Rapidly updating image with Data URI causes caching, memory leak

Question

I have a webpage that rapidly streams JSON from the server and displays bits of it, about 10 times/second. One part is a base64-encoded PNG image. I've found a few different ways to display the image, but all of them cause unbounded memory usage. It rises from 50mb to 2gb within minutes. Happens with Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. Haven't tried IE.

I discovered the memory usage first by looking at Activity Monitor.app -- the Google Chrome Renderer process continuously eats memory. Then, I looked at Chrome's Resource inspector (View > Developer > Developer Tools, Resources), and I saw that it was caching the images. Every time I changed the img src, or created a new Image() and set its src, Chrome cached it. I can only imagine the other browsers are doing the same.

Is there any way to control this caching? Can I turn it off, or do something sneaky so it never happens?

Edit: I'd like to be able to use the technique in Safari/Mobile Safari. Also, I'm open to other methods of rapidly refreshing an image if anyone has any ideas.

Here are the methods I've tried. Each one resides in a function that gets called on AJAX completion.

Method 1 - Directly set the src attribute on an img tag

Fast. Displays nicely. Leaks like crazy.

$('#placeholder_img').attr('src', 'data:image/png;base64,' + imgString);

Method 2 - Replace img with a canvas, and use drawImage

Displays fine, but still leaks.

var canvas = document.getElementById("placeholder_canvas");
var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
var img = new Image();
img.onload = function() {
    ctx.drawImage(img, 0, 0); 
}   
img.src = "data:image/png;base64," + imgString;

Method 3 - Convert to binary and replace canvas contents

I'm doing something wrong here -- the images display small and look like random noise. This method uses a controlled amount of memory (grows to 100mb and stops), but it is slow, especially in Safari (~50% CPU usage there, 17% in Chrome). The idea came from this similar SO question: Data URI leak in Safari (was: Memory Leak with HTML5 canvas)

var img = atob(imgString);
var binimg = [];
for(var i = 0; i < img.length; i++) {
    binimg.push(img.charCodeAt(i));
}
var bytearray = new Uint8Array(binimg);

// Grab the existing image from canvas
var ctx = document.getElementById("placeholder_canvas").getContext("2d");
var width = ctx.canvas.width, 
    height = ctx.canvas.height;
var imgdata = ctx.getImageData(0, 0, width, height);

// Overwrite it with new data
for(var i = 8, len = imgdata.data.length; i < len; i++) {
    imgdata.data[i-8] = bytearray[i];
}

// Write it back
ctx.putImageData(imgdata, 0, 0);

Answer 1

I know it's been years since this issue was posted, but the problem still exists in recent versions of Safari Browser. So I have a definitive solution that works in all browsers, and I think this could save jobs or lives!.

Copy the following code somewhere in your html page:

// Methods to address the memory leaks problems in Safari
var BASE64_MARKER = ';base64,';
var temporaryImage;
var objectURL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;

function convertDataURIToBlob(dataURI) {
    // Validate input data
    if(!dataURI) return;

    // Convert image (in base64) to binary data
    var base64Index = dataURI.indexOf(BASE64_MARKER) + BASE64_MARKER.length;
    var base64 = dataURI.substring(base64Index);
    var raw = window.atob(base64);
    var rawLength = raw.length;
    var array = new Uint8Array(new ArrayBuffer(rawLength));

    for(i = 0; i < rawLength; i++) {
        array[i] = raw.charCodeAt(i);
    }

    // Create and return a new blob object using binary data
    return new Blob([array], {type: "image/jpeg"});
}

Then when you receive a new frame/image base64Image in base64 format (e.g. data:image/jpeg;base64, LzlqLzRBQ...) and you want to update a html <img /> object imageElement, then use this code:

// Destroy old image
if(temporaryImage) objectURL.revokeObjectURL(temporaryImage);

// Create a new image from binary data
var imageDataBlob = convertDataURIToBlob(base64Image);

// Create a new object URL object
temporaryImage = objectURL.createObjectURL(imageDataBlob);

// Set the new image
imageElement.src = temporaryImage;

Repeat this last code as much as needed and no memory leaks will appear. This solution doesn't require the use of the canvas element, but you can adapt the code to make it work.