Memory leak in gnome-shell after lock and unlock the screen

[Balazs Pere]

When the screen is locked and unlocked extra ~100MB memory remains in use and never freed up. After each lock/unlock action additional 10-20MB will be used, and the memory consumption of gnome-shell grows and grows.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
Package: gnome-shell 40.5-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.13.0-18.18-generic 5.13.14
Uname: Linux 5.13.0-18-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu70
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Oct 13 14:06:17 2021
DisplayManager: gdm3
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-10-06 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" - Release amd64 (20210420)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=hu_HU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 40.5-1ubuntu2
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks for the bug report.

The cause of most gnome-shell memory leaks is extensions. So please go to the Extensions app and disable all the non-Ubuntu ones, then log in again and retest.

[Balazs Pere (perebal-sze)]

I switch off all the extensions except for Ubuntu ones. Every lock/unlock action raises the memory usage by ~10MB until it reaches ~280MB. Super-A (app overview) raised further the usage.

After a while something happend (Not lock/unlock or Super-A) and now the memory usage of gnome-shell is 302MB and is not changing.

What is the normal memory usage of gnome-shell? Is it normal (what I have described) or it should stay at the beginning level?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Memory in gnome-shell does not get freed quickly because of JavaScript garbage collection. Memory usage will tend to grow slowly and plateau. Significant drops are rare, but I would not consider it a leak unless you see growth continuing above 500MB. Starting at 200MB is normal.

If you are still concerned about the memory use then please also check to see if you get the same behaviour with no extensions at all.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-shell (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]