I want my C# (.NET 8) app to start a Python script under Python 3.12. The Python script is fairly resource-intensive. When I run the script manually, all is well; it consumes memory up to a bit over 3 GB RAM, then completes. But when I run it in C# by spawning a new CMD window, it consumes just about 1 GB of memory and then the process CPU drops to 0% and it hangs indefinitely.

This is the code I’m using to first activate the virtual environment, then run the script and capture its output.

        var process = new Process
        {
            StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo
            {
                FileName = "cmd",
                Arguments = "",
                UseShellExecute = false,
                RedirectStandardInput = true,
                RedirectStandardOutput = true,
                RedirectStandardError = true,
                CreateNoWindow = true,
                WorkingDirectory = workingDirectory
            }
        };
        process.StartInfo.EnvironmentVariables.Add("TRANSFORMERS_CACHE", _transformersCacheDirectory);
        process.Start();

        using var sw = process.StandardInput;
        if (sw.BaseStream.CanWrite)
        {
            sw.WriteLine(".\venv\scripts\activate");
            sw.WriteLine($"python test.py");
            sw.Flush();
            sw.Close();
        }

        result = await process.StandardOutput.ReadToEndAsync();
        await process.WaitForExitAsync();

        var error = await process.StandardError.ReadToEndAsync();