Discord is testing an automatic restart function that intervenes when RAM consumption exceeds 4 GB, which has been met with a lot of malice from the community.
In recent years, there have been repeated reports that various frequently used programs wanted to counteract excessive memory usage.
- Microsoft recently confirmed that its video communication tool Teams has such a problem.
- Discord is another popular application that has repeatedly made headlines under Windows 11 due to so-called “memory leaks.”
- The developers are currently working on a solution that immediately caused controversy—but an official statement smoothed the waters.
Automatic restart is only a temporary solution
Let’s turn back the clock a few days: On December 3, 2025, X user “WumpusCentral” discovered a new test feature from Discord that was an (ironically intended) fix for the memory leaks.
- According to this, the app “monitors” its own RAM usage and intervenes as soon as it exceeds 4 GB. If this is the case, the app restarts automatically.
- However, a restart can only take place if you are not actively using the Discord app. Furthermore, this process cannot be triggered if you are on a call.
This is not a real solution to the problem. Figuratively speaking, Discord is merely emptying the overflowing ship without fixing the actual leak.
This led to a lot of criticism from the community, who accused the developers of no longer understanding their own code.
🧹 Discord is finally “fixing” memory leaks! /s
The client is testing a feature that monitors its own RAM usage and performs an intentional restart to clear resources if it reaches 4 GB while you’re AFK.
No restarts occur if you’re currently in a call. pic.twitter.com/pNZbnIlw5j
— Wumpus Central (@WumpusCentral) December 3, 2025
Link to Twitter content
Discord itself responded shortly afterwards on Reddit shortly thereafter.
“First things first,” as the Discord employee writes: This solution is only a temporary measure that is explicitly intended to be of limited duration.
The auto-restarts are a kind of stopgap solution to counter particularly severe cases of high RAM usage while the development team works on a “proper” bug fix.
Basically, Discord launched an initiative last month to fix the memory issues with the Windows app.
So far, more than nine such causes have been found and fixed; in addition, new telemetry tools are intended to help monitor memory usage more effectively.
Electron framework as the cause of memory problems
According to Windows Latest in the Electron framework used, which is based on Chromium and Node.js.
- Each server, channel, and feature within the application effectively opens a new tab in a browser instance, which continuously increases memory consumption.
- The same applies to the Windows native app for WhatsApp Messenger (if you’re wondering why the application can take up so much RAM: this is why).
In some configurations, this can lead to significant memory leaks in Discord, especially when hardware-accelerated rendering is enabled.
The GPU-accelerated web renderer component, in combination with certain drivers, is considered the most common cause of memory leaks in this context.
