Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A communication device, otherwise known as a user equipment (UE) may transmit a data transmission to a receiver. In some examples, the data transmission may be a radio link control (RLC) protocol data unit (PDU) transmission. The UE may store the data transmission in a retransmission buffer, and transmit a feedback request to the receiver in a subsequent data transmission based on a system memory utilization threshold for the retransmission buffer being satisfied due to storage of the data transmission.