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

[Dale]

J. Roeleveld wrote:
>
> 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

Well, I didn't know I could kill that thing.  I been logging out and
back in which annoys the stuffing out of me.  I have to close three
browsers, several file managers plus whatever else I am doing before I
can logout.  Then I have to reopen all that when I log back in.  On top
of that, I have to wait for a download to stop as well.  Yea, it's
annoying, putting it mildly.  lol  I thought if I killed it, it would
take the whole GUI thingy with it .  Since it is still chewing away,
makes me think about the Pacman days, I'll kill that thing in a few
minutes, after closing important stuff first just in case. 

I got the last several lines of sddm.log.  Here it is complete with a WW
in there, about three lines from the bottom. 


[01:32:50.474] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[01:32:50.499] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[01:32:57.872] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Login
[01:32:57.872] (II) DAEMON: Reading from
"/usr/share/xsessions/plasma.desktop"
[01:32:57.872] (II) DAEMON: Reading from
"/usr/share/xsessions/plasma.desktop"
[01:32:57.872] (II) DAEMON: Session
"/usr/share/xsessions/plasma.desktop" selected, command:
"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11"
[01:32:57.948] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[01:32:57.948] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[01:32:57.991] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[01:32:57.991] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[01:32:57.997] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[01:32:58.016] (II) DAEMON: Authenticated successfully
[01:32:58.152] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Closing session
[01:32:58.153] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended.
[01:32:58.153] (II) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully
[01:32:58.153] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopped.
[01:32:58.225] (II) HELPER: Starting: "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession
\"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\""
[01:32:58.225] (WW) HELPER: Could not open stderr to
"/home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log"
[01:32:58.225] (II) HELPER: Adding cookie to "/home/dale/.Xauthority"
[01:32:58.245] (II) DAEMON: Session started
root@fireball / #



So off I go to check into that file.  I get this and change permissions
for the second ls.


root@fireball / # tail /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
root@fireball / # ls -al /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Mar  4  2019
/home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
root@fireball / # ls -al /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
-rw------- 1 dale users 0 Mar  4  2019
/home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
root@fireball / #


As you can see, the first time it was owned by root, and is empty, which
I bet requires it to be dale:user so I changed it.  I bet it is building
a log and keeping it in memory because it can't access the file to write
it.  I'm going to logout and see what it does.  I'll finish when I get
back.  :-D

OK.  Logged back in and now I get this in the sddm.log.


[10:45:28.213] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[10:45:28.213] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[10:45:28.253] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[10:45:28.253] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[10:45:28.259] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[10:45:28.287] (II) DAEMON: Authenticated successfully
[10:45:28.391] (II) HELPER: Starting: "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession
\"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\""
[10:45:28.393] (II) HELPER: Adding cookie to "/home/dale/.Xauthority"
[10:45:28.400] (II) DAEMON: Session started
[10:45:28.416] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Closing session
[10:45:28.417] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended.
[10:45:28.418] (II) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully
[10:45:28.418] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopped.
root@fireball / #


I don't see any WW lines there.  If I scroll up I can see the original I
posted above but no WW since.  Can we all say a prayer now????  

I bet when I switched to sddm, it didn't change the permissions like it
should and that threw a wrench in the gears.  I'll know for sure in a
few hours.  It chewed through memory real fast after the last login. 
Within just a very few hours, it was over 4GBs.  It seems to stop itself
around that number tho.  I'm not sure what to think about that tho.

I'll post back in a bit.  Give it time to eat some Pacman dots.  I think
you got it tho.  I really hope that was it. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

P. S. Made eye Doctor appt today.  Maybe this old goat will see better
in a couple months when new glasses come in.  O_O