Memory Leak Mint 17.1 cinnamon

[phill1978]

there is one.

its quite fast too.

started playing a game online, after 35 mins the frame rate dropped from a smooth 60fps to 20fps stuttering. Alt-tab .. restart cinnamon .. back upto 60fps.

so the memory leak is effecting whole system performance and graphics after 30 - 40 mins.

[phill1978]

Keeps happening now. about 40 mins into a boot the desktop slows down if you drag a window its juddering and the tiling is messed up, Restarting cinnamon fixes the issue until it happens again.

running latest nvidia closed driver btw.

[k357k9]

My situation here is about the same.

[phill1978]

oky left it for 3 hrs and moving windows is a slide show about 2fps a second....

its not a memory leak i dont think, my system was idle at 1gb (which is ridiculous why is it so high on mint i have hardly anything running ?? ) even so, i had 7gb spare.

Its possibly a compositing issue or some sort of power state problem.

My driver is nvidia closed 364.22, CPU AMDx4, 8gb ram.

Litterally and exceptionally common configuration ! So, guys the desktop is knackered after 30 - 40mins. This is a serious bug

Is there anything i can do in order to log this ? where would files be kept, I cant distro jump as otherwise mint cinnamon 17.1 is perfect and i have it setup awesome

[k357k9]

Have you considered shutting off the slide show and/or the desktop effects and/or trying the generic driver -- one at a time -- to see if you can isolate the problem?

[brian_the_droid]

i have noticed this as well. I also noticed it on manjaro with the cinnamon DE, while running non-proprietary drivers.

[k357k9]

A guy told me via email just today that Gnome has real problems with this and he is having to reconsider that DE. He also mentioned that Cinnamon does, too. Only Mate and Xfce seem to be free from it. Apparently, this carries over to other distros as well.

The "answer" right now seems to be rebooting the system.

[CupidsHelper]

I too am having a similar issue. Let me first say, that I have NEVER had this issue on Windows or any other versions of Linux, only on Linux Mint 17/.1 Cinnamon and Linux Mint 17 Xfce (all 64bit). To be precise, my RAM seems to be "Burning Away". I first discovered looking at the system monitor, i did have a few applications open, so I closed them down and the RAM did lower...somewhat. So I rebooted, ran Memtest for a few hours, and the test showed clean/no errors in RAM. Rebooted again, into Cinnamon desktop, then only open system monitor and watched my RAM on idle. The RAM usage kept creeping upward. I shutdown my rig when, the RAM usage reached 3.4GB (on idle). I did a similar test on a different rig, using Linux Mint 17 Xfce. The RAM usage on LM 17 Xfce on idle, went way up too, but much quicker??

This from my POV, is not acceptable. Time to distro jump ( A shame I was beginning to enjoy LM). I MAY try Linux Mint on next release (17.2/18).

[k357k9]

@CH

Rebooted again, into Cinnamon desktop, then only open system monitor and watched my RAM on idle. The RAM usage kept creeping upward.

The same thing happens here, too. At one time, I saw Cinnamon at 1.0 GB after using the system in the regular way. Lately, it seems to have settled down. I don't think I am doing anything differently, but it is much better. Right now Cinnamon wants 366 MB.

[nomko]

I had with Mint 17/Cinnamon this issue which made me somewhat disappointed about Mint/cinnamon combo... System on idle, Cinnamon eating away memory. I recall that the memory consumption on my desktop even grew to +/- 2 GiB RAM!!! Ridiculous if you ask me. lINK: http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=153281

But with Cinnamon 2.4 things should have been changed if i may believe so:

Responsiveness and memory usage

CJS was rebased on a newer version of GJS in an effort to reduce memory usage and provide faster execution times.
All Cinnamon components were reviewed and their source code was checked with static analysis tools. Although most of them were small, about 30 memory leaks were fixed.
Icons used in Cinnamon Settings were added to the Mint-X icon theme. This increased responsiveness (This is specific to Linux Mint so we encourage all artists and distributions to do the same).
More polish

Source: http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2014/11/cinnamon-2-4/

But since 17.1 i used Cinnamon again due to the fixes mentioned above which made me happy again. Until this weekend....... My desktop system was idle for a few days and when i switched on the monitor i noticed that my system was responding somewhat slower and sluggish.... I opened Process manager and guess what..... Cinnamon had eaten over 1 GiB RAM in just a few days!

But i also do recall updating my system. So my best guess was that it had to do with an update. And i also did changed the actual installed kernel for a newer release available/visible in Update Manager. Perhaps this kernel swap is the cause???

[k357k9]

@nomko
I am still using the original kernel 3-13.0-37-generic. What are you using?

[nomko]

@nomko
I am still using the original kernel 3-13.0-37-generic. What are you using?

The latest kernel in the 3-13.x-xx range.

[k357k9]

My update manager lists kernel 3-13.0-44.73 as an optional update which I did not choose. Synaptic says I have 3-13.0-37. Maybe you need to go back to "37"?

[nomko]

My update manager lists kernel 3-13.0-44.73 as an optional update which I did not choose. Synaptic says I have 3-13.0-37. Maybe you need to go back to "37"?

nomko@mint-17-cinnamon ~ $ uname -r
3.13.0-43-generic

Maybe i should go back, but it sounds weird that Cinnamon 2.4 is kernel dependent for running without any memory leaks.....

[k357k9]

Weirder things than that have happen before. I guess there is only one way to find out for sure.

[Peter_P]

I installed Mint yesterday and already stumbled upon this problem.
The way I see it, this may actually affect all users. The thing is, the average user doesn't monitor his resource consumption and doesn't use the Os in a "memory intensive" way. On the other hand, people who use it for gaming or working will notice this first.
I've been using Ubuntu as my main Os for two years. Growing tired of Unity, I finally decided to give Mint a try.
It makes me sad that the distro praised for stability and performance becomes useless after just a few hours of work(switching between Gimp, Krita and firefox, opening and closing files).

I really like Mint, but I cannot use it this way.

[phill1978]

I think ive found the answer or answers.. firstly i was experiencing slow down with the Volume+apps applet on the system tray, for some reason that introduces lag, stick with the default if you experience the same.

Secondly and this 'Definatley' and instantly cured my problem with the closed source nvidia driver .. if your experiencing the slow down effect on the desktop ( feels like 5fps ) open the Nvidia-settings manager and watch how quickly your windows go back to 60fps ! I dont know why this is, it could be do with the new cinnamon compositor settings ( which for the record have made my linux gaming awesome now muffin controls full screen vsync my gaming is amazingly smooth and tear free, no more fighting between game, driver,compositor every distro should do this ) maybe there is some code clean up to be done

the solution for me was to remove the nvida-settings startup program ( in Startup Applications ) and to re-add it again from usr/bin/nvidia-settings ( you will notice the icon missing )

by having the program start on login unmaximised rather than silent the ui seems to force the driver to wake up, its possibly a nvidia specific sleep/clock bug im no expert.

anyway, give that a try. i will leave my settings manager open on the tray for a few hours and see if the slow down reappears and report back.

[Peter_P]

Hello Phill,

Thanks for the reply. I have an Ati card, using the default Xorg drivers. My problem is just memory drain, it keeps increasing each time I open and close files and apps.

[phill1978]

ok i tested it, it IS better but I think my particular issue could be a clocking bug, the max power state remains on the nvidia settings manager unless i select adaptive to force it out of the state. Even then the refresh was definatley better .. but if im honest .. its not fixed it.

imo there is also renewed Tearing when it happens .. so its a Vsync issue.. the problem could be with Muffin ?

not sure. Restarting Cinnamon using 'troubleshoot' removes the issue ??

Peter, i dont have a physical memory leak as far as i can tell, just a compositor bug ( well perhaps a slight leak but nothing like the days of old )

[jrppl]

I have the exactly same issue!! It's driving me crazy! the RAM usage keeps rising and rising . I have to expand to 8GB RAM memory still it get to 4GB of usage then the system starts to get very laggy and freezes. Even when all the aplications are closed the RAM usage doesn't go down and the system stays slow and unresponsive. The only solution is to reboot then it starts all over the madness again . There is not a solution to this?..there's not an upgrade with the fix of the big problem?? Ihave the 17.1 cinnamon Rebecca 17.1 .
Thank You