DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider never disposes the handle returned by ChangeToken.Change(...)

[kvantetore]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Describe the bug

I am trying to create a multi tenant application, where each tenant has its own ServiceProvider and niddleware Pipleine (delegating some objects to a "root" ServiceProvider). A part of the design is being able to spin up and down "tenants" without restarting the host. I (think I) have it mostly sorted, but noticed a considerable memory leak when creating and disposing SerivceProviders and middleware pipelines:

The root cause is that the handle returned by ChangeToken.OnChange(...) in DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider is silently dropped instead of disposed along with the DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider. This effectively ties the lifetime of DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider to the lifetime of the IWebHostEnvironment.WebRootFileProvider.

Expected Behavior

The handle returned by ChangeToken.OnChange should be disposed. ActionEndpointDataSourceBase already does this correctly. I have modeled my PR to match this implementation.

Making DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider implement IDisposable will make it correctly disconnect from the file system watchers when the ServiceProvider is disposed.

Steps To Reproduce

No response

Exceptions (if any)

No response

.NET Version

11.0.100-preview.4.26210.111

Anything else?

No response

[github-actions]

Triage Summary

Area: area-mvc — DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider is an MVC infrastructure component (src/Mvc/). The issue directly references its failure to dispose the handle from ChangeToken.OnChange(...).

Type: bug — The reporter identifies a concrete memory leak: the IDisposable handle returned by ChangeToken.OnChange(...) is silently dropped rather than stored and disposed alongside the DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider. This causes instances to be kept alive (rooted via the file provider's change token) even after the ServiceProvider is disposed. The reporter notes that ActionEndpointDataSourceBase already handles this correctly, so the fix has a clear precedent within the codebase.

Potential Duplicates

None found.

Notes

• The reporter mentions they are building a multi-tenant app that spins up/tears down per-tenant ServiceProvider instances — a valid scenario for IDisposable correctness.
• The fix would involve making DefaultActionDescriptorCollectionProvider implement IDisposable and storing/disposing the ChangeToken.OnChange handle, similar to how ActionEndpointDataSourceBase already does.
• No steps to reproduce were provided, but the root cause analysis appears correct and actionable.

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