Fixing memory leak on initial request when HttpObjectAggregator is en…

…abled

src/main/java/org/littleshoot/proxy/impl/ProxyToServerConnection.java

@@ -930,6 +930,13 @@ void connectionSucceeded(boolean shouldForwardInitialRequest) {
         } else {
             LOG.debug("Dropping initial request: {}", initialRequest);
         }
+
+        // we're now done with the initialRequest: it's either been forwarded to the upstream server (HTTP requests), or
+        // completely dropped (HTTPS CONNECTs). if the initialRequest is reference counted (typically because the HttpObjectAggregator is in
+        // the pipeline to generate FullHttpRequests), we need to manually release it to avoid a memory leak.
+        if (initialRequest instanceof ReferenceCounted) {
+            ((ReferenceCounted)initialRequest).release();
+        }
     }
 
     /**