Arch Linux

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Anyone Notice Memory Leaks When Screencasting in Gnome Shell?

Open system monitor, initiate a screencast (ctrl+alt+shit+r) and keep an eye on your memory. On my system memory begins to climb- I have 8 GB and would have used all 8 if I hadn't stopped recording- but the strange thing is that when screencast is finished it won't release the memory back to ram. I either have to do a system reboot or restart the shell. Anyone else experiencing this?

Last edited by w201 (2016-03-07 03:22:07)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 2,004

Re: Anyone Notice Memory Leaks When Screencasting in Gnome Shell?

Unused RAM is wasted RAM.  Let it get to a higher amount "used" and then run another program that uses a good bit of RAM.  Likely what will happen is that the "used" RAM will be freed for the new program to use.  Linux caches RAM and don't worry about how much is "used," you only have a problem if you don't get it back when you need it.  The exception to that of course is that if it is a legitimate memory leak, then you want to file a report with the upstream developer.

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: Anyone Notice Memory Leaks When Screencasting in Gnome Shell?

Free doesn't show that it's being cached. buff/cache shows 700M while used memory shows 6.4G, if I'm reading it correctly.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 2,004

Re: Anyone Notice Memory Leaks When Screencasting in Gnome Shell?

Run a program that uses a lot of memory after the memory is supposedly used.  If it doesn't get released back when the new program needs it then it is a legitimate memory leak.

w201

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 289

Re: Anyone Notice Memory Leaks When Screencasting in Gnome Shell?

I actually tried that suggestion when you mentioned it in your earlier post. Eventhough free shows memory 90% maxed out for example, any programs I run behave normally. It's a difficult test for me personally becuaes I don't have many programs installed that suck up that much memory. I might be able to try that test by removing some memory from my machine and re-testing. WIll have to try that and post back later.