Arch Linux

kmiernik

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2009-10-20

Posts: 50

Gnome shell memory consumption

I've been lately alarmed by the amount of RAM taken by gnome-shell. It looks like trouble begin with update to 3.10. I did not take precise numbers before but the memory consumtion of 3.8 was
at the level of 100 MB. However, now I see a strange behavior of gnome-shell. When started it takes around 100 MB (that's would be on similar level to what I remember previously)

[~]$ ps -A --sort -rss -o comm,pmem,rss | head -n 6
COMMAND         %MEM   RSS
gnome-shell      5.5 99748
evolution-calen  3.1 56716
WebKitWebProces  2.7 48548
Xorg             2.2 39776
epiphany         1.9 34428

But if I go to the activities overview (hot-corner or win-key) memory goes to 270 MB and stays at this level forever. It is not a memory leak (it is stable over at least a week, and stays in the range of 270-300 MB) but 170 MB for applications overview sounds bit too much.

[~]$ ps -A --sort -rss -o comm,pmem,rss | head -n 6
COMMAND         %MEM   RSS
gnome-shell     15.0 270908
evolution-calen  3.1 56716
WebKitWebProces  2.7 48548
Xorg             2.2 40132
epiphany         1.9 34428

I have tested gnome-shell with all the extensions removed (I use weather, media-player indicator and calculator) but the result is the same.

The questions is: is it specific for my machine (graphic card?) or is it a gnome-shell bug? Can anyone confirm this behavior? I couldn't find but maybe there is a related bug repor?

jrussell

Member

From: Cape Town, South Africa

Registered: 2012-08-16

Posts: 510

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

I think there is still a memory leak when you click on anything in the task bar, happens on Debian 7 too.

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Cthulhu82

Member

From: Nantes, France

Registered: 2013-04-01

Posts: 159

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

I observe the same behavior too.

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farnsworth

Member

From: /home/farnsworth

Registered: 2012-01-28

Posts: 28

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

Same problem here, yesterday after about 10 hours logged, the gnome-shell process was over 650MB, I've also tried to disable all extensions but the problem remains, even when I do nothing memory size of gnome-shell process is growing.
Also tested on a new account, same behaviour.

drakkan

Member

Registered: 2007-02-24

Posts: 27

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

this is a known bug:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=642652
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=685513

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

Gnome Shell is a lot of eye candy. I think I get around 300-400 MB without any gui applications running. I don't know why anyone would expect under 200 MB.

Last edited by w201 (2013-12-23 15:45:28)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,734

Website

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

Damn, is this the same bug I posted 2 years ago?

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w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

Damn, is this the same bug I posted 2 years ago?

Does the script you wrote 2 years ago to log memory leaks still work on the current Gnome-Shell? I actually didn't understand what the OP was saying about memory leak until I read your thread. I thought he was just talking about memory consumption. I'm going to try running this script to see what I get.

det

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2009-07-11

Posts: 39

Re: Gnome shell memory consumption

Gnome Shell is a lot of eye candy. I think I get around 300-400 MB without any gui applications running. I don't know why anyone would expect under 200 MB.

Maybe because it _is_ 200 MB before it starts leaking?