Re: [gentoo-user] sddm-helper and high memory usage

[Dale]

Michael wrote:
> On Saturday, 16 May 2020 13:32:32 BST Dale wrote:
>> Dale wrote:
>>> I guess the bug was caught and fixed.  Thanks to all that read and
>>> Michael for trying to help.
>>>
>>> Dale
>>>
>>> :-)  :-)
>> I have some more info and some doesn't make much sense.  I thought this
>> might be fixed but guess not.  While it is somewhat slower to take up a
>> lot of memory after a recent plasma update, it does still get there.  It
>> takes a day or so now where before it was just a few hours.  Logging out
>> and back in does reset it to normal tho.
>>
>> One thing that seems to stand out, Firefox and one profile in
>> particular.  I have two profiles that I use a lot nowadays.  One is for
>> ebay, Amazon, tracking shipments etc etc.  The other is where I do
>> youtube and other video type sites.  It has a video download helper
>> add-on installed but the rest is mostly the same.  When I have the first
>> profile open, it is slow to consume memory.  When I open the one I use
>> for videos, it starts building up faster.  While I can logout and back
>> in daily, it still gets to around 5% or so.  I usually start planning to
>> logout and back in when it hits 4% or so.  It's at 5 by the time I get
>> everything to where I can.  Thing is, closing Firefox doesn't seem to
>> have any effect on it.  It slows down some but doesn't get back to
>> normal memory usage.  I can't quite figure out how Firefox can have a
>> effect on it tho.  I realize it is running within the GUI and all but
>> still, it doesn't make much sense.
>>
>> I do a emerge -e system and world the other day in my chroot.  Once
>> done, I did a complete re-emerge on my running system.  All was done
>> with the same gcc, 9.3.  I'm not sure it did any good but at least it
>> rules out some sort of mismatch with different packages running with
>> different gcc versions.  It also rules out and sort of broken linkages
>> and other mismatches as well.  I've also updated kernels and video
>> drivers with no change.  I also disabled my background slideshow to see
>> if it was causing this, no change.  When I was doing my emerge system
>> and world, I had Firefox and at times Seamonkey closed and it stayed
>> within reason at least.  It would get up to around 2% but seemed to stay
>> there.  I'm not sure what to look for or even for sure what is exactly
>> the trigger for this problem.  It seems Firefox affects it but not sure
>> why that is exactly.
>>
>> If anyone has ideas, I'm open to them.  I can't think of anything else
>> to try at the moment.
>>
>> Dale
>>
>> :-)  :-)
>
> Just an idea:
>
> Log out/in, check memory usage is normal.  If not log out, restart /etc/
> init.d/xdm and login again.  Start FF without any addons.  Use a new profile
> if necessary.  Check memory usage.  If after a while under normal use you
> still have reasonable levels of memory usage, then you can start adding one
> add-on at a time and see where that gets you.
>
> You may also want to give youtube-dl a spin.  I know, it's not a FF-GUI video
> download tool, but it works without getting in the way or eating up RAM
> unnecessarily.

I have a test Firefox profile that has very few if any add-ons
installed.  I sometimes use it to test problems.  Anyway, I suspect the
video download add-on myself.  Ever since the big change with add-ons
and multi-process support, the video add-on has had issues.  I've had
crashes, excessive memory usage by Firefox itself etc etc.  For the most
part, the video add-on works but it is not like it was with the older
versions of Firefox.  While sddm-helper does use more memory even
without Firefox, it just gets much worse with it. 

I have and use youtube-dl.  I use it for youtube and a couple other
sites that it works with.  Thing is, some sites don't work with
youtube-dl.  It tries but it reports some sort of error, error varies
from site to site, and then stops.  I wish it would work because it is
drop dead easy to use once you get it configured.  I've got mine set up
pretty well.  It will try to get 1280x720 but no larger if available. 
For what I do 99% of the time, that works very well.  File size is
manageable but has a good resolution.  Of course some older videos are
480 or something but still, I like the tool. 

I see another KDE upgrade being released.  It is a plasma update so
hopefully it will hit the tree by Sunday.  Maybe it will have a fix or
something.  In the meantime, I'll keep observing and trying things to
see if I can figure out what is going on.  It's confusing tho. 

Thanks.  Will try to the test profile shortly.  I'm at 6% or so right
now.  Time for a reset anyway. 

Dale

:-)  :-)