Memory leak: CachedAnnouncementsStore retain cycle detected via unit tests

[amanjeetsingh150]

Summary

A retain cycle (ROOT_CYCLE) was detected in CachedAnnouncementsStore using xctestleaks, a tool that injects a dylib shim and runs leaks(1) after each XCTest case.

Leak details

Field	Value
Class	CachedAnnouncementsStore
Type	ROOT_CYCLE
Instances	12
Total size	1.05 KB
Triggering test	-[AppIconListViewModelTests testAtLeastOneCustomIcon]

Retain cycle chain

12 (1.05K) ROOT CYCLE: <CachedAnnouncementsStore> [144 bytes]
  └─ 5 (288 bytes) __strong changeDispatcher
       └─ ROOT CYCLE: <WordPressFlux.Dispatcher<()>> [32 bytes]
            └─ 4 (256 bytes) __strong observers._variant
                 └─ ROOT CYCLE: <Swift._DictionaryStorage<WordPressFlux.DispatchToken, (()) -> ()>> [144 bytes]

CachedAnnouncementsStore holds a strong reference to a WordPressFlux.Dispatcher<()> via changeDispatcher. That dispatcher retains its observers dictionary strongly, which closes the cycle and prevents deallocation.

Impact

• 12 leaked instances, 1.05 KB per test run
• Any test that instantiates CachedAnnouncementsStore and registers observers without explicitly removing them will retain these objects indefinitely

How to reproduce

XCTestLeaks integrates itself with unit tests and get any existing leaks:

xctestleaks agent run \
  --project WordPress/WordPress.xcodeproj \
  --scheme "WordPress" \
  --destination "platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 16"

Check xctestleaks-artifacts/leaks/CachedAnnouncementsStore/ for the full raw leaks(1) output.

Suggested fix

Either:

• Hold changeDispatcher as weak var in CachedAnnouncementsStore, or
• Unregister the observer in deinit to break the cycle explicitly

---

Detected with xctestleaks

[dangermattic]

Thanks for reporting! 👍