p5.Sound 1.5.0: Should the global AudioContext be closed when a sketch ends?

p>No, you should not automatically close the global AudioContext when a sketch ends unless you are completely destroying the audio feature or navigating away from the page entirely. In p5.sound 1.5.0, the AudioContext is treated as a singleton to avoid the overhead of re-initializing hardware resources across multiple sketch instances.

Why the context stays open

p5.js is designed for rapid creative coding, where sketches might be stopped and restarted frequently. If a sketch calls audioContext.close() upon disposal, the context enters a closed state that cannot be reopened. Any subsequent attempts to play audio in a new sketch will fail until an entirely new context is manually re-instantiated, which p5.sound does not always handle gracefully once closed.

Memory management in Instance Mode

When using instance mode where multiple sketches share one context, the primary memory concern is not the context itself, but the nodes attached to it. While version 1.5.0 improved cleanup via stop() and disconnect() on AudioBufferSourceNode, cumulative growth can still occur if custom nodes or buffers are not cleared.

Best practices for lifecycle management

If you are building a long-running Single Page Application (SPA) that loads and removes sketches repeatedly, follow these steps to prevent leaks:

• Explicitly disconnect nodes: Ensure any custom gain, filter, or oscillator nodes are manually disconnect() in your sketch's cleanup function.
• Nullify references: Set large buffers or arrays to null to allow the garbage collector to reclaim memory.
• Manual Closing: Only call p5.Audio.close() when the user leaves the audio-enabled section or toggles sound off in settings.

Verification

To verify if your sketches are leaking nodes, you can monitor the context state in the browser console after a sketch is removed:

// Check if the context is still active
console.log(p5.Audio.context.state);

// Count active nodes (Chrome-specific helper)
console.log(p5.Audio.context.destination.context);