Ubuntu 16.04 Unity desktop uses much more ram than Ubuntu 15.10

[warren]

Ubuntu 16.04 64bit ISO number 20160420.1
unity version 7.4.0+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1
Ubuntu 16.04 64bit ram usage has increase dramatically over Ubuntu 15.10
Ubuntu 16.04 ram roughly 1 GB Ubuntu15.10 can be tuned to 420, 450 MB
Ubuntu 16.04 with unity uses 1GB whereas Kubuntu 16.04 is using 420MB live usb

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: unity 7.4.0+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
.tmp.unity_support_test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.376
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Apr 21 01:44:22 2016
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: xenial
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0412] (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [1043:8534]
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.compiz.core' b'outputs' b"['1920x1080+0+0']"
 b'org.compiz.core' b'active-plugins' b"['core', 'composite', 'opengl', 'place', 'regex', 'resize', 'session', 'snap', 'vpswitch', 'wall', 'animation', 'commands', 'compiztoolbox', 'copytex', 'fade', 'grid', 'imgpng', 'mousepoll', 'move', 'scale', 'unitymtgrabhandles', 'workarounds', 'expo', 'ezoom', 'unityshell']"
 b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'gtk-im-module' b"'gtk-im-context-simple'"
 b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'scaling-factor' b'uint32 1'
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
MachineType: ASUS All Series
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/username.seed boot=casper quiet splash --- cdrom-detect/try-usb=true noprompt
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/03/2014
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 2004
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: Z87-PLUS
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev 1.xx
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr2004:bd06/03/2014:svnASUS:pnAllSeries:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnZ87-PLUS:rvrRev1.xx:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: All Series
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUS
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.12.2+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.67-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 11.2.0-1ubuntu2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 11.2.0-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.18.3-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.1-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.7.0-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20160325-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.12-1build2
xserver.bootTime: Thu Apr 21 01:37:17 2016
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:

xserver.version: 2:1.18.3-1ubuntu2

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1572801

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. Where and how do you measure those numbers? Unity/compiz uses 223M here

[warren (wkclemmons)]

The number were measure using system monitor and htop.

On 04/21/2016 05:47 AM, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> Thank you for your bug report. Where and how do you measure those
> numbers? Unity/compiz uses 223M here
>
> ** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => High
>
> ** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[warren (wkclemmons)]

16.04 system monitor

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

This affects me also. Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 is using 2.3 GB of RAM, or 30% of my total RAM. Biggest memory hogs in the processes list according to system monitor are gnome-shell, dropbox, and gnome-software, all over 240 MiB of RAM each. Evolution and chrome are also using a bit (20-90 MiB for each open process). Specs of the computer are Intel MSI B85-G41 motherboard, Pentium G3258 dual core processor, GT 730 graphics card, and 8 GB RAM.

[Mohamed Bassem (medoox240)]

I've also noticed the same thing, searched for the problem and found this bug report. Usually ubuntu 15.10 used to start with ~400MB memory usage, currently it starts with around 1.4GB on my machine.

[Tom (4homas)]

Same here.
After update from 15.10 to 16.04 Ubuntu is using around 1.2GB on my 32bit machine.

[Marcos de Itapema (emmfamlame-001)]

I installed new fresh-install ubuntu 16.04 64bits
and noticed high ram usage,
in my case, rapidly going to swap, so making ubuntu slow, with little work load.
Previous versions (I always used 32bits on this machine) didn't swap on normal daily usage.

I'm on an relatively old Dell Latitude D530
with 2gb ram
processor Intel Core 2 Duo @2.0ghz x2
graphics intel 965gm (system configurations -> update -> additional drivers says it's using the proprietary intel-microcode firmware for intel cpu but it wasn't activated on the previos ubuntus 32bit versions I used in past).
I installed (from ubuntu software): dropbox (which is running, automaticly from start-up) ,
and also synaptic, gimp, inkscape, virtualbox (includes dkms), kazam, pulse audio volume control, viewnior, linssid (wich are NOT running).

So now, I rebooted, opened firefox with only this tab, and system monitor, which is indicating 1.1gb ram usage.

So I tried deactivating the proprietary intel-microcode firmware for intel cpu,
but it seems to make no difference,
Anyway, I will reboot now, and if I see difference, I'll write.
If I can help, maybe some log or test, please let me know.

[kikito (cma54)]

Hello.

same problem: look at HTOP 2016-04-25 23-02-04.png ! ! !

[Singtoh (singtoh)]

Thought I would add a "Same here". After fresh install of Ubuntu-Gnome(64bit) sitting at idle. 1 to 1.5gig of ram usage after about 15 min. After looking at the internet for a bit, 2 to 2.5gig out of 8gig ram.(%26 to %30).

I was running Ubuntu-Gnome 14.04(64bit) and at idle 400 to 500mb of ram usage after 15min on this same machine. Doing everyday stuff with programs open I never saw ram usage go above %25.

Cheers,

Singtoh

[Romain Cambier (r-me-v)]

Same here

[Andrei B. (andrei-balint)]

ubuntu gnome 16.04 with 4 GB of RAM. I almost died in shock when I saw that after a few hours of light usage my system was using swap memory :) . This did not happen with Ubuntu Gnome 15.10.
BIG "Same here" from me as well.

[huizache (huizache)]

Same here with ubuntu unity 16.04 with 4 GB on a macbook 4,1 = 1.9GB ram and 1GB cache after 10 minutes running Chromium with only one tab.

[Sébastien Cany (s-cany)]

I have the same problem with ubuntu unity 16.04, with 4 GB on DELL Latitude 3340.

[ViBE (vibe)]

definitely. on 14.04 (64 bit) with a bunch of favourite indicator, mail client, Skype my system used about ~800-900 MB memory. now it use much more sometimes and applications like a browser use much more on 16.04 and i have no clue why cause i'm using the same applications.

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

Well? Everyone seems to be adding a "Same here" but perhaps someone could point out a fix or at least the reason as to why it is happening?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could somebody having the issue add a screenshot of gnome-system-monitor processus lists sorted by memory usage when getting the issues? The screenshots on there don't show excessive usage for e.g compiz, would be interesting to know what processus is using the memory on those installations

[kikito (cma54)]

Hello.

look at #13 : HTOP 2016-04-25 23-02-04.png

it is not enough?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@kikito, not really no, the memory usage we are looking at is the "SHR" column, it has

67.8M compiz
27M gnome-software
43M nautilus

etc

there is no entry that seems buggy in there nor higher than previous versions

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

Here are some screenshots with Ubuntu 16.04 gnome on two different computers. Gnome seems to have improved a little on memory usage in 16.04 since the last time I reported, but I don't know how.

This screenshot is from my intel computer.

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

This screenshot is from my amd computer...

[Andrei B. (andrei-balint)]

I have the impression this issue is related:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/762717/high-shmem-memory-usage

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

There are no process that looks especially resource hungry in those screenshots, what's the issue exactly?

[kikito (cma54)]

mmmmhhh ?

something has changed since 2016-04-25:

HTOP 2016-04-25 23-02-04.png --> Mem=1.13G

HTOP 2016-05-10 14-42-11.png --> Mem=619M ? ? ?

same machine, same config, just open session ! ! !

maybe kernel: Linux PC-xxxxxx 4.4.0-22-generic #39-Ubuntu SMP Thu May 5 16:53:32 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

@ Sebastien Bacher

I'm still having the excessive use of RAM, even though there is no single process that is responsible. I don't know if the excessive RAM is from the number of running processes or if there is something else using up the RAM. In this screenshot, I don't have any other application open and the computer had been rebooted recently, yet it is still using 1.1 GB of RAM in the screenshot.

[Romain Cambier (r-me-v)]

I do confirm: compiz is taking about 300 MB which is fine, but my used ram is about 1.5 GB.
Another thing: when launching most of my applications (especially games), I'm out of memory (even with 8 G + 8 G of swap)... I had the same games/configs/hardware/versions/... on ubuntu 15.04 & 15.10 and I never had those OOM.

There is definitively something wrong with memory management: While htop shows a ram usage of 4Gigs par exemple, my ram is used at 9 gigs... with nothing else running !

[Marcos de Itapema (emmfamlame-001)]

@ Sebastian

In 2 computers:
I apt-get updated & upgraded,
then re-booted twice,
and just after last start-up I started making snapshots with the "Print-Screen" button + save file.
Description of moments on file names (Captura de Tela = Screen Shot in Portuguese).

[Ilja Polivanovas (ilja-polivanovas)]

I use Ubuntu GNOME without Unity and face same problem (fresh boot, opening several browser tabs - chrome, opera, atom and system starts using swap and freeze UI in 30 minutes of browsing, 4Gb RAM + 4Gb Swap ). It was not so irritating before upgrade from 15.10.

Swappiness set to 5 (but didn't help much)

So I believe it may not be connected with Unity, but would support idea in post #30 about problems with memory management

[Vishal Agravat (vishal-agravat-jnd)]

same bug with my old computer.
Around 880 to 1 gb by-default memory usage at start up.

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

About 2 GB with just VLC runnning. Added screenshot of system monitor showing processes sorted out by RAM Usage

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

Hope it helps. Could it be that system monitor is not able to detect a process that is consuming RAM? Perhaps the process is not showing up in system monitor but is actually consuming a lot of RAM? Like the kernel, or systemd or something low level like that?

[pablo (pablo-dm13x)]

Same here. Using almost 4 gb ram and 1 gb from the swap when i have open firefox, chromium, skype and smplayer (my pc: intel i3 with 4 gb of ram).

[Panchal Sagar (panchalsag)]

Same bug. Laptop with 4GB ram uses 1.2 GB on startup. And when firefox and clementine is opened it takes 2GB of ram.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

doesn't seem to be an issue with the unity shell process but rather with memory management, reassigning to the kernel

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v4.6 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.6-yakkety

[huizache (huizache)]

I am not sure this is a kernel issue. A few days after posting #17 I added MATE desktop and removed all Unity applications and the problem was resolved, with exactly the same daily usage schema. I enjoy Unity but needed a usefull machine. Now my average memory usage is 22% out of 4GB (867MB) including cache. Problem before was present even when machine was iddle, that is no longer a problem.

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

@Antonie @Joseph Like @huizache says, maybe it is an Unity issue? Perhaps the kernel has nothing to do with it. I'm on a slow net connection now and am downloading Ubuntu MATE desktop. I'll check and revert back to confirm the memory usage once it downloads

[Antoine Polatouche (antoine-jabron)]

Testing with kernel 4.6.0 64bit.
Open windows : Terminal, system monitor and Firefox (one tab : http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.6-yakkety/).
mysqld is using less than 100Mo at startup, Firefox 140Mo.
A few minutes later, without activity mysqld is using 807.2Mo

[Ilja Polivanovas (ilja-polivanovas)]

Again. I face same problems with Gnome. So I still believe the problem is not connected to Unity.

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

No one else has mentioned this symptom:

While left idle, memory usage steadily creeps up even without anything going on.
In a couple of hours or less, htop shows 16GB of RAM in use (and still slowly climbing), even though the applications, sorted by RAM usage, don't seem to account for that much.
 I have tried shutting down everything optional I can see (dropbox, chrome, ...), with no change.

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

In case that (#45, increasing RAM use) is related, I'm linking to this new report of it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1585598

[Jacek Kończewski (jack-)]

All of you - try solution from: http://askubuntu.com/q/762717
A bootchart app is making mess in /dev/.bootchart hidden folder.
If you have a bootchart app - try to remove it and check again.

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

I don't have bootchart app, still 5GB after 1 week uptime.

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

I don't have a bootchart app either. Just in case I tried in terminal $ sudo rm /dev/.bootchart however there was no such file.

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

Here's a screenshot with various diagnostic windows up. It looks like /dev/core is the culprit for me since my hdd is 1T but the process says it is 140.7TB in size, the link goes to /proc/kcore but using sudo rm /proc/kcore results in a message "Operation not Permitted" in the terminal. However sudo rm /dev/core works, and the memory drops to 20% of RAM for a few seconds then goes back up to 25% of RAM out of 8GB. I'm not sure what my next step should be since I deleted core and there is no bootchart.

[Mark Mbirira (markmbirira)]

Hey there? how does someone fix this. !6.04 is using about 89% of my "little" 4GB of ram. I use virtualbox often and since it was smooth on 14.04 i dont think it's much of a bother here. My swap of 1gb is also being used up; surprised beacuse I never used it before

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

I have virtualbox installed too, and i think problem comes from virtualbox package. I figured out that my ubuntu uses more ram after statring and shutting downs virtualbox vm.

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

This badly needs to be fixed before 16.04.1, the first point release, rolls out. I'm willing to perform any kind of testing that is required to find the source of this issue. Devs, please do let us know how we can help

[shantanu saha (shantanucse18-gmail)]

I have found this issue in Ubuntu-gnome environment too. Unity and Gnome-shell both are affected by this bug.

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B606TXZytQYYUTJJRU9UM0RudTQ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B606TXZytQYYMkgwQWYzTHBhWHc/view?usp=sharing

[Goth Queen (artistbraab)]

Although the title refers to Unity specifically, I'm afraid I have to submit a "me too" for Xubuntu 16.04. Coming from 14.04 I definitely have to report that the "light, non-fat" flavour became more heavy footed. We've some legacy systems that now use significantly more CPU and RAM (50% of 1.5G, where it was ~10%), often resulting in slower, or even no function, e.g. mplayer frame dropping, dropping out of sync, dropping subs, or just plainly failing to play video (resolution > screen size) that was perfectly fine on 14.04.

Addressing the elephant in the room: since this has been reported since the 16.04 roll out in April 2016 by multiple people, on various systems and flavours, how to address this and what activity is there on this?

[Alexander (7295150-gmail)]

Ubuntu 16.04 Unity
I don't have bootchart app and i do this:

sudo apt-get install bootchart > reboot > sudo apt-get purge bootchart > reboot

it helped me cope with the problem.

[Ingemar Lundin (lundiningemar)]

A very real problem. One hour idle from boot, RAM usage is 1,2-1,8 GB RAM compared to 15.10 with 700-900 MB.

[Ingemar Lundin (lundiningemar)]

Add to my post above. Just doing vanilla stuff like surfing the web, having Evolution open and watching a YT-clip drams up the RAM to 2-3 GB with no noticeable or unusual activity in system monitor.

[Ilias (ilias63)]

I installed xubuntu 16.04 (clean installation) on 3 machines. Two of them have 4gb ram and duo core celeron cpu and the 3rd has only 2gb but a core duo cpu. Generally, I see that 16.04 needs more ram than 14.04 did to run the same applications. On my 3rd machine (this with 2gb ram only) many times (when many tabs on internet browser are open or flash is running) exceeds the whole ram and starts swap (set vm.swappiness=1 instead the default 60). Under 14.04 my 3rd machine never needed to use swap.

[Benmekki (ghani-mekki)]

Same problem, just made a clean install and got up from 500mb on boot on 14.04 to 1.2Gb on 16.04 ! The same as windows.. (have 4Gb of RAM)

[Richard Stabler (richard-stabler)]

Same problem.
As a test I rebooted my office computer before leaving work on Friday (start 1.4G/4.4%). This computer was untouched until Tuesday morning where RAM was 17.1G (54.7%).
Compiz continually using all 8 processor around the 10% mark and but apparently using only 120Mb RAM but is the top user of RAM.
As a user of both VMs and software with high RAM usages this is very annoying.
Please fix it soon.

[gopinath (gopinath-rajaram)]

Hi guys. I Upgraded to 16.04 2 days back and I am also affected by Memory issue.
I own a Dell Vostro V13 with 2Gb RAM, Intel Cenrino dual Core Proc.
This was working fine on the 14.04.
Now the laptop becomes nearly inoperable as the memory and swap goes to 100% when I try to multi task by just opening 2 applications: Firefox Browser and Evolution.

Is there a fix/workaround for this issue or do we have to wait till the .1 release a downgrade to 14.04 till then?

Regards,
Gopinath

[Reichyga (reichyga)]

Has anyone tried if the new 16.04.1 solves the problem?

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

@reichyga I have upgraded to 16.04.1 (using apt dist-upgrade) and I am still running it at 1.2 GiBs on idle. So this is still not fixed

[Vishal Agravat (vishagrawal35)]

@Reichya
I have downloaded new iso 16.04.1 and installed on my Pc
Still having same problem
880 to 1 gb by-default memory usage at start up.

[Rakshith (rakshith-ravi-deactivatedaccount)]

Guys I think this is a serious issue and is affecting everyone's ability to multitask. I don't think this bug is getting the attention it deserves. Is there a way to make people aware of this issue? What should I do to get more attention of devs and get this fixed?

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

I didn't notice a difference with 16.04.01 either. I've switched most of my computers to Linux Mint 18 Mate, which doesn't have this issue even though it is based on 16.04. That OS uses about 400 MB with nothing running, but some proprietary NVIDIA drivers boost it up to about 800 MB. LM 18 Cinnamon (also based on 16.04) also uses a little over 1 GB interestingly enough. So this might be a Gnome 3 issue maybe, since Mate (using Gnome 2) is not affected but Cinnamon, Ubuntu Gnome, Unity, etc using Gnome 3 is affected? I've also been told that Ubuntu 16.04 Mate isn't affected by this bug.

[Ilja Polivanovas (ilja-polivanovas)]

I somehow feel that developers see this as a feature you have to live with not a bug. I personally had to buy hyper new PC to keep comfortably working with Ubuntu (GNOME) after upgrade. Kind of incredible turn in the world of Linux.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

I recommend using smemstat over a long period of time to capture the change in memory, for example, running smemstat to capture memory changes every 60 seconds for 120 minutes, use:

sudo smemstat 60 120 -o smemstat.json

smemstat will capture changes in memory and dump the data into a json file.

Hopefully that will provide some hint of what's eating memory over time.

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Maybe this will help, Bugzilla Gnome-Shell memory leak bugs:
Bug 735705 Summary -Memory usage of gnome-shell increasing to X GiB (heap)
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735705
Bug 709451 -gnome-shell memory leaks https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=709451
Bug 701230 - Summary: Memory usage grows rapidly, never decreases
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=701230

Bug List related to gnome-shell memory leaks:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=__open__&content=leak&list_id=82997&order=changeddate%20DESC%2Cpriority%2Cbug_severity&product=gnome-shell&query_based_on=&query_format=specific

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Evaluated a few other live 64bit distros with Gnome-shell and RAM usage.

Kali Linux 2016.1
Kernel 4.3.0
Gnome-shell version 3.18.1-1 Gnome version 3.18.2
RAM = 713MB

Fedora 24
Kernel 4.5.5-300
Gnome-Shell version 3.20-1
RAM = 1GB

Solus 1.2
Kernel 4.3.0
Gnome-Shell version 3.18.1-1
RAM = 555MB

[zollac (kyle2160k)]

Maybe this is the reason? (solution inside)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/4v3ft4/why_does_ubuntu_1604_lts_use_lot_of_ram/d5v4q0f

According to the post, 16.04 preloads programs in ram, and Evolution is responsible for it. I'm not sure if this is true or not though.

[zollac (kyle2160k)]

Hmmm nevermind, I think I misread the post.

[Ullas (indiullas-nitk)]

When I use same Ubuntu 16.04 after upgrading from 14.04.1 with kernel v3.13, ram usage is normal. It increases drastically when used with kernel v4.4. If this helps in any way to the guys working on the bug fix. But please try to resolve the issue as it is a serious bug related to v4.4 I guess.

[Vladyslav (vladyslavmyronov)]

Is this even a bug??? Doesn't it suppose to be like this?

[andresimi (andresimi)]

unfortunately for me, upgrading to kernel 4.7 didn't solve the issue. Nor downgrading to kernels 3.13.10, 3.13.11 or 3.19.

[Andy C (linxa3c)]

i have found a possible fix or workaround to the problem!

i installed Ubuntu gnome 16.04 and to my surprise the ram usage was at 1.2gb idle and after just opening my browser and a youtube video it shot up to about 2.3gb which was alarming to say the least, so not one to give up i went in search for a solution and found nothing to help until a came across a very old post that had nothing to do with this particular problem but was taking about evolution services leaking ram, which at that point got me thinking ........ so i fired up the system monitor and proceeded to investigate which processes were consuming the most ram and to my surprise two processes in particular were at the top of the processes food chain 1- gnome-software 2-evolution and disable its processes, so i then proceeded to

 uninstall gnome-software;

 > ( sudo apt remove gnome-software ) <

then i removed evolution and its services

 > ( sudo apt remove evolution ) <

 disable processes -- type each command below in the terminal --

cd /usr/share/dbus-1/services

sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.AddressBook.service

sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.Calendar.service

sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.Sources.service

sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.UserPrompter.service

and after doing this and rebooting my computer my ram was between 870MB and 950MB idle and about 1.2gb to 1.8gb with everything open eg browser youtube apps etc as many as i could open at the same time to test.

also this workaround is assuming that you don't need to use evolution or gnome software but an alternative software center i use is Ubuntu mate welcome app and if i need any other particular piece of software i use command line or add a repo.

hope this workaround can help someone until the problem is found and fixed.

kind regards

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Ubuntu 16.04.1 Unity Desktop
dpkg -s evolution
dpkg-query: package 'evolution' is not installed and no information is available
Use dpkg --info (= dpkg-deb --info) to examine archive files,
and dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list their contents.

[Andy C (linxa3c)]

I'm not sure what your asking or saying? but i have attached a couple of screen shots of my systems idle ram usage i understand Removing evolution completely is messy, but disabling is relatively straightforward.

Of course this should have been done using dpkg divert and whatever, to not confuse apt/dpkg when you upgrade your system.

after applying my workaround my system no longer has high ram and the ram no longer starts to increase steadily, i know that evolution and gnome software seem to no take very much resources but this is what made it even more strange when i removed and disabled them my ram went down and stayed down.

ill try attach screen shots of my system monitor and htop below so you can see my idle ram usage now keeping mind i have a lot of start up services and apps installed but its dramatically reduced from from before i applied this work around.

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Comparison of Ubuntu 14.04.5 to Ubuntu 16.04.1 using gnome-system-monitor

Ubuntu 14.04.5
compiz 79.7 MB
evolution-calendar-factory 38.0 MB
evolution-source-registry 4.8 MB
The ubuntu-software-center uses 111MB after the program is opened but not constantly like gnome-software.

Ubuntu 16.04.1
compiz 80.1 MB
evolution-address-book-factory 4.6 MB
evolution-address-book-factory-subprocess 4.5 MB
evolution-calendar-factory 36.8 MB
evolution-calendar-factory-subprocess 37.4 MB
evolution-calendar-factory-subprocess 37.2 MB
evolution-source-registry 5.5 MB
gnome-software 65.0 MB

There are more evolution related processes running in Ubuntu 16.04.1.

[shivaraj naidu (shivarajnaidu)]

I even tried Ubuntu 16.04.1 with Kernel 4.7, Unfortunately still problem is there.. after that.. I have seen gnome-system-monitor and found that gnome-software using more than 110 MiB of my RAM and Evolution services using My RAM unnecessarily .. Killing these services reduce My RAM usage so that i have removed these from auto start

[fisadev (fisadev)]

I was having the same issue: lots of RAM usage, increasing over time, even with no applications open. I uninstalled the evolution package (just that one, no other evolution-*), and the problem seems to be fixed. Still testing, but I haven't seen excessive ram usage since yesterday.

[anderson (andergrp)]

I was having a issue like that. What solved my problem was disabling (or unistall) the packet "cups-browsed". Now the RAM use is about 900MB-1GB when system Reboot and not increasing.

[Romain Cambier (r-me-v)]

The seems to be related to unity since using KDE, i'm using about 700Mo when not doing anything while using 1.9 Go after 12 hours of not doing anything with unity.

When closing & re-opening my unity session, the RAM drop to 800Mo and slowly increases over the time, still without doing anything!

[Lunderhage (lunderhage)]

This bug was posted 2016-04-21. It has been marked by 75 people, high and confirmed. Today is 2016-09-12. What are we waiting for?

[Nuno Gonçalves (ntmg-22)]

I have same problem, fresh start, uses 1.3Gb of ram. Besides can be the reason of sometimes the OS freezes, it is about 1~5min unresponsive with only gedit open or other random program.

[emdee (4ltf)]

Well, it is good to know that others have the same problem as myself, but the comments do not all add any new information in order to help address the issue. The problem CANNOT just be a straight memory leak or CPU usage issue. I am running 16.04.1 on a 64-bit Dell I5555 with Radeon graphics and have had various error messages around this problem (during the boot process). First, after installing the OS, I have had a few normal boots, all being responsive and quick (also the boot process being quick and the shutdown lightning-fast). Then, don't know what triggered it, the CPU and memory usage went up - and not back down. It does not matter what I do, once there is a rogue job in the system, it is persistent. It comes back up during the next (agonizingly slow!) boot as well, before I even log in. So it's got nothing to do with the software that is running at the time a regular user starts to check. I have tried the uninstall work-around mentioned above (evolution, gnome-software), no change. At one point the computer was very unresponsive, sluggish, getting hot, but when I run the system monitor, the compiz memory usage is only 195 MB(!) and CPU usage is entirely normal. 0 when I don't move the cursor, up to 15 or 20% when I hover the cursor above the launch pad. And it goes back to 0 afterwards. But the fan does NOT stop howling. So I think an erroneous entry is kept somewhere (not in the .compiz directory; I've tried that work-around) that makes the system BELIEVE that something is using lots of memory and/or CPU, although that is not necessarily the case at the time. What did help, ONCE, about a week ago, was a complete system crash! After that, everything was back to normal. Astonishingly, there was nothing wrong on the hard disk, nothing needed fixing; lightning-fast boot, ALL ready to go within seconds! Does this trigger somebody's mind? I am only a user, not a developer; and I hope that somebody who is more computer-literate that I can "read the signs" and make sense out of the symptoms I am describing - thank you in advance!

[emdee (4ltf)]

Just installed the new Ubuntu base that arrived as an OS update and contained a compiz upgrade - no discernible improvement.

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

I have started experiencing this issue after latest kernel update. As many discovered that memory leak in evolution-data-server is one of the culprit. But even after killing all eds services the memory usage still at 800mb+ unlike trusty (500~600mb). So it is not the only reason.

Btw, memory leak has been fixed in evolution-data-server >= 3.20, although I don't which commit exactly does that. We can not use 3.20 on 16.04, but it is possible to cherry-pick those patches (I don't think upstream will ever do that) which fixes the leak.

[bhartendu (bhartendu-2007)]

Hi, I am facing the same issues.

In my case gnome-shell and gnome-daemon are taking most of the memory. At one point gnome-shell was using 5.6 GB of RAM.

[Thiago Martins (martinx)]

Right after booting my 16.04 (now 16.10), before even logging into Unity, I go to text console and log there...

32G of RAM being used! htop shows nothing...

[Thiago Martins (martinx)]

You guys can ignore my latest message (#96).

[rob cain (rcain-3)]

Just to add, too was experiencing high RAM usage & what appeared to be a slow but steady memory leak in Unbunti 16.04 (latest). In my case, I discovered at least part of the problem was one or more (yet to be determined) Firefox (v49.0) plugins/add-ons. People also running Firefox might like to retry tests using Firefox in Safe mode (all add ons disabled), if you haven't alreay done so, see if that makes any difference. (Also running stuff like Dropbox in the background whilst trying to pin down a problem like this seems an inherently bad idea).

[Khurshid Alam (khurshid-alam)]

Now I can confirm It's definitely the kernel. Here are my test result:

Kernel RAM usage after boot
---------------------------------------
4.4.0-18: 600MB
4.4.0-22: 600MB

4.4.0-31: 900MB
4.4-0-38: 900MB
4.4-0-42: 1000MB

4.8-0-22: 900MB (Yakkety)

Can anyone confirm ?

[bekou (bekou)]

@Khurshid Alam

Well, I do confirm that adding the 4.4.0-22 kernel, there was a drop in the memory usage.

Initially, the system started with 1.2 gb.

I disabled evolution processes as suggested above.

cd /usr/share/dbus-1/services
sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.AddressBook.service
sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.Calendar.service
sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.Sources.service
sudo ln -snf /dev/null org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.UserPrompter.service

and gnome-software. There was a drop to 993 mb.

After the suggestion above with kernel 4.4.0-22, my system starts at 795.2 mb.

Moreover, the teamviewer process is running at system startup, so these numbers can be further reduced by 70-100 mb.

If somebody knows how to re-enable evolution processes please let know.

[Mozg (andrei-arhont)]

It's got something to do with the kernel. Done a quick test using the latest kernel 4.4.0-42-generic. Restarted my pc and logged in. Opened terminal and mem usage was 1.8gb.

Done the same with the latest 4.8.1 kernel from ubuntu kernels page and the usage was only 673mb.

Crazy!

[Sebastian Dominguez (sebaminguez)]

In my case removing intel-microcode (propietary driver) the ram drops to 900MB (but loses performance and video in hd frezes)

[Jean Carlos (negrotico19)]

Definetly the newer kernels (non-officials) use a lot less ram memory than older one. But the problem comes with WiFi network card.

In my case, I am not able to switch to kernel 4.8.6 because I loss WiFi conectivity (BCM4312 like any Dell laptop), I need to be stick to kernel 4.4.0 for now.

[Stoyan Ivanov (stoyan-sumdog)]

16GB of DDR4 ram on a workstation. Chrome with 30 tabs plus multiple terminals and text editors = all of it full. When I used 14.04 LTS, everything was okay, 10-12GB used with a lot more chrome tabs open. Waiting for a fix for this.

[Sebastian Dominguez (sebaminguez)]

I solve with removing google talk firefox extension (very old version)
My 2 cents

[Sebastian Dominguez (sebaminguez)]

I solved it removing google talk firefox extension (very old version)
My 2 cents

[insp (geiser007)]

It's hard to work with because of this issue. Also I've found out that Google Chrome fill in all RAM with time and system starts swapping.

[insp (geiser007)]

In addition to post above. The system starts swapping and became unresponsive, then OOM (Out of memory) killer starts working, killing Chrome tabs.

[Reinhard (reinhard-fink)]

In my test I saw following:

UBUNTU 14.04 uses about 482MB memory
UBUNTU 16.04 uses about 966MB memory

So I reduced memory with following script, which removes software I don't need, and ended at about 660MB memory. Also boot- and login time get a little bit shorter.
But I am not to happy, because I would prefer to stay on a standard-installation.

#!/bin/bash
# remove memory consuming programms, we do not need:
# gnome-software, Softwarecenter
apt-get -y purge gnome-software

# evolution groupware, Groupware Suite
apt-get -y purge evolution-data-server
# snapd, Snap Packages
apt-get -y purge snapd

# modemmanager, Manager for Modems
apt-get -y purge modemmanager

# ppp, Point to Point Protocol
apt-get -y purge ppp

# avahi-daemon, Zero Conf Network
apt-get -y purge avahi-daemon

[Blue Boelter (blueaz)]

I also have this problem on my AMD 64-bit system with 4 Gb of RAM. I've read thru all the stuff above, and I still don't know what to do. I don't understand what Evolution is or what it does, so I don't know if I can remove it. I'm scared to copy/paste people's code into a Terminal, as it's not from an official source.
All I know is: I've been using LTS versions of Ubuntu for over 5 years, and this is the worst memory-suck problem I've ever had. I upgraded to 16.04. It ran OK for awhile; I installed all recommended updates. Now it's gobbling up all my RAM, windows are graying out, programs are slow or don't even work right.
How can this issue be brought to the attention of someone qualified to provide a real fix?

[Ryan Karolak (rkarolak)]

Evolution is the application that Ubuntu uses for calendar, mail, and contacts. A similar program would be Mozilla's Thunderbird.

It doesn't surprise me that removing it would free up some RAM, but I don't think this is necessarily the root of the problem. Removing it from other versions of Ubuntu would similarly free up RAM there as well.

Chrome has also always been a memory hog for years. It's a problem across all platforms, not just Ubuntu/GNU/Linux. Disabling as many extensions and add-ons can help there.

I haven't done much testing myself, but it may be worth testing different Window and Desktop Managers to see if it Unity maybe plays a role in the problem.

My machine is a 2013 Pixel (Reflashed ROM) running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Unity). I have 4 GB of RAM and I have more than one or two applications it starts swapping much sooner than I'd expect.

[Andrei B. (andrei-balint)]

I decided to try Fedora 25 Gnome. 4 GB of RAM proved not enough for Chrome,
this considering gnome starts already at 1.3 GB. All in all it does'n feel
much different than Unity in mem usage. Xubuntu and the lighter bunch start
with less ram, so Chrome has a harder time swapping. I would not care about
Chrome, but my wife is using it ( I'm a firefox guy). I stayed with Fedora,
but I had to buy 8 extra GB of ram and disable swap. The system works fine
since then.

On Dec 6, 2016 10:55 PM, "Ryan Karolak" <email address hidden> wrote:

Evolution is the application that Ubuntu uses for calendar, mail, and
contacts. A similar program would be Mozilla's Thunderbird.

It doesn't surprise me that removing it would free up some RAM, but I
don't think this is necessarily the root of the problem. Removing it
from other versions of Ubuntu would similarly free up RAM there as well.

Chrome has also always been a memory hog for years. It's a problem
across all platforms, not just Ubuntu/GNU/Linux. Disabling as many
extensions and add-ons can help there.

I haven't done much testing myself, but it may be worth testing
different Window and Desktop Managers to see if it Unity maybe plays a
role in the problem.

My machine is a 2013 Pixel (Reflashed ROM) running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
(Unity). I have 4 GB of RAM and I have more than one or two applications
it starts swapping much sooner than I'd expect.

--
You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
report.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1572801

Title:
  Ubuntu 16.04 Unity desktop uses much more ram than Ubuntu 15.10

Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete
Status in linux source package in Xenial:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 16.04 64bit ISO number 20160420.1
  unity version 7.4.0+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1
  Ubuntu 16.04 64bit ram usage has increase dramatically over Ubuntu 15.10
  Ubuntu 16.04 ram roughly 1 GB Ubuntu15.10 can be tuned to 420, 450 MB
  Ubuntu 16.04 with unity uses 1GB whereas Kubuntu 16.04 is using 420MB
live usb

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: unity 7.4.0+16.04.20160415-0ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
  Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
  .tmp.unity_support_test.0:

  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperVersion: 1.376
  CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/
screen0/options/active_plugins'
  CompositorRunning: compiz
  CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
  CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  Date: Thu Apr 21 01:44:22 2016
  DistUpgraded: Fresh install
  DistroCodename: xenial
  DistroVariant: ubuntu
  GraphicsCard:
   Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated
Graphics Controller [8086:0412] (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
     Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core
Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [1043:8534]
  GsettingsChanges:
   b'org.compiz.core' b'outputs' b"['1920x1080+0+0']"
   b'org.compiz.core' b'active-plugins' b"['core', 'composite', 'opengl',
'place', 'regex', 'resize', 'session', 'snap', 'vpswitch', 'wall',
'animat...

[chris (serella-c)]

16.04 - AMD 64bit - 4GB ram - nvidia GT610 (2GB model)

I get full lock up if i run any program that is resource intensive for too long. Noted that swap was disabled for some reason. Have enabled swap (5GB) which prolonged the amount of time to lockup however it still occurs.

free -m repeated over a period shows that the ram is gradually being used up (no surprise there).

It's 2017 now almost a year since this bug was filed, is this going to be fixed any time soon, Looking at the status of this report it doesn't appear to be assigned to anybody?

[david wood (david-wood)]

I see a lot of chatter that is likely confusion related to the leak manifestations, and the false belief that eliminating X or Y memory consumer "fixed" the problem. The proper test is probably to leave a computer running, idle for 24-48 hours; if you begin swapping and running out of RAM while taking no action, you are still afflicted. Anyone who has not done that will not know if the issue is fixed.

As this leads to swap thrashing for anyone who leaves their computer running (which is many people), this software bug is leading to real-dollar hardware damage (as write spam kills flash memory drives).

[Miguel Romão (romao-miguel)]

So at this stage the best solution seems to be: wait for 17.04 and check again. Great... until then my 4 gb RAM laptop feels like last century technology...

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

Confirmed.
It looks like 17.04 uses less ram than 16.04.

[Matt Mudrich (zipfreed)]

Wanted to chime-in and say I experience the same thing. Issue doesn't persist in Ubuntu Gnome flavor on the same hardware.

Did notice some earlier posters mentioned dropbox, have noticed the latest version will consistently chew up available memory the longer the machine is on.

[Marcantonio (marcantonio)]

This is affecting our servers, which we just upgraded to 16.04. No unity or gnome or any of that. Memory, for any application it seems, just grows more rapidly. I'm convinced this is related to the kernel.

I hate to be the guy to say this, but why isn't this a bigger deal?

I've tried 4.4.0-59 and 4.8.0-34. I haven't seen any improvement.

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

For me problem is gone since upgrading kernel to 4.9.0.
You can try to get it from 17.04 repo.

[warren (wkclemmons)]

So you're saying that kernel 4.9.0 cuts ram usage to 14.04 levels which
would be a reduction of about 600-700 megabytes.

On 01/30/2017 12:59 PM, Сергей wrote:
> For me problem is gone since upgrading kernel to 4.9.0.
> You can try to get it from 17.04 repo.
>

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

It uses less RAM than 16.10 and 16.04. Difference is about 500 MB on start and 1Gb after launching different applications.
It's hard for me to compare 14.04 and 17.04, because it's 2.5 years passed. But I think moving to systemd increased RAM usage anyway. And some new versions of daemons and libraries can use more RAM than their 14.04 versions.

[Marcantonio (marcantonio)]

Will 4.9 be backported to 16.04?

[nevergone (nevergone)]

Somebody?

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Does Bug 1572801 have anything to do with the Upstart to systemd transition?

On 02/17/2017 03:37 AM, nevergone wrote:
> Somebody?
>

[Keith (herronkeith)]

I did have bootchart installed. So I removed and purged it and went as far as moving the hidden .bootchart directory to the trash (couldn't delete it) and then restarting the computer. So far this seems to have resolved the problem for me. I'm no longer seeing the slow but steady increase in memory usage. So my thanks to Jacek Kończewski for his comment above (#47).

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

same here :( my tests: http://askubuntu.com/questions/888509/unity-reduce-ram-usage

Ubuntu is going down..

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

Where is this "fix"? I know it isn't bootchart, because bootchart isn't on any of my installations.

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

Fixed? Haha made my day :D

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

So where is fix? There is no fix release.

[WindTux (windtux)]

with KDE Neon there are not problems of Excessive consumption... is unity or gnome 3.18 the problem...

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

If is it possible I would like to downgrade unity/gnome to Ubuntu 15.10 version.

[Amr Ibrahim (amribrahim1987)]

The Xenial task was 'Fix Released' by mistake. Please revert back to 'Confirmed'.

[warren (wkclemmons)]

In Ubuntu 14.04.5 I used the free -m command and gnome-system-monitor the results were indentical, but Ubuntu 16.04.2 the results are not identical gnome-system-monitor adds 600MB to the memory usage.

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

I dont think that it will be fixed (no annoucement from devs --> devs are lazy), maybe it is time to switch to KDE/LXDE or another distro :)

[Nov (novtesk)]

Do anyone here notices that SOMETIMES the RAM usage goes very annoyingly high after upgrading through terminal?

My previous Lubuntu is usually around 300 mb. It rises to 700 mb after doing apt upgrade.
My current Xubuntu is also rises to 900 mb after doing apt-upgrade. I did a new clean install and it's now around 400 mbs.

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

Since Canonical no longer supports unity, switching to debian is a best way to resolve this issue.

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

I switched to KDE Neon and I am happy, memory usage is around 400MB and KDE Plasma is better than Unity (better customization, modern look)

[i2000s (i2000s)]

My gnome-shell is using 20.8GiB right now on my Ubuntu 16.04.2 Gnome. Still slowly increasing! Any fix?

[tasos (adamopanast)]

Same here.Running Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 , kernel : 4.10.0-19-generic , 4GB RAM , 2,8GB Swap on Dell Inspiron 3542 laptop . I boot on 1.2GB of RAM (!!) and system swaps (and stucks...)with some chrome tabs (5 or 6) , eclipse , skype and slack running . This just means that I cant work :) . Its the first time I face this problem on Linux . Even Windows 10 consume much less memory than this one . I am about to try another kernel or turn off Intel microcode .

Check screenshot .

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

Confirmed - moving to debian 8 reduces ram usage by 1-2 Gb.

[gkessel (gkessel)]

I don't think this is strictly a Unity problem. I recently noticed that gnome-shell was eating memory in Ubuntu 16.04.2 (64-bit), consuming all available RAM and SWAP space before ultimately resulting in errors resembling, "Unable to fork: Cannot allocate memory," which occurred when launching any application within Gnome. Rebooting the server freed up memory temporarily, but didn't fix the problem. It appears to be a bug involving the proprietary NVIDIA display drivers. Maybe identical to this bug report, which was supposedly patched last year:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/879616/linux/memory-leak-for-gnome-shell-for-gdm-user-all-driver-versions-/post/4685195/

In the meanwhile, switching back to the open-source Nouveau display drivers seems to have stopped the memory leak. Unfortunately I have a few games on Steam that perform better with the proprietary drivers, so I hope this is something that gets fixed.

[Bushi (bushi1600)]

I'm using Gnome Ubuntu 17.04 (kernel 4.10.0-20-generic, 6GB of total RAM) and have the same problem. System boots with 1.2GB and soon reaches 50% of used RAM, with 2 or 3 firefox tabs open. I've tested Ubuntu Mate 16.10 and although the initial RAM was lower than Gnome, it was still a little high for Mate (around 800MB). Kubuntu was worst for me, with a very sluggish system just with a open browser.

I also use Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop, and after booting with lots of programs (dropbox, redshift, conky and some custom scripts), the system barely touches 800MB. I have to open firefox, atom, and a windows 7 virtual machine to pass 50% of RAM use.

[insp (geiser007)]

Bug still exists in latest release of Ubuntu 16.04?

[AWB70 (awb70uk)]

2 Systems running both 64bit systems one has 1gig ram installed (old computer) with 14.04.5 LTS 32bit ram after boot up is 328mb Tried Mint 18.1 Mate on same system Ram after bootup 600 ish.
2nd system with 2gig Ram ubuntu 16.04 LTS boots up with 867mb Ram.

Would expect newer versions of OS to consume a bit more RAM but well over double seems very excessive. Installing 16.04 on the 1gig system in fallback metacity mode was totally unworkable so went back to 14.04 lts pending getting more ram for that machine but still, double the RAM was unexpected.

[warren (wkclemmons)]

Here is few of the Gnome-shell memory leaks listed on Bugzilla
Bug 642652 - Major memory leak on mutter when using gnome-shell
Bug 701230 - Memory usage grows rapidly, never decreases
Bug 735705 - Memory usage of gnome-shell increasing to X GiB (heap)
Bug 777654 - gnome-shell memory leaks on llvmpipe
Bug 709451 - gnome-shell memory leaks
Bug 689378 - Memory Leak

[Davias (davias)]

..just upgraded from 14.04...my system has 8GB ram, never had problem with memory, now using my main app in Java ?im getting memory low warning! I have an AMD Athlon 2 X4, Radeon 7770 with 1GB ram, using the Noveau driver...

[Davias (davias)]

...tried the AMDGPU-PRO driver (AMDGPU is not available for HD7770), graphic performance on Java are a joke: 5 times worst than Gallium (not Noveau)...you move the mouse and the cursor follow after 1 second...a joke. Back to Gallium, yesterday started with 29% mem free, ended up in the evening with 1% and 30% swap used! Also, another known problem, monitors position is not remembered...this is the worst upgrade I ever made...planning on going back to 14.04...what a mess..

[Davias (davias)]

...here again, have been monitoring..I'm on Gnome Fallback as GUI and Oracle Java 8, last update: my java app, Prorealtime 10.3 (owrking ok since 2 years on 14.04) keeps growing in memory space: from the start it occupies 1.1 GB as Firefox, then, with no other activities, java in monitor keeps growing to 3 GB at midday...by evening I'll be on swap...really? Not even windows...Developers? Anyone?

[insp (geiser007)]

On 16.04 now have the same issues with RAM growing. Thinking about to go back to 14.04 or switch to Linux Mint.

[Michel-Ekimia (michel.ekimia)]

Can we sum up in the Bug description the root cause of this problem ? thx

[insp (geiser007)]

I've installed the Gnome flashback desktop environment into my Ubuntu 16.04 and it seems working fine.

[Davias (davias)]

#151: NO, I am (and always been) on Gnome Flashback...fallback...the old ubuntu desktop, the one like it is meant to be...AND it eats memory...

[insp (geiser007)]

Yep, with Gnome Flashback the issue also exists, maybe with slightly less load on RAM. I'm so tired about this bug.... what's wrong with Ubuntu 16.04... :(

[Davias (davias)]

Yeah, .. what's wrong with Ubuntu 16.04...? This LTS update I delayed a lot, waiting for support of the official AMDGPU-PRO driver, was really a nightmare. My system was upgraded since 7.04 and everything just worked PERFECTLY...Now I find myself with low ram warnings, Oracle java 8 system unstable with unusable graphic performance on AMDGPU-PRO. So I have to use Radeon FOS driver, much better, but still much slower than the old fglrx from ADM...and I cannot go back..cannot risk a mess on my work machine...

[insp (geiser007)]

I think we should create a new report about this issue.

[Davias (davias)]

..well, instead of a new report, I will like to have new solutions...

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

Yea I switched to KDE Neon and I don't have any problem, RAM usage is about 450MB :)

[Reichyga (reichyga)]

A new report is not a bad idea since here there are people complaining of different problems. Some complain about a memory leak while others complain that the use of ram is about 500-1000 MB higher than 14.04. (which is my case)

My best bet is that there is some problem with unity or with a component of gnome since newer versions of the kernel haven't done the trick so far.

That said I've been using 16.04 in my work machines for the last year and the system has been perfectly stable and usable. I'm just bogged down with 16.04 using that much ram it's almost like windows.

[andresimi (andresimi)]

Good to know @tomsk, Ubuntu days of glory are gone. It's been more than a year in this topic and we couldn't get a word. Maybe it is time for a goodbye indeed.

[insp (geiser007)]

I've tried KDE Neon on Ubuntu 16.04.2 and the issue still persists.

[Alecz20 (alexguzu)]

For me compiz consumes 955 MB RAM with Chrome and Firefox open:
Top memory consumers:
Firefox : 900MB - 1,2 GB (about 8 tabs open)
Compiz : 955 MB
Gnome-software : 310 MB
Chrome : ~150 MB per tab.

Total usage: 6.0 GB / 15.3

See attached picture

[Davias (davias)]

..this is my system monitor...java 8 starts at around 1GB and then grows to grab all memory...

[Alecz20 (alexguzu)]

@davias: What does java have to do with Ubuntu Unity? Just remove java or stop whatever 3rd party application uses it.

[Davias (davias)]

..this is about 16.04 memory leaks, not just unity, that BTW, I'm not using..I'm on Gnome Classic...fallback..and my principal application works on java 8, and it was perfect until 14.04..then the upgrade and this nightmare...

[insp (geiser007)]

What is the best way to migrate from Ubuntu 16.04 to 14.04 or Linux Mint with keeping all my files?

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

I've had the java 8 memory leak with lubuntu 16.04.

As for using excessive memory from the start, like over a gigabyte with nothing else running, I've seen it in Ubuntu (Unity, Gnome, KDE) and Linux Mint 18 (Cinnamon and KDE), which is based on Ubuntu 16.04. I have not observed this excessive memory use with debian 8 or 9 KDE. However Debian 9 does use more than Debian 8. Usually I have .75 GB memory use with Debian 9 KDE with dropbox and nvidia proprietary drivers installed and nothing else running, but the same setup on the same computers with Ubuntu 16.04 and Linux Mint 18 of most desktop environments available through normal channels are always around a GB or more in the same situation. So I believe this is an Ubuntu problem since it does not exist upstream but does exist downstream. Furthermore, I no longer believe it is Gnome, because it exists in KDE for me too.

insp, for migrating you can get an external drive to save your important files. Or you can use cloud backups. Or what I do sometimes is to make a new partition on the same drive if there is space, install the other linux OS, and then copy all the files between partitions in the new OS. Make sure you edit the permissions of the files in the old OS first or you might have trouble copying. Sadly, I doubt Linux Mint 18 will help since it is a rebadged Ubuntu 16.04, but Ubuntu 14.04 or the Linux Mint 17 series based on Ubuntu 14.04 should help. Or, if you are comfortable enough with linux, you can try debian which is what Ubuntu is based on. Debian just doesn't have all the proprietary drivers included by default for wireless and graphics, so it is a little more advanced to set up.

[Davias (davias)]

Thanks Scott for #166...indeed the memory is excessive from the start, but I can live with that: 1 GB, ok, another 1 GB for firefox, ok...the problem is that java keeps growing...until it eats all the memory (I have 8 GB), the system starts to go paging on disks and become unusable. I'm using Ubuntu since 7.04 and upgraded ever since, this is the first time I have such serious problem.

[Scott Mackay (sgian333)]

Davias, even though this bug report was originally about the other memory problem of using excessive memory as soon as it turns on, don't see the harm in helping with this java memory problem too since it doesn't look like Canonical is going to fix either one for 16.04 since it has existed so long and we are getting close to another LTS release in April. I had that java memory leak in lubuntu 16.04 for a minecraft server I left on all the time and the memory regularly maxed out regardless of java settings, there was even a thread about it last year somewhere on the Ubuntu forums where it was recommended I switch to a window manager instead of a desktop environment. Memory management was better with openbox on ubuntu without a desktop environment. The minecraft server we have is now on debian 9 without a desktop environment, and I let that run java all week long without the memory leak.

One of my kids now uses kubuntu 16.04 to play minecraft with Oracle Java and it is ok with kde. However java is not constantly running on kubuntu so I can't guarantee it won't have the memory leak after several days of constant java use all day long. So you can try kubuntu 16.04, or probably any ubuntu 14.04. I've switched my personal computer to debian 9 and haven't noticed that memory leak for java with debian either in kde, but once again this computer doesn't run java all the time.

[Davias (davias)]

..thanks again Scott for the explanation. I'm coming from Ubuntu 14.04, no problems there. But going back is kind of let down, and also not safe to go back: I would have to reinstall the system...very long...waiting 'till April..is almost 1 year away..

[andresimi (andresimi)]

Following @tomsk that Swtiched to KDE Neon, I tried Mint KDE 1604 and I am very impressed! The only thing I had to setup was to disable baloo file indexer that made the system unusable, but after that the system is really fast and no bugs. Great Work!

- My memory consumption was around 1.5 GB at startup in Ubuntu (always been an Ubuntu user, since 2009). Now, with all my stuff installed, Dropbox, etc it is:

STARTUP
              total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7849 840 5758 98 1250 6618
Swap: 8999 0 8999

WITH 2 TABS OF CHROME OPEN
              total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7849 1930 2908 208 3010 5355
Swap: 8999 0 8999

- How to disable baloo in KDE:
> sudo balooctl disable

[Blue Boelter (blueaz)]

Hello, a 16.04 64-bit user here. I found this thread in 12-2016 after having this problem. Then an update seemed to fix it and things have been going fine since then. Now, with no changes to my system other than regular updates, the memory suck problem is back. I see that 'Fix Released' label. Is that for the late 2016 problem only? Is there a fix for the 7-2017 problem? How do I get it and when is somebody going to fix it for good?!

[Sergei (markovs-i-mail)]

Seems like a kernel or systemd bug since debian is affected too after upgrading to 4.9.

[Begona Alvarez (begonaalvarezd)]

Any update here?

I have been experiencing this issue with Ubuntu 16.04 really looong time. The memory consumption starts normal (high but quite normal for java) but it is just a matter of time that java eats all possible memory leading to a crash. I have been forced to downgrade some computers to Ubuntu 14.04 and this solved all issues. Unfortunately I cannot downgrade all machines to Ubuntu 14.04 so a fix would be highly appreciate :)

Not even windows have this problem...really?

Looking forward for any reply.

[tomsk (tomsk-slovak)]

@begonaalvarezd

No solution after 2 years.. Cannonical is ignoring us.

I already switched to KDE Neon (uses about 450MB of RAM at start)

[Begona Alvarez (begonaalvarezd)]

This is quite disappointing...

Just saying...