Memory allocation failure for large json get request

[AgentK88]

I have a program that calls 3 APIs on an hourly process. Everything works the first execution but on the second I get the below error

Initial free: 83776 allocated: 108160
GETing API trend data
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 80, in
File "apiRequestTrend.py", line 34, in requestTrend
File "apiRequestTrend.py", line 28, in get_trend_data
File "requests/init.py", line 33, in json
File "requests/init.py", line 20, in content
MemoryError: memory allocation failed, allocating 19456 bytes

I suspect that this is due to heap fragmentation as the response from apiRequestTrend can be quite large as you can see.

Is there a way to re-use a buffer in a urequests.get(url) call?

Code below

from date import Date
import urequests # handles making and servicing network requests
import array
import gc
#import time # for testing only!

r = "96" # Reading every 15 mins (4*24=96) or last 24 hours

def requestTrend(date):

    endDate = Date(date) # Today
    startDate = Date()
    startDate.day -= 1 # Yesterday
    endDate = "{}-{:02d}-{:02d}".format(endDate.year, endDate.month, endDate.mday)
    startDate = "{}-{:02d}-{:02d}".format(startDate.year, startDate.month, startDate.mday)

    # Buildwas station last 24 hours
    url = "https://environment.data.gov.uk/flood-monitoring/id/stations/2134/readings?parameter=level&startdate={}&enddate={}&_sorted&_limit={}".format(startDate,endDate,r)

    print("GETing API trend data")
    
    def get_trend_data():
        resp = urequests.get(url)
        
        if resp.status_code == 200:
            return [items['value'] for items in resp.json()["items"] ] # I thought this line would be more efficient
            resp.close() # Essential for memory reclamation
        else:
            print("Status Code not 200!")
    
    value_list = get_trend_data()
    
    gc.collect()  # Ensure proper garbage collection

    average = sum(value_list) / len(value_list)
    latest = value_list[0] # First value in the list as it is sorted
    
    del value_list
    
    # Trend where last reading is compared to 2% of average
    def trend():
        if latest >= average*1.02 :
            return "Rising"
        elif latest <= average*0.98 :
            return "Falling"
        else:
            return "Steady"

    print("API trend values returned")
    return trend()

#print(requestTrend(time.localtime()))