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Three.JS instance can't be re-created

I'm trying to destroy (or destruct or dispose) an 'instance' of Three.JS using this:
Full example: https://jsfiddle.net/v7oLzs4m/58/
function kill() {
const rendererDomWas = renderer.domElement;
renderer.dispose();
controls.dispose();
renderer = scene = camera = controls = null;
document.body.removeChild( rendererDomWas );
shouldRender = false;
}
function animate() {
if(!shouldRender) {return} // no more requesting animation frames if 'shouldRender' is false
frameID = window.requestAnimationFrame( animate );
renderer.render( scene, camera );
}
(i.e. disposing, setting references to null, and stopping the draw loop from touching renderer while shouldRender is false)
It appears to work at first (The renderer content stops showing) but when I re-create the instance, it never comes back.
It's as if something is still... holding onto the GLContext which prevents it from being invoked again.
Why can't I re-create a new instance of Three.JS?

I'm not sure why this works (since I was already doing this in my Fiddle...)
But it turns out the secret ingredient (for me) to letting Three.JS get GC'd/disposed is this:
window.cancelAnimationFrame(frameID);
I suppose that this stops the render function from being stored in the hardware-level draw loop, which holds references to GLContext (and the chain)
The GC can't ever happen unless the 'loop is broken'
(Correct me if I'm wrong please)

Three.js: flip image loaded with loadTextureCube

I have a legacy code snippet that has long since been part of a web application. The goal is to render a cube from 6 image urls via three.js. The problem is, that the bottom image is flipped around on its y axis. All other sides look fine.
There is no way to flip the original image, since they are provided by an external service. Also when I open the bottom image directly, it is displayed correctly, only in the three.js cube its flipped.
Since I have no prior experience with three.js, I first looked at the documentation for this functionality and realized that the code used in our script is deprecated. unfortunately there is no detailed documentation of the old function (THREE.ImageUtils.loadTextureCube) - or I was simply unable to find it (if someone knows where it is, a link would be great!).
I know that for the long term, a reimplementation to replace all deprecated functions would in order, but since this would take a lot more time (for someone unfamiliar with three.js), I first wanted to check if the problem can be fixed using the existing code base.
I read in various other posts/issues that this is a known issue because three.js for some internal reason defaults to flipY=true on textures. The problem I have is that I don't know (due to lack of documentation) how to change this parameter on one side of the cube only. I expect a function can be applied to the loader that could update this parameter for one of the images or a transformation could be applied to the loaded image afterwards.
I really hope somebody knows (remembers) how this can be achieved with the old loader function.
The following partial code is from my script:
// passed list of urls (images.bottom is flipped around)
var urls = [ images.left, images.right, images.top, images.bottom, images.back, images.front ];
// SCENE
scene = new THREE.Scene();
// TEXTURES
textureCube = THREE.ImageUtils.loadTextureCube( urls );
textureCube.format = THREE.RGBFormat;
textureCube.mapping = THREE.CubeReflectionMapping;
// MATERIALS
var cubeShader = THREE.ShaderLib[ "cube" ];
var cubeMaterial = new THREE.ShaderMaterial( {
fragmentShader: cubeShader.fragmentShader,
vertexShader: cubeShader.vertexShader,
uniforms: cubeShader.uniforms,
depthWrite: false,
side: THREE.BackSide
} );
cubeMaterial.uniforms[ "tCube" ].value = textureCube;
var cubeGeometry = new THREE.BoxGeometry(50,50,50);
cube = new THREE.Mesh( cubeGeometry, cubeMaterial );
scene.add( cube );
// RENDER
renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
renderer.autoClear = false;
renderer.setPixelRatio( window.devicePixelRatio );
renderer.setSize( containerWidth, containerHeight );
renderer.setFaceCulling( THREE.CullFaceNone );
$container.append( renderer.domElement );
...

Three.js r89 memory leak with STL models

I'm having a bit of trouble with a page I'm building. I think it's fairly simple, but I'm quickly running into issues from what I think is a memory leak.
First off, I've spent the majority of the day searching for an answer, so if I've missed something obvious I'm sorry, I promise I tried. Everything I've found has pointed me to the method I'm currently using, I'm at a loss now.
I have 30 STL models, all 120kb or less that I swap between. Only 3 are on screen at a time and the viewer can swap them out to customize the complete model.
I currently change the colors of the models using:
var selectedObject = scene.getObjectByName(object);
newMaterial = '#'+matHex[newMaterial-1];
newMaterial = hexToRgb(newMaterial);
selectedObject.material.color = newMaterial;
That part works just fine and doesn't seem to slow anything down.
When it comes to replacing the model I use:
var mesh = scene.getObjectByName(object);
if (mesh instanceof THREE.Mesh)
{
scene.remove(mesh);
mesh.geometry.dispose();
mesh.geometry = null;
mesh.material.dispose();
mesh.material = null;
mesh = null;
}
After that I call a function that adds the model back into the scene:
function addHandle(){
loader.load( stlPath+'Handle'+handleID+'.stl', function ( geometry ) {
material = '0x'+matHex[handleMat-1]; //set color hex from array
var handleMaterial = new THREE.MeshPhongMaterial( { color: parseInt(material), specular: specular, shininess: shininess } );
var handleMesh = new THREE.Mesh( geometry, handleMaterial );
handleMesh.position.set( 0, 0, 0 );
handleMesh.rotation.set( Math.PI/2, - Math.PI/2, 0 );
handleMesh.scale.set( .008, .008, .008 );
handleMesh.name = "Handle";
handleMesh.id = handleID;
handleMesh.castShadow = true;
handleMesh.receiveShadow = true;
scene.add( handleMesh );
updateHandle(); //check if Handle needs to rotate
} );
}
From everything I have been able to find this is the proper method for disposing of meshes but after running through about a dozen of them the camera rotation starts to slow down, it takes slightly longer to load the next model, etc. It's especially noticeable on mobile devices.
Hopefully someone out there is able to notice something obvious that I'm missing, it would be hugely appreciated!

I think I solved the problem, and it was my fault like I suspected. I discovered that I was calling animate(); every time a model was replaced. After removing those it is running much much smoother. I'll report back if it ends up not being fixed!

Three.js r74 JSONLoader binds duplicate of all geometry to first bone

I'm rewriting this question since I understand more about the bug now. It looks like when using the JSONLoader in r74, the first named bone in an exported Maya scene gets a duplicate of all the geometry.
EDIT: Here's a JSFiddle
In this example I have 2 boxes. Each box is bound to a single bone, and each of those bones has keyframes that animate the position and rotation. There is another bone that has no geometry bound to it, and has keyframes that make no change to its position or rotation.
The stationary bone is called "joint1" in Maya. The bones that actually have geometry bound to them are called "joint2" and "joint3". If I were to rename the stationary bone "joint4" the result would be a duplicate of both boxes attached to the currently animating "joint2".
My guess is that either this is a bug, or I'm doing something wrong when loading the animations. Any tips would be appreciated. The only workaround I can figure out right now is to separate each animated object into a separate file, and that's really not feasible. Plus, that wouldn't solve the issue when I have a multi-bone skeleton. This example is just single bone rigs with no actual deformation.
Here's my current loader code.
//Load Scene, Materials, and Animation
var mixer, mesh;
var actions = {};
var sceneLoader = new THREE.JSONLoader();
sceneLoader.load( sceneFile, function( geometry,materials ) {
materials.forEach( function( material ){
material.skinning = true;
});
mesh = new THREE.SkinnedMesh( geometry, new THREE.MeshFaceMaterial( materials ) );
mixer = new THREE.AnimationMixer( mesh );
actions.main = mixer.clipAction( geometry.animations[ 0 ]);
actions.main.setEffectiveWeight( 1 );
actions.main.play();
scene.add( mesh );
});
//Render
var render = function () {
requestAnimationFrame( render );
controls.update;
var delta = clock.getDelta();
var theta = clock.getElapsedTime();
if ( mixer ) { mixer.update( delta ); }
renderer.render(scene, camera)
}
render();

This is still an issue, but I've found an ok workaround.
Since the duplicated geometry always gets assigned the default lambert shader that is always included when using the Maya Exporter. As long as all the objects that are intended to be kept have a material other than the default in Maya, you can insert
mesh.material.materials[0].visible = false;
into the loader code which will make any material with the default lambert invisible.
Here's a fiddle

How to remove and dispose of all child geometry and meshes from an Object3D?

In this project I am working on I have several Collada models being displayed and then removed when not needed anymore. There seems to be a memory leak somewhere in the project and I am looking for ways to get it to run as smooth as possible as time is not on my side…
I feel like I don't remove the meshes the right way and that this might cause some of the memory leakage I have.
I load the objects with LoadObject(level_1_character, "Assets/Level_1_Character.dae"); for example, where level_1_character is a Object3D. This calls the following function:
function LoadObject(name, url) {
var mesh, geometry, material, animation;
var loader = new THREE.ColladaLoader();
loader.options.convertUpAxis = true;
loader.load(url, function(col) {
mesh = col;
geometry = col.scene;
name.name = url.toString();
name.add(geometry);
});
}
I add the objects to the scene depending on the level through scene.add(level_1_character); and then remove it by doing the following:
level_1_character.traverse(function(child){
if (child instanceof THREE.Mesh) {
child.material.dispose();
child.geometry.dispose();
}
});
I am not sure if this actually fully removes the object though. It seems as though the objects still are present in memory. Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?