KB-1226 Content (collaboration) engine consumes high memory

Symptoms

The Content (Collaboration) engine's database process occupies high memory on RAM when compared to the size of the .kdb file on disk. The general rule of thumb is that the .kdb files should consume roughly 2.5 times the amount of RAM as they do disk space, in gigabytes.

Cause

This issue is usually caused by a large number of versions of a single constant, which increases the memory footprint of the Content engine and can also cause slowness.

Action

1. Download and install the latest version of Content Tools.
2. Run the following command to identify all objects with 100+ versions getContentObjectsWithNumOfVersions(100,all,true).
   1. Note: Only run this off-hours on production systems to avoid potential user impact.
3. Export, delete, and re-import all objects in the list to clear out excessive versions.
4. Restart Appian to reclaim memory.
5. For each constant identified with too many versions, update the application to stop creating new versions:
   1. Search the constant's dependents in Appian Designer to find the process model where the constant is updated. 
   2. Update the Update Constant Smart Service to not create versions by setting input Create New Version: false.
   3. Alternatively, if the constant is just used as an incrementing counter, use the Increment Constant Smart Service instead, which does not create versions.

Affected Versions

This article applies to all versions of Appian.

Last Reviewed: June 2023