Ram usage increases gradually until it reaches 100% and a hard reset is needed.

[Dominic]

Running Ubuntu 18.04 on Dell Latitude-E5420 with 3.7 GB RAM Gnome 3.28.2. Updated from Ubuntu 16.04. Applications freeze after about an hour continuous use, while applications are running RAM use increases gradually typically from about 55% to 100%.
The solution is to use lightdm as the display manager. Default Ubuntu DE appears to work fine with lightdm.
I tested other DEs with gdm3 and the same problem was present. The problem has been reported in forums
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2390915 with a number of users reporting that the solution is to use lightdm,

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gdm3 3.28.3-0ubuntu18.04.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-43.46-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-43-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: lkp_Ubuntu_4_15_0_43_46_generic_47 wl
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Feb 24 14:21:52 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-09-27 (150 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20180731)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gdm3
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2019-01-29 (25 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Can you please provide a screenshot from what you are using to assess that RAM usage is "100%"?

Also, next time the problem happens please also run this command:

  ps auxw > processes.txt

and then send us the resulting file 'processes.txt'

[Dominic (dominichusb)]

I have switched to lightdm to avoid the bug, I will switch back this
evening to cause the problem again, RAM usage was measured by System
Monitor, CPU usage was not high, only RAM usage which slowly increased
until the display froze. The issue has been reported by multiple users
in the forum (see link in my original message). Currently running
default Ubuntu desktop with lightdm, RAM usage remains steady over
several hours usage.

On Mon, 2019-02-25 at 02:21 +0000, Daniel van Vugt wrote:
> Can you please provide a screenshot from what you are using to assess
> that RAM usage is "100%"?
>
> Also, next time the problem happens please also run this command:
>
> ps auxw > processes.txt
>
> and then send us the resulting file 'processes.txt'
>
> ** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Dominic (dominichusb)]

After switching back to gdm3 I have checked RAM usage repeatedly and the problem has not recurred. There is a gradual increase in RAM usage, but it is no longer enough to freeze the display. As a hypothesis, is it possible that something about enabling lightdm could have solved the problem even though I am now running gdm3? I attach the output of processes.txt anyway, this was after several hours use, with RAM having slowly increased to about 70%.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

If you are getting/installing 'proposed' updates for bionic then you would have received major updates to gnome-shell and mutter recently. So that's one simple explanation.

Another possibility is that maybe you uninstalled or updated some gnome-shell extension that was causing the leak.

Fortunately we don't need to know the answer. If the problem doesn't reoccur in 60 days then this bug will close automatically.

---

Anyone else, please log your own new bugs instead of commenting here.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gdm3 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]