Memory leak in python vboxapi

This is an issue with the python library in the sdk: sdk/install/vboxapi/__init__.py

If you create, then delete, a WEBSERVICE VirtualBoxManager object then it leaves 2 uncollectable objects in the garbage collector: vboxapi.VirtualBoxManager and ZSI.parse.ParsedSoap. The first is due to a circular reference, and the second due to a typo.

To replicate:

import gc
from vboxapi import VirtualBoxManager
creds = {'url': 'http://SERVER:18083', 'user': 'USERNAME', 'password': 'PASSWORD'}
manager = VirtualBoxManager('WEBSERVICE', creds)
del manager
gc.collect()
gc.garbage

This displays the uncollectable objects:

[<vboxapi.VirtualBoxManager object at 0x0235DED0>, <ZSI.parse.ParsedSoap instance at 0x0413D7D8>]

To workaround: Perform the following instead of "del manager":

manager.platform.disconnect()
del manager.mgr
del manager

The circular reference issue:

__init__.py has a circular reference at the end of the __init__ method of the VirtualBoxManager class (line 996):

 self.mgr = self;

The VirtualBoxManager class also defines a __del__ method (line 998).

A circular reference and a __del__ method mean that the object cannot be collected by the garbage collector (see ​https://docs.python.org/2/library/gc.html#gc.garbage).

The typo:

In file __init__.py, class PlatformWEBSERVICE, method deinit it calls disconnect(), where it should call self.disconnect() (line 878).

Thanks for letting us know... the circular reference was trivially replaced by a property and the rest you already served on the silver platter. Will try to wrap this up ASAP and pass you a new SDK package for testing.

Hopefully fixed SDK package is at https://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VirtualBoxSDK-4.3.21-98155.zip - feedback is very welcome.

I've tested the new one and the problem is fixed. Thanks very much.

Thanks for the quick feedback... will be included in the next 4.3 release.

Fix is part of VBox 4.3.22.