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#1 2018-12-09 22:37:20

lunchbox
Member
Registered: 2005-03-14
Posts: 28

[SOLVED] gst-plugin-scanner spawning many copies and never completing

I've encountered an issue with gst-plugin-scanner where it is spawning many copies of itself and none of the threads ever complete. This is what my system looks like currently after being booted for few hours (xxxx'd out my username):

[xxxx@xxxx1 ~]$ ps aux|grep gst
xxxx      1263  0.0  0.0      0     0 tty2     ZNl+ 14:06   0:01 [gst-plugin-scan] <defunct>
xxxx      1760  0.0  1.3 719716 111108 ?       DN   14:06   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      1956  0.0  1.3 719612 111460 tty2    D+   14:08   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
xxxx      2143  0.0  1.3 719716 111252 ?       DN   14:11   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      2346  0.0  1.3 719708 111408 ?       Dl   14:15   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
xxxx      2397  0.0  1.3 719716 111264 ?       DN   14:15   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      2746  0.0  1.3 719716 111320 ?       DN   14:20   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      2927  0.0  1.3 719616 110992 ?       DN   14:24   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      3086  0.0  1.3 719648 110936 ?       DN   14:29   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      3290  0.0  1.3 719616 111344 ?       DN   14:33   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      3600  0.0  1.3 719720 111232 ?       DN   14:38   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4022  0.0  1.3 719616 110588 ?       DN   14:42   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4207  0.0  1.3 719616 111148 ?       DN   14:47   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4410  0.0  1.3 719620 110876 ?       DN   14:51   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4544  0.0  1.3 719620 111408 ?       DN   14:56   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4677  0.0  1.3 719616 110884 ?       DN   15:00   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4817  0.0  1.3 719616 110672 ?       DN   15:05   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      4986  0.0  1.3 719616 111196 ?       DN   15:09   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5122  0.0  1.3 719720 110828 ?       DN   15:14   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5276  0.0  1.3 719616 110648 ?       DN   15:19   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5445  0.0  1.3 719720 111412 ?       DN   15:23   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5597  0.0  1.3 719720 111460 ?       DN   15:28   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5746  0.0  1.3 719716 111264 ?       DN   15:32   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      5930  0.0  1.3 719612 110788 ?       DN   15:37   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6058  0.0  1.3 719720 111632 ?       DN   15:41   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6195  0.0  1.3 719612 110800 ?       DN   15:46   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6340  0.0  1.3 719716 110764 ?       DN   15:50   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6485  0.0  1.3 719720 111240 ?       DN   15:55   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6625  0.0  1.3 719612 110640 ?       DN   15:59   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6770  0.0  1.3 719720 111492 ?       DN   16:04   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      6925  0.0  1.3 719716 111172 ?       DN   16:08   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7064  0.0  1.3 719716 110988 ?       DN   16:13   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7201  0.0  1.3 719716 110796 ?       DN   16:17   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7350  0.0  1.3 719612 110792 ?       DN   16:22   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7502  0.0  1.3 719724 111140 ?       DN   16:26   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7635  0.0  1.3 719612 111264 ?       DN   16:31   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7771  0.0  1.3 719616 110792 ?       DN   16:35   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      7917  0.0  1.3 719616 111300 ?       DN   16:40   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8055  0.0  1.3 719716 110952 ?       DN   16:44   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8208  0.0  1.3 719616 111528 ?       DN   16:49   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8371  0.0  1.3 719616 110820 ?       DN   16:53   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8509  0.0  1.3 719644 111004 ?       DN   16:58   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8649  0.0  1.3 719716 111300 ?       DN   17:02   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8810  0.0  1.3 719716 111652 ?       DN   17:07   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      8939  0.1  1.3 719716 111264 ?       DN   17:11   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      9087  0.1  1.3 719720 111176 ?       DN   17:16   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      9241  0.7  1.3 719724 111268 ?       DN   17:20   0:00 /usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0/gst-plugin-scanner -l /usr/lib/tracker-extract
xxxx      9336  0.0  0.0   8192  2188 pts/1    S+   17:22   0:00 grep gst
[xxxx@xxxx ~]$ tracker status
Currently indexed: 1418 files, 215 folders
Remaining space on database partition: 118.3 GB (52.63%)
All data miners are idle, indexing complete
[xxxx@xxxx ~]$

I've been on this HD image for almost a decade so I don't know if this could be due to old configs, but I haven't changed anything significant recently and I can't track it back to a specific "pacman -Syu" that I've done recently since it can take a couple of days before enough copies are spawned to kill my machine. After leaving the system up for >24-48hrs it spawns so many threads that all RAM is consumed and my CPU is at 100% forcing a hard reboot as the system is completely unresponsive.

In this particular instance, this was on a fresh reboot. I've tried to open gnome-control-center twice via the GUI and you can see both threads spawned a gst-plugin-scanner instance which never completes (control center never spawned a GUI window.) I've tried resetting tracker via "tracker reset --hard", which resulted in deleting my tracker DB files, but the problem immediately came back on reboot. Has anyone else seen this?

Edit: forgot to mention the reason I tried to launch gnome-control-center was that I read a blog post where you can limit the directories that gst-plugin-scanner observes through this interface. I was going to try to limit it to a directory that didn't contain anything to see if it was falling into a failed state due to a weird file header or something, but since I can't launch it I can't test.

Last edited by lunchbox (2018-12-13 16:53:34)

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#2 2018-12-10 20:36:32

lunchbox
Member
Registered: 2005-03-14
Posts: 28

Re: [SOLVED] gst-plugin-scanner spawning many copies and never completing

Update, I think I may be hit by this bug which may or may not be related to the previously posted logs:
Ubuntu: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour … ug/1745666
Upstream Gnome: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-se … /issues/26

This isn't related to tracker directly, but rather the gnome-settings-daemon. I'm wondering if this is affecting other applications that access this as well such as control-center and tracker. The symptoms seem to be similar as this appears to cause the system to completely freeze after some hours as I'm experiencing. I'm also seeing this in my journalctl output:

Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-upower.service-mooRJu: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-upower.service-mooRJu': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-colord.service-EKwI0E: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-colord.service-EKwI0E': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-haveged.service-JiQsn0: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-haveged.service-JiQsn0': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-systemd-timesyncd.service-Q71f8C: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-systemd-timesyncd.service-Q71f8C': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-httpd.service-wkaI0d: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-httpd.service-wkaI0d': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-mariadb.service-EBeAfO: Error opening directory '/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-mariadb.service-EBeAfO': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-upower.service-VRWGlB: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-upower.service-VRWGlB': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-colord.service-peZ17n: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-colord.service-peZ17n': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-mariadb.service-5Fh17v: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-mariadb.service-5Fh17v': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-haveged.service-1RHr0G: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-haveged.service-1RHr0G': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-httpd.service-L4fpTV: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-httpd.service-L4fpTV': Permission denied
Dec 10 15:02:24 xxxx gsd-housekeepin[1071]: Failed to enumerate children of /var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-systemd-timesyncd.service-Y3auKj: Error opening directory '/var/tmp/systemd-private-e5f26b28c1cd44cf9eeb22130197e108-systemd-timesyncd.service-Y3auKj': Permission denied

Last edited by lunchbox (2018-12-10 20:36:52)

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#3 2018-12-13 16:53:02

lunchbox
Member
Registered: 2005-03-14
Posts: 28

Re: [SOLVED] gst-plugin-scanner spawning many copies and never completing

Just wanted to report back that this is solved. I'm still seeing the gsd-housekeeping errors, but it seems that this was not directly related to the problem. To fix the issue I fully deleted the ~/.cache/tracker directory. "tracker reset --hard" does not delete all the files in that directory, only the base DB files. After that I opened dconf-editor and reset /org/gnome to defaults (a bit of a nuclear option, but I wasn't having any luck reverting specific subtrees.) Tracker is now running correctly, I can open my gnome apps including control center, and the CPU usage is under control with no mention of hung gst-plugin-scanner processes.

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