Large memory leak in plasma

[Thomas Fjellstrom]

On December 18, 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> On December 18, 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> > On December 18, 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> > > On December 18, 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> > > > On December 18, 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> > > > > On December 18, 2008, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > > > > On Thursday 18 December 2008, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> > > > > > > I have no idea whats causing it.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > you and the rest of the people reporting it. ;)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > If it helps, I'm using the latest nvidia binary driver
> > > > > >
> > > > > > define "latest"
> > > > >
> > > > > Latest beta.
> > > > >
> > > > > > > While writing this message, its upped to 129MB after switching
> > > > > > > some desktops with the pager, and moving the folderview around
> > > > > > > a little.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > can you watch the memory usage as you do these things and try and
> > > > > > pin it down to exactly what triggers it? e.g. try moving the
> > > > > > folderview and see if that affects things; but ONLY move the
> > > > > > folderview. dont switch desktops, give focus to windows, etc. as
> > > > > > that will trigger chages in the pager and tasks widget.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > then try switching desktops with the pager ... swapping widows,
> > > > > > etc...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > having an xrestop running in an always-on-top, on-all-desktops
> > > > > > konsole window can make this all a bit easier to do.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > until we track down *some* culprit, it's pretty difficult to
> > > > > > start working towards a fix.
> > > > >
> > > > > So far as I said, switching desktops and moving a folderview around
> > > > > made it grow, but regular use (I mostly use the task bars, and the
> > > > > notifier likes to pop up a lot) causes the same growth.
> > > > >
> > > > > > oh, and does this happen if you use the open source driver?
> > > > >
> > > > > Don't know, using the opensource driver makes my 8800GTS fairly
> > > > > useless. I can test it out for a while.. but seems to me if it was
> > > > > a driver leak, it wouldn't show up as owned by plasma, instead it'd
> > > > > just make X's virt-mem usage increase.
> > > >
> > > > Draging windows and switching dekstops cause plasma to allocate a
> > > > bunch of pixmaps. I assume its the pager plasmoid? Fresh start and
> > > > I'm up to 1193 pixmaps, and 50MB in pixmaps.
> > > >
> > > > Using both 180.11 and 180.16 nvidia betas. I'll try again with the nv
> > > > driver in a bit.
> > >
> > > Or at least when I see the leak again in the betas.. It can take a
> > > while.
> >
> > Ok, so some news, after running with a fresh svn checkout of kde 4.2, and
> > (for sure this time) the 180.16 drivers, plasma is up to 105MB of
> > pixmaps. Its slightly strange too, it only started increasing after I
> > stopped playing with things trying to get it to allocate more memory.
> >
> > I've just did a little silly test of recording X memory use in various
> > stages of X and kde restart
> >
> >                       Virt     Res     Shr
> > Full Dekstop: 629M  318M  9336
> > Loged out:     201M  131M  7728
> > X Restarted:  123M  54M    7504
> > Full Desktop: 496M  195M  7856
> >
> > Clearly it looks like X isn't freeing some of the ram, though most of it
> > is gone.
> >
> > I'll be testing with the open source nv driver next to see if it also
> > shows leaks quite as badly.
>
> I've changed to the nv driver now, and first impressions are that its
> absolutely useless for a large desktop, regular rendering is slow and
> flickery, and it only got worse after I enabled XRender desktop effects.
>
> One interesting bit, I could see kickoff appear at the top of my screen,
> then it moved down to the panel where its supposed to be... Is that normal?
>
> I think its even slower than the pre-optimized binary nvida binary drivers.

So far with the nv driver, X uses considerably more memory on startup than it 
does with the nvidia driver.

nvidia:  123M  54M    7504 (yes I cloned those numbers from above)
nv:        740M  463M  6340

But I haven't seen any leak from plasma after letting it sit for an hour or 
two, while I did see a leak with the nvidia driver.

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom at strangesoft.net