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

[J. Roeleveld]

On Sunday, May 17, 2020 12:09:19 AM CEST Dale wrote:
> 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,

The few times I have issues with "sddm-helper" is when I resume my laptop from 
hibernate. (Not always, but occasionally)
The issue I see is 100% CPU-usage and a black X-display. I can switch to 
console (CTRL+ALT+F1), login as root and kill the offending sddm-helper.
It gets restarted automatically and I see no issue.

Do you tend to lock your screen a lot? As it might be related to screensavers. 
(I have a simple static lock-screen, nothing remotely fancy)

Also, you can try killing "kill -9 sddm-helper" when it goes up and see what 
happens next.

Is there anything in the sddm-logs?
Mine, for some reason, writes to /var/log/sddm.log

Do you have anything special in your Xsession files and/or profiles (incl. 
bash_profile and bashrc) that is non-default?

Which login-theme do you use?

--
Joost