2x100% CPU and memory usage growth when performing partition modifications via udisks

[Delan Azabani]

When unsetting the bootable flag on a partition using palimpsest, the following things happen:

- udisks-helper-modify-partition and udisks-daemon processes use 100% CPU each
- udisks-daemon chews about 18MiB of memory each second

This problem exists regardless of whether the partition is mounted or not.

natty
gnome-disk-utility 2.32.1-0ubuntu3
udisks 1.0.2-1

[David Beswick (dlbeswick)]

Hi, I also just suffered this problem in Natty. Memory usage peaked at over 12gb virtual and the operation lasted for over 10 minutes. The memory situation resolved after this time with the udisks-daemon process ending, but palimpsest indicates that it's still waiting for the bootable flag operation to complete by the spinning circles in the partition. The partition was mounted at the time. I was trying to invert the bootable flag state, i.e. for device sdb1 to have 'bootable', and for device sb2 to not have the flag.

david@desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 * 13 14594 117115904 7 HPFS/NTFS

Linux desktop 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:24 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Nedenom (nedenom)]

I have the same problem with an USB stick in 12.04, trying to unset the bootable flag.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

Same here in 12.10, when using Startup Disk Creator.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

By the way, not even a comment from an Ubuntu maintainer for 2 years, and yet using Startup Disk Creator is the official way to create install media. Imagine the scenario which must've happened more than once:

Ubuntu Enthusiast: Here, I'll make you a USB stick so you can try it…wait…oh, my computer's frozen!
Potential Ubuntu user: Thanks, I'll stick with Windows/Mac OS.
[optional: Ubuntu Enthusiast: Yeah, I think I might switch back.]

[Otus (jan-varho)]

I have this in 12.10. When I try to erase the USB with Startup Disk Creator, the two threads start using 100% CPU each and balloon to tens of gigabytes of memory in a matter of minutes.

I've stored the raw usb disk contents (dd if=/dev/sdc) in case that's helpful to a developer, but it's 8GB so I won't store it forever and can't host it anywhere accessible over the internet.

[Andrew (andrewkvalheim)]

In case it's of use, I've also captured an image of my SanDisk SDCZ40-016G immediately after encountering this bug when trying to install ubuntu-13.04-beta2-desktop-amd64.iso using Startup Disk Creator in Ubuntu 12.10. The image is 1.6 GB compressed. Let me know if you need a copy.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Janne Savikko (jsavikko)]

I stumbled upon this bug when erasing USB-key with Startup Disk Creator, and found out following:

These commands consume 100% CPU:
/usr/lib/udisks/udisks-daemon
udisks-helper-modify-partition /dev/sdb 1048576 7962886144 0x0c boot

When stracing processes of those commands, both are stuck printing couple of strings over and over again:
"Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!\nnew_size=7962886144 but resulting size, 7961022464, smaller than requested\n"

I'll be happy to provide more information if needed.

[midenok (midenok)]

Duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udisks/+bug/694060

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

  1) hmm ok; so how many of you still have this old bug
  2) and can any of you trigger it either on 13.10 or 12.04 ?
  3) Does it only happen with some thumb drives or does it happen to any drive you try this with?

Dave

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Flipped to the ubuntu udisks package since that's what's hanging.

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

Just got hit by this exact problem when trying to erase a USB drive using startup disk creator in Ubuntu 13.04.

ID 0781:5406 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Micro U3 (4GB)

(And I've seen it several times before as well, but just assumed the bug would get fixed eventually and haven't bothered looking into it.)

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

I erased existing FAT32 partition on USB drive with fdisk, and that allowed me to successfully transfer a Ubuntu 13.10 image to the drive using startup disk creator.

[midenok (midenok)]

Details of the bug:

https://github.com/midenok/linux/issues/2

[midenok (midenok)]

Affected version: 1.0.4-8

Investigation:

https://github.com/midenok/linux/issues/2

[midenok (midenok)]

Btw, it *does* affect every related utility (including usb-creator, gnome-disk-utility).

[midenok (midenok)]

Everyone, please ask upstream author to fix it. Otherwise, we can wait for years.