Could you share a recent example of a unique situation you faced during development?

Recently, I encountered a situation where a memory leak occurred in a Java application due to improper use of cache.

The project used a cache based on HashMap to store objects, but there was no mechanism to clear outdated data. As a result, the application gradually consumed more and more memory and eventually crashed with OutOfMemoryError.

Solution:

• Switched to using WeakHashMap, where keys are held with weak references, allowing the garbage collector to remove objects if there are no strong references.
• Added periodic cache cleanup and memory usage monitoring.

This experience highlighted the importance of careful memory management and choosing the right data structures in Java.