[GRLUG] pulseaudio using a TON of memory

[John-Thomas Richards]

On Wed, Jun 01, 2011 at 09:28:19AM -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Mike Williams <knightperson at zuzax.com> wrote:
> > On 06/01/2011 08:43 AM, John-Thomas Richards wrote:
> >>
> >> Turns out the zombie apocalypse has begun:
> >>
> >> auerbach ~ # ps -el | grep Z
> >> F S   UID   PID  PPID  C PRI  NI ADDR SZ WCHAN  TTY          TIME CMD
> >> 0 Z  1000  8688  7177  0  80   0 -     0 -      ?        00:00:01
> >> pavucontrol<defunct>
> >>
> >> Killing pulseaudio freed the RAM (naturally) but it really bugs me that
> >> it used so much to start with.  Could it be related to the above zombie
> >> process (pavucontrol is "pulseaudio volume control")?
> >
> > Probably. Sounds like a classic runaway process or memory leak. I'm sure
> > that's not normal operation, but if it keeps happening you'll have to figure
> > out what needs patching.
> 
> Memory leak is what I was thinking, too. That's definitely not normal operation.

Having restarted pulseaudio just a short while ago, here it is again:

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                          
16050 jtr       20   0  419m 210m 3328 S    1  2.6   0:16.43 pulseaudio     

There is definitely a memory leak, but it just started.  I don't recall
Debian Wheezy updating any pulse- related packages recently.  A quick
check of /var/cache/apt/archives shows the last update of anything
pulseaudio is two weeks ago (gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio_0.10.29-2_amd64).

It appears to be a bug in either pulseaudio or one of its libraries but
it's odd that it's showing up now.
-- 
john-thomas
------
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is
like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
Ben Hecht, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, director, and producer
(1894-1964)

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