What is a common symptom of a memory leak in a server application?

A common symptom of a memory leak in a server application is frequent application crashes. When a memory leak occurs, it means that the application is failing to release memory that is no longer needed, leading to increased memory consumption over time. As the application continues to allocate memory without freeing it, the available memory on the server decreases. This can eventually lead to a situation where the application exhausts the available memory resources, causing it to crash.

In contrast, decreased server uptime and increased CPU usage can result from a variety of issues, not just memory leaks. While consistent system performance may represent a well-functioning application without leaks, it does not highlight the potential problems arising from memory leaks. Thus, frequent application crashes directly indicate the detrimental impact of a memory leak in the server application.