Parsim function consumes lot of memory. How to clear temporary MATLAB files?

Hello everyone,

I'm running lots of simulations with parsim function. I realized that MATLAB started to store lots of temporary files in the "AppData\Local\Temp" folder. The used memory was increasing rapidly, and I received an alert from windows that the system memory was running out!

Then I divided the simulation in several parsim sessions, but the memory runned out again. Does it exists a way to clear those temporary files in that folder which have been created by MATLAB? Maybe I could do it between the various parsim sessions.

Thank a lot, Antonio

Answer 1

[Max Helbing]

I'm running into the same problem. When I use

parsim(simIn)

MATLAB stores loads of data in "AppData\Local\Temp".

I already tried

Simulink.sdi.cleanupWorkerResources 

after all simulations are done. But this is a just kind of a "cleanUpFcn" and does not prevent MATLAB to increasingly consume memory while performing parallel simulations.

I don't know where to integrate:

parfevalOnAll(gcp, @sdi.Repository.clearRepositoryFile, 0)

Is there a way to implement a "cleanUpFcn" that deletes all the unused temporary files in the simIn.postSimFcn? This would clean temporary working folders after each simulation.

[Ling Jiang]

Did you by any chance get the solution? I'm having exactly the same issue with 'parsim'.

[Max Helbing]

Unfortunately, I haven't found a solution. To make it work, I cleared memory, which is probably the simplest but definitely not the most elegant solution.

[Antonio Carlo Bertolino]

I inserted at the end of the script the command line

parfevalOnAll(gcp, @sdi.Repository.clearRepositoryFile, 0)

suggested by @Tony Mohan Varghese.

In addition, since my script creates several files that I don't want to save, before launching parsim, at the beginning of the script, I've added the following lines:

% Add to path the current folder (will be removed at the end of the script)
cwd = pwd;

oldpath = path;
path(oldpath,pwd)

tmpdir = tempname;
mkdir(tmpdir);
cd(tmpdir);

which add the current working directory to the path and change the working directory to a temporary one.

Then, all the code is executed.

In the end, the following lines try to remove ALL the temporary folders created by MATLAB in the current and in the past sessions, if any.

cd .. % Back up by 1 level in the folder tree

% Remove the temporary folder
list=dir;
result=regexp({list.name},'tp','match'); % Temporary folders start with tp
ind_folder=find(~cellfun(@isempty,result));
for kk = 1:length(ind_folder)
    folder = list(ind_folder(kk)).name;
    if 7 == exist(list(ind_folder(kk)).name,'dir')
        try
            rmdir(folder)
            disp(['Removed folder: ',list(ind_folder(kk)).name])
        catch
            disp('Ehi, folder',list(ind_folder(kk)).name],' not removed!')
        end
    end
end
clear folder list result ind_folder

cd(cwd) % Come back to the original working directory
path(oldpath) % Restore the original path list, removing the original working directory

This helped me to delete most of the temporary folders every time the script is launched.

The temporary folders created by MATLAB starts with "tp".

Hope this can help.

Answer 2

[Tony Mohan Varghese]

Use the following command to clear the temporary files.

 >> parfevalOnAll(gcp, @sdi.Repository.clearRepositoryFile, 0)

Temporary files are usually .dmr files created by SDI (Simulink Data Inspector). Here are the references: https://in.mathworks.com/help/distcomp/parfevalonall.html https://in.mathworks.com/help/simulink/slref/simulink.sdi.cleanupworkerresources.html

Answer 3

[Reid Spence]

For issues with computer running out of disk space refer to:

Why are there very large .DMR files filling up my hard drive TEMP directory when running "parsim" or "batchsim... - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com)

For issues related to running out of memory (RAM), refer to:

Receiving "Out of Memory" error when simulating model with parsim. Is there a way to reduce the amount of RAM used ... - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com)