Memory leak on real device only

[EArminjon]

🐛 Bug Report

On real device Android & iOS this package have a memory leak.

Our app got some crash in production because of this issue : we have a long list of product inside a paginated infinite list. User can scroll on it and some of them reported crash. After investigation we discover this memory leak.

Expected behavior

Constant RSS usage

Reproduction steps

Use code bellow and check on devtools the memory usage graph.

With CachedNetworkImage : (increase during scroll)

With Image.network: (stable during scroll)

import 'package:cached_network_image/cached_network_image.dart';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(const MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const MyApp({super.key});

  // This widget is the root of your application.
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Demo',
      theme: ThemeData(
        colorScheme: ColorScheme.fromSeed(seedColor: Colors.deepPurple),
        useMaterial3: false,
      ),
      home: const Home(),
    );
  }
}

class Home extends StatefulWidget {
  const Home({super.key});

  @override
  State<Home> createState() => _HomeState();
}

class _HomeState extends State<Home> {
  bool useCachedNetwork = true;

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Builder(
      builder: (BuildContext context) {
        return Scaffold(
          appBar: AppBar(
            title: const Text("Memory leak"),
          ),
          floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton.extended(
            label: Text(
              "Use ${useCachedNetwork ? "Image.network" : "CachedNetworkImage"}",
            ),
            onPressed: () {
              setState(() => useCachedNetwork = !useCachedNetwork);
            },
          ),
          body: ListView.builder(
            itemBuilder: (BuildContext context, int index) => SizedBox(
              height: 80,
              child: Card(
                child: Padding(
                  padding: const EdgeInsets.all(16),
                  child: Row(
                    children: <Widget>[
                      AspectRatio(
                        aspectRatio: 1,
                        child: useCachedNetwork
                            ? CachedNetworkImage(
                                imageUrl: "https://picsum.photos/id/$index/1000/1000",
                                errorListener: (_) {},
                                progressIndicatorBuilder: (
                                  BuildContext context,
                                  String url,
                                  DownloadProgress progress,
                                ) =>
                                    Center(
                                  child: CircularProgressIndicator(
                                    value: progress.progress,
                                  ),
                                ),
                                errorWidget: (_, __, ___) => const Center(
                                  child: Icon(Icons.error),
                                ),
                              )
                            : Image.network(
                                "https://picsum.photos/id/$index/1000/1000",
                                errorBuilder: (_, __, ___) => const Center(
                                  child: Icon(Icons.error),
                                ),
                              ),
                      ),
                      const SizedBox(width: 16),
                      Expanded(
                        child: Text(
                          index.toString(),
                        ),
                      ),
                    ],
                  ),
                ),
              ),
            ),
          ),
        );
      },
    );
  }
}

Configuration

Versions:

flutter: 3.16.8
cached_network_image: 3.3.1

Platform:

• 📱 iOS
• 🤖 Android (Pixel 7 Android 14)