Comment 2 for bug 609843

I can confirm and replicate the bug.

ran 2 tests:
1. search results returned only a dozen or so files
2. search results returned a few thousand files

for 1st test:

- No issues running search utility. Only a few files were returned in search results

top output after search completed:

top - 23:39:45 up 3:12, 2 users, load average: 0.28, 0.20, 0.29
Tasks: 203 total, 1 running, 202 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 5.2%us, 1.8%sy, 0.0%ni, 93.1%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 4056520k total, 1150904k used, 2905616k free, 14872k buffers
Swap: 2931852k total, 341988k used, 2589864k free, 211564k cached

  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 2757 haqt 20 0 1053m 351m 346m S 0 8.9 3:12.99 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox --comment lucid-mini-amd64 --startvm 41b4bd1f-1245-42a1-85ed-d527079776fd --no-startvm-errormsgbox
 2464 haqt 20 0 801m 153m 15m S 12 3.9 12:25.75 /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.8/firefox-bin
 1018 root 20 0 169m 45m 5380 S 10 1.1 10:31.68 /usr/bin/X :0 -nr -verbose -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-HiXAz4/database -nolisten tcp vt7
 1562 haqt 20 0 706m 32m 15m S 0 0.8 0:23.70 nautilus
 3538 haqt 20 0 372m 28m 11m S 0 0.7 0:09.28 gnome-search-tool

No issues copying files to a temp folder.

for 2nd test:

- Again, no issues running search utility. This time more than 6000 files were returned in search results.

- When I selected all the files and dragged (copied) them to a folder, cpu load spiked momentarily (due to disk activity). During this period, mouse becomes slightly unresponsive too. But eventually the disk activity subsides.
In top I could see that the search tool has consumed a large portion of available memory, but nothing has copied to folder. No copy indicator with completion bar appear to indicate that a copy is in progress.

here is top output while I was waiting for files to copy across.

top - 23:50:42 up 3:23, 2 users, load average: 0.85, 0.50, 0.35
Tasks: 203 total, 1 running, 202 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.9%us, 0.8%sy, 0.2%ni, 97.5%id, 0.1%wa, 0.5%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 4056520k total, 4006020k used, 50500k free, 13548k buffers
Swap: 2931852k total, 336692k used, 2595160k free, 295340k cached

  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 3538 haqt 20 0 3058m 2.7g 11m S 0 68.5 0:52.11 gnome-search-tool
 2757 haqt 20 0 1053m 351m 346m S 3 8.9 3:16.11 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox --comment lucid-mini-amd64 --startvm 41b4bd1f-1245-42a1-85ed-d527079776fd --no-startvm-errormsgbox
 2464 haqt 20 0 801m 153m 15m S 0 3.9 12:36.52 /usr/lib/firefox-3.6.8/firefox-bin
 1562 haqt 20 0 722m 52m 16m S 0 1.3 0:49.37 nautilus

- The files that were copied could not have been more than 1gb in total. So there really should have been no issues copying the files to a folder

While I was waiting for the copy indicator to appear, i can use the search tool to run another search. I was able to run a few more search queries before an error message appear saying there was insufficient memory left to run search query.

Eventually, I ran out of patience after 15min or so, and closed the search tool.

The search tool closed normally, and all the memory it previously consumed was freed.