compiz memory leak?

[kuntau]

This has happened a couple of times but this is the only time I managed to see what the cause of this problem. Before this when I leave my computer overnight and when I wake up the system already not responsive I'am not been able to turn wake my monitor from standby.

This time I just go out for couple of hours and when I get back my computer already become sluggish. So a quick check with System Monitor I found out compiz is using 2.4GB from my total memory of 4GB and 100% swap was used.

Anyway picture worth a thousand words. So here it is.

[mc4man]

Are you using the indicator-multiload? ( or similarly named

If so then get rid of - it causes a continual mem leak in unity - if that's what you're using?

There are some very small compiz leaks, mainly per use of the dash and the places, nothing that would cause anywhere what you see

If inclined post - (put in a code box or attach text file

ps -A u

Edit: as example - this machine has been online for about 8 hrs., lots of activities - compiz is only using around 100MB, this machine boots up @ about 75MB RSS

$ pidstat -r -p ALL |grep compiz
01:46:22 PM 3737 11.59 0.00 267728 99848 3.23 compiz

[kuntau]

Hi thank you for the reply. I don't know what is indicator-multiload and I can't even find it on my system so I guess I don't have it installed.

Anyway here is my ps -A u result

http://pastebin.com/iEEFDGLL

edit:
ok before I make the first post I do compiz --replace and solve the 2.4GB memory usage and now here is my compiz memory usage, still climbing up.

pidstat -r -p ALL | grep compiz
02:18:24 AM     19583      2.18      0.01  882692 296980   7.32  compiz

[mc4man]

Well, whatever is setting compiz off is not normal.
I think I'd start with a fresh boot, do nothing and see what happens w/ compiz (don't use system monitor to ck., either pidstat, free -m or htop
If it starts climbing anyway then you'd want to disable unnecessary processes and then see if you can figure out what's causing.

If it remains relatively static from a fresh start then start up things one at a time, ect.
In that case use the pidstat as below but don't log, you'll be able to see in the terminal in realtime as you start things up

You could set up a logging of comiz w/ pidstat though maybe not useful yet (get the pid, then something like this - 1st # is sec's between reports, 2nd is the number of reports
pidstat -r -p XXXX 30 100 >> compiz_mem.log

Would be interesting to see what you have right after a fresh boot (wait about 30 secs, if you wanted to re-run after a bit and append then use >> instead

pidstat -r -p ALL > base_mem.log

What is "indicator-virtualbox" and do you know why you have all these volume monitors running?

[kuntau]

Hi. I just reboot my machine so here is my current pidstat for compiz. I'm logging now using your command above and will report back.

03:29:26 AM      2116    182.62      0.01  705536 142160   3.50  compiz

Indicator-virtualbox is some applet I got on taskbar (what should I call it? near the clock) for launching my vm.

Sorry but what do you mean by volume monitor running? I got banshee running on background and I have MS SideWinder X6 keyboard with volume knob if that help.

Thank you

[mc4man]

you mean by volume monitor running?

I see these 2, not familiar with
/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor
/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor

It still would be useful to see what was running at start up (from a fresh start, what I mentioned as the base_mem) Your 142MB above is a bit high, though that could depend on what's running at the start.

Generally here on several different machines unity from fresh boot starts w/ comiz at between 70 - 85 MB.
I fully expect it and several other processes (Xorg, nautilus, ect.) to rise a bit in RSS over the course of a session
(some I believe is proper, some not so.

[kuntau]

I see these 2, not familiar with
/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor
/usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor

It still would be useful to see what was running at start up (from a fresh start, what I mentioned as the base_mem) Your 142MB above is a bit high, though that could depend on what's running at the start.

Generally here on several different machines unity from fresh boot starts w/ comiz at between 70 - 85 MB.
I fully expect it and several other processes (Xorg, nautilus, ect.) to rise a bit in RSS over the course of a session
(some I believe is proper, some not so.

To be honest I also don't know where it come from and I don't know how to track where it come from too

Anyway after 2+ hours this is what I got.

ps -A u > http://pastebin.com/DCXraLjV

compiz memlog > http://pastebin.com/CKDrmxUj

05:47:48 AM      2116     21.08      0.00  719852 254976   6.28  compiz

[mc4man]

Possibly I was confusing you - so to clear up?
First forget about those volume monitors - I see them here, not important.

There are small leaks in natty inc. compiz, but normally nothing close to approaching what you showed in post 1

addon indicators can be suspect, the indicator-multiload is one example

What I thought you should do -
Restart to clear all, take a reading to establish what's running by default and how much mem in use.
Leave the pc alone for a period of time and them take another reading (maybe an hr.
( if you have chrome starting by default than I'd disable for the moment
Delete any logs and just use this to start and after a period of no activity run again to compare

free -m >> base_mem.log &&  pidstat -r -p ALL  >> base_mem.log

If mem use has increased more than a small amount then something you're starting by default is the cause.
If it hasn't, then start processes one by one, wait a bit and recheck just compiz itself to see if it starts going up significantly in the RSS value

Some current open bugs
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ty/+bug/720446
https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator...ad/+bug/779717

[nlucaroni]

I have had my compiz take up ~13GB of Memory twice in the past two days. Doing `compiz --replace &` in a terminal temporarily fixes the issue.

I do have the indicator-multiload running; I just uninstalled it and hopefully wont run into another problem. I cannot imagine 13GB being consumed by a little indicator, and will report back if I can narrow this consumption down.

[TwoD]

I get the same symptoms with filled RAM and swap several times a day. I've got 4GB RAM and 2GB swap. I upgraded the RAM a while ago but only noticed today I forgot to increase the swap space. That has not been a problem until I upgraded to Natty though since swap usage never went above 200MB before.

I've previously been able to recover without a full reboot by killing compiz and restarting it. For some reason Unity/Compiz will not notice that my desktop is stretched across two windows with TwinView so I also have to swap back and forth too another resolution for Unity's element to reposition themselves correctly.

Thanks to mc4man for the indicator-multiload tip and nlucaroni for the

compiz --replace &

tip! It seems to have taken care of things for now.

If killing indicator-multiload helped for you too, I suggest subscribing to https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator...ad/+bug/779717 and also click the "This bug affects # people, does it affect you too?"-link.

There's also https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/720446 which seems interesting.