How can I clear the RAM memory used by MATLAB without closing the window?

Hello everybody, I need your help!

I am using MATLAB and the Kinect for Windows to acquire the skeletal data and everything is going fine. However, after a while, I get an error due to insufficient free RAM memory. The acquisition is stopped and I try everything to clear the memory: clear, clear all, clearvars -global, close all, but nothing works - the memory is not cleared and I can't acquire more data.

Can anybody tell me a command to clear the RAM memory without closing the window?

Thank for your attention. Best regards.

[Juan Reyes]

Hello André, Did you find the solution? I'm having kind of the same problem here. Thank you!

[Adhiti Raman]

I'm having the same issue. Did either one of you find out how to fix this?

Answer 1

[Jan]

There are 2 causes for an exhausted RAM:

1. The code requires more RAM than you have.
2. There is a memory leak in the code. While this is very rare in Matlab code, it can happen in C code very easily. Posting the used code would help to identify the problem.

In the case 1., the standard solutions are:

• Install more RAM
• Use 64 bit versions of Matlab and OS
• Close other applications
• Use the smallest suitable data type. If you store a list of data, which has integer values from 0 to 255, using a double requires 8 byte per element, while an uint8 needs 1 byte only.
• Increase the virtual memory of the operating system
• But the most powerful solution is point 1: Install more physical RAM. More more more.

For case 2.: We cannot guess the reasons without seeing the code or at least the names and versions of the used libraries and Matlab.

[Adhiti Raman]

In this case, I don't think more RAM was the answer. I have 16 GB RAM, which should have been more than enough. I don't know why the error showed up, but deleting the imaq object with imaqreset before running my code again worked.

[Matthew Creek]

Here are some links to related documentation:

Topic: Resolve "Out of Memory" Errors

Topic: Strategies for Efficient Use of Memory

Answer 2

[Adhiti Raman]

So I fixed this error by running imaqreset at the start of my code.

https://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/1422542