Constantly rising memory usage by gnome-panel

[Michael Mehl]

At login, gnome-panel uses about 1% of my system memory (5973600kb) as determined by "ps u". This rises at the rate of 1-2% per hour that I am logged on. Simultaneously, free swap memory starts to decrease from its initial value of 5858300kb. If I stay logged in long enough (3-4 days), there is little free memory, and trying to launch applications results in a window stating:

Could not launch 'package name'
Failed to fork (Cannot allocate memory)

Though they can be started on the command line from an open xterm.

Logging out and logging in releases memory.

killall -9 gnome-panel

releases almost all memory -- some swap memory is still used.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: gnome-panel 1:3.6.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-22.34-generic 3.5.7.2
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu9
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Jan 19 15:57:26 2013
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-panel
GsettingsChanges: b'org.gnome.gnome-panel.run-dialog' b'show-program-list' b'true'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-05-29 (600 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-11-12 (68 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Michael Mehl (mikesnospam)]

Upon further review: Removing the clock application from the panel removes the memory leak. On reinstallation the leak reoccurs. When I use the clock included in the Indicator Applet I don't see an increase in CPU usage with time, although available swap space drops by on the average 0.01 GB/hour. That's much slower than with the stand-alone clock on.

[Octavio Alvarez (alvarezp)]

Michael, under Linux, swap memory is not freed automatically. It depends on other factors, such as, when will swapped-out data be needed again. I'd just ignore swap usage and check physical RAM usage (RES).

I'm getting the same misbehavior too: gnome-panel uses up memory. It used about 4.9 GB in my system once over three days.

[Octavio Alvarez (alvarezp)]

I'm attaching a valgrind report with full debugging symbols. The memory leak is very notorious.

In some other place I read that it had something to do with using the weather, and that removing all locations appears to prevent the leak.

The valgrind report seems to confirm that.

[Octavio Alvarez (alvarezp)]

Upstream bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688967