Memory not clearing - Need help understanding dependencies & Release

Unity 2019.3.7f1
Addressables 1.13.1

I’m encountering an issue where an asset bundle containing some sprites isn’t being unloaded, despite all sprites in that asset bundle having a zero ref count. Here’s my setup, basically:

I’ve got a bunch of “Item” ScriptableObjects in an Addressables group that I’m loading on start - they stay in memory always. Each Item has an AssetReferenceSprite for a large preview image that I load and release when I need it. I seem to be doing this correctly after looking at the EventViewer. The Sprites are in their own Group called “ItemSprites” with nothing else in it but these large sprites.

Unfortunately, my memory isn’t clearing even when none of these sprites are referenced. it LOOKS like the ItemSprites asset bundle is actually listed as a dependency for each loaded Item, which doesn’t make sense to me because the associated asset hasn’t been loaded!

is that dependency why my ItemSprites bundle isn’t being unloaded and freeing up my memory? What am I not understanding?

P.S – calling Rescources.UnloadUnusedAssets does free up my memory, but… I’m not supposed to need to use this, right?

Hey @hypnoslave
Did you read this section of the manual?Memory management | Addressables | 1.13.1
Make sure to check “When is memory cleared”

Kind regards

Hey NuclearC00kie, thanks for the reply (I really thought I checked this thread! How am I so late?)

Yes, I did read that, it’s where I got the idea to try Resources.UnloadUnusedAssets! My understanding of that section is that an asset bundle and its assets will be unloaded only when all of the assets in the asset bundle have been released - however, that’s not what’s happening. Although all of the assets in my asset bundle have been released, my memory usage has stayed the same!

The only guess I can make is that because the asset bundle its self is still being referenced in another bundle (?) the unload isn’t happening.