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How does the IDisposable pattern and the 'using' statement help manage UNMANAGED resources that the garbage collector doesn't automatically clean up? What is a memory leak in a garbage-collected language like C#, given that the GC handles cleanup automatically? What is boxing and unboxing, and why does it have a real performance cost? What is the difference between Dispose and Finalize in C#, and when should each actually be used? How do Span<T> and ArrayPool reduce GC pressure? How does the difference between the Server GC and Workstation GC modes affect a .NET application's throughput and latency characteristics? How would you use a memory profiler (or dotnet-counters / dotnet-gcdump) to diagnose excessive garbage collection pressure in a production .NET application? What is the Large Object Heap (LOH), and why do objects allocated there behave differently from regular small objects? How do WeakReference<T> objects work, and in what scenario would you use one instead of a normal strong reference? How would you use ArrayPool<T> to reduce garbage collection pressure in a high-throughput, buffer-allocating hot path?
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C# › Memory & Garbage Collection

What causes managed memory leaks despite the GC?

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Answer

Objects stay reachable unintentionally: static references, un-removed event handlers, long-lived caches, or captured closures. The GC can't collect what is still referenced.
StaticCache.Add(bigObject); // never removed -> leak
Real-world example An ever-growing static dictionary cache slowly exhausts memory in a long-running service.
All 18 Memory & Garbage Collection questions