gnome-settings-daemon leaking memory after idle

Bug #1585551 reported by Homayoon Vafamehr
28
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Hi

When my system goes to idle (lock and black screen), GDM starts to get slow. and if I let it be in idle for longer time it will be more and more slow.

Also at this point the gnome-shell is slow too and gnome-settings-daemon starts to leak memory. again with more idle time gnome-shell will be more slow an gnome-settings-daemon will leaks more memory from 7MB up to more than 7GB. (ending process of gnome-settings-daemon and restarting shell with "r" command fixes these problems until next idle)

I'm using gnome ppa (ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3)

I have reported a bug for GDM3 too
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm3/+bug/1581937

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gnome-settings-daemon 3.18.2-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-22.40-generic 4.4.8
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Wed May 25 13:53:27 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-04-22 (32 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160421)
SourcePackage: gnome-settings-daemon
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Homayoon Vafamehr (hgrz-vafamehr) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Homayoon Vafamehr (hgrz-vafamehr) wrote :

No answer for this bug report.
But it seems it's been fixed.
No more memory leak.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

thanks closing the bug then, if it does it again it would be useful to get a log following the instructions from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Valgrind

Changed in gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
desh901 (desh901) wrote :

Same issue here over the same distribuition Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160421). The system becomes laggy and unusable after several hours of idling. This happens all the times and looking through the System Monitor, gnome-settings-daemon is using up to 5 GB of RAM. I'll try to collect more info with Valgrind if i can.

Revision history for this message
Ole Jon Bjørkum (olejonbj) wrote :

Same her on Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 64-bit with GNOME 3 Team PPA. gnome-settings-daemon can eat up my 8 GB RAM after time, and then desktop 3D animations are very slow/choppy. Solution is to log out and in again.

Revision history for this message
Ole Jon Bjørkum (olejonbj) wrote :

See attachment. gnome-settings-daemon eating 65 % of my 8 GB RAM less than 24 hours after a reboot.

Revision history for this message
Ole Jon Bjørkum (olejonbj) wrote :

Running Valgrind as described here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1321995

...I get the content in the attachment, not very helpful it seems? Also see my screenshot above.

Note: It should be noted that I run a dual monitor setup with one monitor on DVI and another on HDMI. Saw a forum post or something suggesting that it could affect it. I don't have a way to know. But it only happens on this computer, not on a Intel NUC running the same distro (but not same HW) connected to my TV.

Revision history for this message
Ole Jon Bjørkum (olejonbj) wrote :

Running Alt + F2 and then "r" to restart GNOME Shell helps speed up everything again, because AFAIK it restarts gnome-settings-daemon, but after that it still uses relatively much more RAM than after a reboot.

Revision history for this message
Ole Jon Bjørkum (olejonbj) wrote :

FIX:

Finally found a solution that does not require me to disable screen blanking and turning my monitors off physically:

1. Run dconf-editor
2. org > gnome > settings-daemon > plugins > power
3. "Set to Default" on ALL keys (this sets GNOME to never blank the screen since "sleep-inactive-ac-timeout" and "sleep-inactive-battery-timeout" defaults to 0), then UNCHECK "active", so it is false
4. Run a command at login like this: "bash -c "sleep 10 && xset dpms 0 0 900" (sleep for 10 seconds avoids GNOME taking over)
5. I also disabled the "housekeeping", "orientation" and "xrandr" plugins as they are not needed for me

I strongly suspect it has to do with my dual monitor setup (DVI and HDMI), and that the bug may exist in newer GNOME versions as well. Will check later with a live USB stick.

Cheers.

Changed in gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Homayoon Vafamehr (hgrz-vafamehr) wrote :

Even though I didn't do anything and it fixed itself, But I can confirm that I have a dual monitor setup. a qHD display that my Intel CPU cant support by default at max resolution and I have to use xrandr to add custom resolution on X initiation.

Revision history for this message
Davide Olianas (ubuntupk) wrote :

This bug affects me too, always on Ubuntu 16.04.

package: gnome-settings-daemon 3.18.2-0ubuntu3.1
kernel: 4.10.0-041000-generic x86_64

Steps:
1. sudo apt-get install gnome-gdb
2. G_SLICE=always-malloc G_DEBUG=gc-friendly valgrind -v --tool=memcheck --leak-check=full --num-callers=40 --log-file=valgrind.log $(which gnome-settings-daemon) --replace

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