multiple xfdesktop processes spawned on login, consuming all memory

[Ricky Hewitt]

Binary package hint: xfdesktop4

Ubuntu Version: Ubuntu 9.04 (Alpha 5)

Package Version: xfdesktop4 4.5.99.1-0ubuntu3

What should happen:
I should be able to login as usual, xfdesktop should load and my memory usage should not exceed 80-150MB on login.

What actually happens:
When logging in to an xfce session, multiple xfdesktop processes are spawned. At the moment I have 16 running. Before clearing ~/.config/xfce4, I had 116 running causing a crash of the system.
On every login memory usage hits ~97%, either resulting in a unresponsive system or the processes being killed and memory usage falling over time with increased system response.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Dependencies:

DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: xfce4 None [modified: /var/lib/dpkg/info/xfce4.list]
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xfce4
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-8-generic i686

This may be a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfdesktop4/+bug/329616.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thanks for reporting this bug. Please run 'sudo apt-get update' and 'sudo apt-get dist-update' in a terminal. after they complete, restart your system. Then let us know if you still have this issue. It should be fixed already.

[Ricky Hewitt (rickyhewitt)]

I performed the update at around the time the last comment was posted, and have rebooted three times. Each reboot did not cause a system crash when beginning the xfce session and I have yet to see the amount I saw yesterday running.

At the moment I have 12 running (ps -A | grep xfdesktop | wc -l) and it takes much longer to login than it did with Intrepid. Not sure if 12 running is the norm though.

[Ricky Hewitt (rickyhewitt)]

After more testing I can confirm this bug is still present. Upon every login the spawning of xfdesktop processes is out of control, resulting in constant spawning of processes until I kill them all. Usually it results in an entirely unresponsive system unless I switch to a VT and kill them all.

Once they have all ended, I can start xfdesktop manually and it functions as expected.

Version: xfdesktop4 4.6.0-1ubuntu1