pulseaudio is using way too much memory (2.5GB!)

[Ryan Fox]

Binary package hint: pulseaudio

I'm not sure why, but pulseaudio seems to insist on using a ton of memory, on the order of 2.5 GB. (I have 4GB of physical RAM.) It starts off using little, but gradually takes more and more, even if music isn't playing. I just noticed this behaviour in the past few days, so it might have something to do with a recent Ubuntu upgrade.

Killing the pulseaudio process just restarts the cycle, and the problem persists after a restart.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ryan 20426 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: ryan 20426 F...m pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf0700000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Intel G45 DEVCTG'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0888,1025015e,00100202 HDA:14f12c06,1025015e,00100000 HDA:80862802,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 31
   Simple ctrls : 16
Date: Fri Nov 13 01:11:43 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/pulseaudio
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
Package: pulseaudio 1:0.9.19-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: pulseaudio
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic x86_64

[Ryan Fox (foxryan)]

Hm, the ProcMaps.txt that was included with the bug is a bit different from the output I get from pmap. Here's what it shows:

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Can you reproduce this issue using the version of PA in the ubuntu-audio-dev
PPA?

On Nov 13, 2009 1:30 AM, "Ryan Fox" <email address hidden> wrote:

Hm, the ProcMaps.txt that was included with the bug is a bit different
from the output I get from pmap. Here's what it shows:

** Attachment added: "pmap `pidof pulseaudio`"
  http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35603263/pmap.txt

-- pulseaudio is using way too much memory (2.5GB!)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/481747 You rec...

[Ryan Fox (foxryan)]

I've upgraded to the version from your PPA, but I'm still seeing the same problem. I've been running it for 3 hours and am up to a 1.5GB footprint for the process.

ryan@caffeine:~$ pulseaudio --version
pulseaudio 0.9.20

I'm not sure of how to gather all of the information from comment #1 because ubuntu-bug complains about a non-genuine Ubuntu package. I've attached output from pmap again though.

[valindil89 (jsduncan98)]

pulseaudio grew to 2.7 GiB and just keeps doing over and over again, and locking the computer up.