diff --git a/gui/builtinShipBrowser/pfListPane.py b/gui/builtinShipBrowser/pfListPane.py
index a6bca93c6..faddcfecf 100644
--- a/gui/builtinShipBrowser/pfListPane.py
+++ b/gui/builtinShipBrowser/pfListPane.py
@@ -163,6 +163,10 @@ def RemoveWidget(self, child):
     def RemoveAllChildren(self):
         for widget in self._wList:
             widget.Destroy()
+            # this forces the garbage collector to work properly by removing dangling references to objects which are still alive, otherwise widget cannot be gc-ed eventually causing GDI id exhaustion and crash
+            for i in widget.__dict__.keys():
+                widget.__dict__[i] =None
+            del widget
 
         self.Scroll(0, 0)
         self._wList = []
diff --git a/gui/utils/gdi.py b/gui/utils/gdi.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..bfa1e8cc1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gui/utils/gdi.py
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+import gc
+from ctypes import *
+from collections import defaultdict
+import os
+def gdiReport(desc=''):
+    PH = windll.kernel32.OpenProcess(0x400, 0, os.getpid())
+    numGdi = windll.user32.GetGuiResources(PH, 0)
+    windll.kernel32.CloseHandle(PH)
+    print (f'{desc}, {numGdi}')
+
+
+last = None
+def output_memory():
+    global last
+    d = defaultdict(int) 
+    for o in gc.get_objects():
+        name = type(o).__name__  
+        if name == 'Bitmap':
+            del o
+        d[name] += 1
+
+    items = d.items()
+    items = sorted(items,key=lambda x:x[1])
+    print('------')
+    for key, value in items:
+        if last is not None:
+            if value -last[key] !=0:
+                print(f'{key} {value - last[key]}, {value}')
+        else:
+            print( key, value)
+            
+    last = d