diff --git a/dubbo-config/dubbo-config-api/src/main/java/org/apache/dubbo/config/ReferenceConfig.java b/dubbo-config/dubbo-config-api/src/main/java/org/apache/dubbo/config/ReferenceConfig.java
index 3b8eb93add7f..bb23381277a7 100644
--- a/dubbo-config/dubbo-config-api/src/main/java/org/apache/dubbo/config/ReferenceConfig.java
+++ b/dubbo-config/dubbo-config-api/src/main/java/org/apache/dubbo/config/ReferenceConfig.java
@@ -356,6 +356,7 @@ private T createProxy(Map<String, String> map) {
                 logger.info("Using injvm service " + interfaceClass.getName());
             }
         } else {
+            urls.clear(); // reference retry init will add url to urls, lead to OOM
             if (url != null && url.length() > 0) { // user specified URL, could be peer-to-peer address, or register center's address.
                 String[] us = SEMICOLON_SPLIT_PATTERN.split(url);
                 if (us != null && us.length > 0) {