarog's Dream
(13:54:35) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Auto-Updating Manor Lords
(13:54:35) [INFO]:  [Gog]: Auto-Updating Frostpunk 2


**ps -aux | grep gogdl**

/app/.../gogdl -O -B -S -I -c from multiprocessing.resource_tracker import main;main(33)
./gogdl ... update 1361243432 ... --max-workers 16
./gogdl ... update 1361243432 ... --max-workers 16
./gogdl ... update 1361243432 ... --max-workers 16
./gogdl ... update 1361243432 ... --max-workers 16

# runaway instance:
./gogdl ... update 1361243432 ... --max-workers 16   CPU~98%  RSS~36146164 KB

Steps to reproduce

Settings → General → Automatically update games = ON
Trigger a library refresh (manual refresh or app startup) and let auto-updates start.

Observe:
downloads may stall (Down: 0MB/s)
one gogdl update process grows unbounded RSS
additional gogdl processes may accumulate

Close Heroic → observe gogdl processes still running.

Expected behavior

gogdl memory usage should be bounded
Heroic should monitor and restart or terminate gogdl on runaway memory usage
A sane upper limit (e.g. 2–4 GB RSS) would prevent system-wide OOM situations

Screenshots

No response

Heroic Version

Latest Stable

System Information

OS: Fedora Linux 43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.4 (Wayland)
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.17.12-300.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit)
CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K (16 threads)
Memory: 64 GiB of RAM (62.7 GiB usable)
Graphics P: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER (ASUS) / NVIDIA-SMI 580.119.02 Driver Version: 580.119.02 CUDA Version: 13.0

Additional information

Heroic Package 2.18.1 : Flatpak (Flathub), same behaviour observed with official .rpm

[Kieni1]

[Nocifer]

Came to report the same thing.

The issue is not tied to the "Automatically upload games" config option, it also happens if you try to update a game manually; the update stalls either immediately or at some point before 100% and even if the update process is cancelled and Heroic is closed, gogdl remains alive and leaks RAM until either the system freezes or the OOM killer kicks in and kills it.

This doesn't happen all the time though, most games update just fine. And I do seem to remember that I've previously encountered this bug a couple of years ago and with the exact same game (Disco Elysium in my case) so it may be tied to some specific common factor between the affected games that borks gogdl, just like with e.g. #4132.

@Kieni1 have you tried updating these three games manually (especially Manor Lords) to check if the issue persists with one or more of them?

[Raddiksan]

@Kieni1 have you tried updating these three games manually (especially Manor Lords) to check if the issue persists with one or more of them?

I'm here to report the same issue. It happened to me without the auto-update on, when right clicking and manually updating a GoG game (Manor lords). The download hung at around 12% and it used up all 64gb of ram before the process was stopped. I haven't tried any other games, but it definitely happened with manner lords.

As an added note, this only appears to happen when (manner lords at least) actually needs an update. I just ran "Force update if available" and it checked and cleared fine because I am already on the latest version of the game. When this occurred for me yesterday the game needed to be updated.

Heroic Version 2.18.1
OS: CachyOS x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.18.2-3-cachyos
DE: KDE Plasma 6.5.4 (wayland)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (16) @ 5.27 GHz
GPU 1: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT [Discrete]
Memory: 64GiB (60.43 Usable)

[CommandMC]

Please try using the gogdl binary from this Workflow run: https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/heroic-gogdl/actions/runs/20465760244. For non-GitHub users who stumble upon this thread, you can download the binary without an account here: https://nightly.link/Heroic-Games-Launcher/heroic-gogdl/actions/runs/20465760244

To use it

• Download the archive for your OS and extract the gogdl/gogdl.exe binary
• Linux-only: Make sure the binary is executable
  • With Dolphin, you can confirm that by opening the file properties (right-click -> "Properties"), opening the "Permissions" tab and making sure the "Allow executing file as program" checkbox is checked
• Steam Deck/Flatpak only: Move the binary to ~/Games/Heroic/
• In Heroic, open "Settings" (sidebar) -> "Advanced" and select the binary

[Nocifer]

Yup, in my case the issue has been fixed. Thanks!

[jardayn]

for those using search:
On Mac: open "Settings" (sidebar) -> "Advanced" and select the binary

[h0m3]

Can confirm on Heroic 2.18.1 Flatpak with KDE Plasma 6.5.4 on Arch Linux. Will test updating gogdl as instructed and return if it does fix. Also on the last update of Manor Lords.

[Kieni1]

Please try using the gogdl binary from this Workflow run: https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/heroic-gogdl/actions/runs/20465760244. For non-GitHub users who stumble upon this thread, you can download the binary without an account here: https://nightly.link/Heroic-Games-Launcher/heroic-gogdl/actions/runs/20465760244

Can confirm problem solved with this gogdl binary. The problematic download went through without the problems stated above. Only one gogdl proc is visible.