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

[J. Roeleveld]

On 20 May 2020 17:56:29 CEST, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
>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

Really quick as on mobile.
Killing "sddm-helper" doesn't kill my session when I do it.
So you might not need to log off either.
Just switch to root and hit it with kill -9 if it misbehaves
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.