Update manager out of memory during cleanup

[bertkenward]

Binary package hint: update-manager

This does seem to have been reported before, but the update manage crash handler said not to attach to an existing one. Anyway, during the cleanup process in update-manager (from edgy to feisty on kubuntu) ran out of memory. top shows python as:
  5418 root 15 0 2237m 433m 2756 S 0.0 86.1 2:19.58 python

so it's certainly using memory. The system does appear to be in a consistent state after a reboot - is there anything I should check? Traceback is:

  File "/tmp/kde-root/adept_updaterB8cTbc.tmp-extract/dist-upgrade.py", line 56, in ?
    app.run()
  File "/tmp/kde-root/adept_updaterB8cTbc.tmp-extract/DistUpgradeControler.py", line 1025, in run
    self.fullUpgrade()
  File "/tmp/kde-root/adept_updaterB8cTbc.tmp-extract/DistUpgradeControler.py", line 1014, in fullUpgrade
    self.doPostUpgrade()
  File "/tmp/kde-root/adept_updaterB8cTbc.tmp-extract/DistUpgradeControler.py", line 740, in doPostUpgrade
    res = self.cache.commit(fprogress,iprogress)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/apt/cache.py", line 204, in commit
    if res == pm.ResultCompleted:
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/apt/cache.py", line 179, in installArchives
    installProgress.finishUpdate()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/apt/progress.py", line 206, in run
    select.select([self.statusfd],[],[], self.selectTimeout)
  File "/tmp/kde-root/adept_updaterB8cTbc.tmp-extract/DistUpgradeViewKDE.py", line 227, in fork
    self.child_pid = os.fork()
OSError: [Errno 12] Cannot allocate memory