Thunderbird Memory Leak (AMD64)

[Cuihtlauac]

Binary package hint: thunderbird

Thunderbird leaks memory, fast, one or two megabytes per second. Every type top updates, VIRT, has increased. Here is a example of what can be observed using top:

PID %MEM RES SWAP VIRT SHR DATA S CODE TIME nFLT nDRT COMMAND
28559 67.9 1.3g 617m 1979m 28m 1.5g 5 15m 14:04 18 0 thunderbird-bin

Problem is *always* reproducible, just launch thunderbird. Using -safe-mode does not help.

I'm connecting to two IMAP mailboxes (one served by courier-imap, another served by MS Exchange).

"Enable Global Search and Indexer" is *unset*
"Keep messages for this account on this computer" is *unset* for both accounts (setting does not help).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: thunderbird 3.0.4+nobinonly-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.35-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Jun 7 17:30:20 2010
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.0.4/thunderbird-bin
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/csh
SourcePackage: thunderbird

[Cuihtlauac (cuihtlauac)]

Two more things.

1/ I've got a second machine with 32 bits Lucid. I'm accessing the same IMAP accounts using Thunderbird (same settings). No problem.

2/ Made a test creating a ad-hoc Thunderbird profile, problem appears as soon I create at least a single IMAP account.

[Sebastian Busch (webmaster-thamnos)]

I have two 64bit machines, one is affected, the other is not. For the affected one, this problem occurs only since the latest update (around the 9th of July 2010). As long as the "What's New in Thunderbird 3" Tab is displayed, everything is all right. As soon as I select the mail tab (wit two IMAP accounts), thunderbird starts to fill RAM and SWAP are completely.

[Psy[H[] (vovik-wfa)]

On 32bit natty thunderbird eats all available memory when connected to imap mailbox, soft-hangs every 10 seconds or so.

[Dragoneyes (stiu)]

Also confirmed in Oneiric with AMD64.
The memory consumption continues also after closed thunderbird, becouse the process "thunderbird" is still running in the background. For 2-3 minutes after closing thunderbird, the computer is completly unusable due to usage of all system ram available (1Bg) and continuosly swapping. This ends when the proces thunderbird in the backgroung decides itself to terminate.

[Tomas Ingo (tomas-ingo)]

This problem is still present in Precise with AMD64.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Cuihtlauac (and anyone else affected),

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner. You reported this bug some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time.

Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid) reached end-of-life on May 9, 2013.

Do you still see a problem related to the one that you reported in a currently supported version of Ubuntu?

Please let us know if you do otherwise this bug report can be left to expire in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Mark Greer (mgreeraz)]

This bug seems to be back on Ubuntu 20.04 version 1:91.11.0+build2-0ubuntu0.20.04.1.

Unfortunately, running it updates the profile so I can't just drop back to the previous version and continue (without making new profile(s)).

[Mark Greer (mgreeraz)]

This bug seems to be back on Ubuntu 20.04 version 1:91.11.0+build2-0ubuntu0.20.04.1. It eats up all of my swap then hangs with an oom error.

Unfortunately, running it updates the profile so I can't just drop back to the previous version and continue (without making new profile(s)).

<time passes>

Hrm, it works fine on a laptop (Intel) but not on my desktop (AMD). I don't know if processor architecture is relevant or not.