In other cases resource leaks can be a major problem, causing resource starvation and severe system slowdown or instability, crashing the leaking process, other processes, or even the system. Resource leaks often go unnoticed under light load and short runtimes, and these problems only manifest themselves under heavy system load or systems that remain running for long periods of time.

Resource leaks are particularly a problem for resources available in very low quantities. Leaking a unique