I have tried everything I could think of so here I am asking this question here…
I have a computer that has 8 GB of RAM. After booting the computer, logging in, not opening any applications and leaving the computer on overnight, the memory usage skyrockets and all 8 gigabytes of RAM are used. At first I suspected it was just a caching issue but after another 5 hours, 1.2 GB of the swap was used (with NO applications open).
To further disprove the fact that it could be caches or memory leaking applications here is the output of
free -m
:total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 7871 1948 1358 3583 4564 2251 Swap: 17163 1225 15938
This report was taken while I am writing this question after a reboot so the situation is not as bad. You can see that I only have about a gigabyte of free memory while the cached memory is at almost 5 GB!
This started happening after upgrading to Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 from Ubuntu Gnome 15.10.
Here is the output of
cat /proc/meminfo
:MemTotal: 8060844 kB MemFree: 1285532 kB MemAvailable: 2221384 kB Buffers: 103160 kB Cached: 4545380 kB SwapCached: 4764 kB Active: 2408216 kB Inactive: 4101492 kB Active(anon): 1879072 kB Inactive(anon): 3737296 kB Active(file): 529144 kB Inactive(file): 364196 kB Unevictable: 4928 kB Mlocked: 4928 kB SwapTotal: 17575932 kB SwapFree: 16320824 kB Dirty: 1844 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 1861356 kB Mapped: 552908 kB Shmem: 3751656 kB Slab: 129324 kB SReclaimable: 84788 kB SUnreclaim: 44536 kB KernelStack: 13856 kB PageTables: 51188 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 21606352 kB Committed_AS: 13184460 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB AnonHugePages: 393216 kB CmaTotal: 0 kB CmaFree: 0 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 195328 kB DirectMap2M: 8079360 kB DirectMap1G: 1048576 kB
Here is the output of the
ps_mem
program:Private + Shared = RAM used Program 92.0 KiB + 16.5 KiB = 108.5 KiB xf86-video-intel-backlight-helper 120.0 KiB + 28.0 KiB = 148.0 KiB sleep 160.0 KiB + 33.5 KiB = 193.5 KiB agetty 164.0 KiB + 34.5 KiB = 198.5 KiB gnome-pty-helper 244.0 KiB + 22.0 KiB = 266.0 KiB acpid 252.0 KiB + 40.5 KiB = 292.5 KiB uuidd 192.0 KiB + 103.0 KiB = 295.0 KiB cat (2) 284.0 KiB + 32.5 KiB = 316.5 KiB irqbalance 284.0 KiB + 64.5 KiB = 348.5 KiB syndaemon 328.0 KiB + 44.5 KiB = 372.5 KiB cron 372.0 KiB + 78.0 KiB = 450.0 KiB upstart-udev-bridge 400.0 KiB + 65.0 KiB = 465.0 KiB rtkit-daemon 432.0 KiB + 58.0 KiB = 490.0 KiB systemd-timesyncd 520.0 KiB + 80.0 KiB = 600.0 KiB upstart-file-bridge 608.0 KiB + 77.0 KiB = 685.0 KiB gpg-agent 728.0 KiB + 87.5 KiB = 815.5 KiB sshd 744.0 KiB + 134.0 KiB = 878.0 KiB gvfs-goa-volume-monitor 880.0 KiB + 31.0 KiB = 911.0 KiB dhclient 680.0 KiB + 241.0 KiB = 921.0 KiB upstart-dbus-bridge (2) 784.0 KiB + 181.0 KiB = 965.0 KiB gvfsd 888.0 KiB + 99.0 KiB = 987.0 KiB gvfsd-metadata 672.0 KiB + 335.0 KiB = 1.0 MiB avahi-daemon (2) 952.0 KiB + 62.5 KiB = 1.0 MiB systemd-logind 820.0 KiB + 195.0 KiB = 1.0 MiB gvfsd-burn 920.0 KiB + 99.5 KiB = 1.0 MiB thermald 996.0 KiB + 106.0 KiB = 1.1 MiB gvfsd-fuse 1.0 MiB + 36.0 KiB = 1.1 MiB wallpaper-chang 1.0 MiB + 133.0 KiB = 1.1 MiB gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor 1.0 MiB + 77.0 KiB = 1.1 MiB dconf-service 968.0 KiB + 214.5 KiB = 1.2 MiB gvfsd-trash 972.0 KiB + 237.0 KiB = 1.2 MiB sudo 1.2 MiB + 58.0 KiB = 1.2 MiB bluetoothd 1.1 MiB + 171.0 KiB = 1.3 MiB gdm-x-session (2) 1.2 MiB + 113.5 KiB = 1.3 MiB upstart 888.0 KiB + 468.0 KiB = 1.3 MiB dnsmasq (2) 1.2 MiB + 207.0 KiB = 1.4 MiB ibus-engine-simple (2) 1.4 MiB + 59.5 KiB = 1.5 MiB rsyslogd 1.3 MiB + 233.0 KiB = 1.5 MiB ibus-dconf (2) 1.4 MiB + 156.0 KiB = 1.5 MiB gdm3 1.4 MiB + 189.0 KiB = 1.6 MiB deja-dup-monitor 1.3 MiB + 329.0 KiB = 1.7 MiB at-spi2-registryd (2) 1.6 MiB + 223.5 KiB = 1.8 MiB goa-identity-service 1.7 MiB + 188.0 KiB = 1.9 MiB atop 1.8 MiB + 89.0 KiB = 1.9 MiB systemd-udevd 1.5 MiB + 462.0 KiB = 1.9 MiB gconf-helper (2) 1.8 MiB + 147.5 KiB = 1.9 MiB upowerd 1.7 MiB + 281.0 KiB = 2.0 MiB gconfd-2 (2) 1.8 MiB + 151.0 KiB = 2.0 MiB ModemManager 2.0 MiB + 84.0 KiB = 2.1 MiB wpa_supplicant 1.7 MiB + 323.0 KiB = 2.1 MiB gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor 1.8 MiB + 322.0 KiB = 2.1 MiB ibus-engine-pinyin 1.4 MiB + 780.5 KiB = 2.2 MiB telepathy-logger 2.3 MiB + 41.5 KiB = 2.3 MiB osspd 2.3 MiB + 306.0 KiB = 2.6 MiB nacl_helper 2.7 MiB + 102.5 KiB = 2.8 MiB gvfs-mtp-volume-monitor 2.1 MiB + 835.0 KiB = 2.9 MiB (sd-pam) (2) 2.8 MiB + 156.0 KiB = 2.9 MiB polkitd 2.3 MiB + 831.5 KiB = 3.1 MiB mission-control-5 2.6 MiB + 606.5 KiB = 3.2 MiB tracker-miner-apps 2.8 MiB + 434.0 KiB = 3.3 MiB colord 3.2 MiB + 124.0 KiB = 3.3 MiB zsh5 1.9 MiB + 1.5 MiB = 3.4 MiB nginx (5) 3.2 MiB + 225.5 KiB = 3.4 MiB at-spi-bus-launcher (2) 3.3 MiB + 280.0 KiB = 3.6 MiB gvfs-afc-volume-monitor 2.8 MiB + 853.5 KiB = 3.6 MiB tracker-miner-fs 3.4 MiB + 307.0 KiB = 3.7 MiB udisksd 3.5 MiB + 175.0 KiB = 3.7 MiB cups-browsed 3.7 MiB + 181.5 KiB = 3.9 MiB whoopsie 3.8 MiB + 101.5 KiB = 3.9 MiB accounts-daemon 4.0 MiB + 367.5 KiB = 4.3 MiB gnome-keyring-daemon 3.8 MiB + 637.5 KiB = 4.5 MiB gsd-printer 4.1 MiB + 550.5 KiB = 4.6 MiB tracker-miner-user-guides 2.9 MiB + 2.0 MiB = 5.0 MiB systemd (3) 5.6 MiB + 199.0 KiB = 5.8 MiB NetworkManager 5.3 MiB + 747.5 KiB = 6.1 MiB gnome-shell-calendar-server 5.2 MiB + 1.0 MiB = 6.2 MiB evolution-addressbook-factory-subprocess 6.1 MiB + 46.5 KiB = 6.2 MiB systemd-journald 5.5 MiB + 860.5 KiB = 6.3 MiB gnome-tweak-too 5.5 MiB + 1.2 MiB = 6.7 MiB evolution-addressbook-factory 6.4 MiB + 611.5 KiB = 7.0 MiB gdm-session-worker (2) 6.9 MiB + 831.5 KiB = 7.7 MiB tracker-extract 6.5 MiB + 1.5 MiB = 8.0 MiB update-notifier 7.2 MiB + 1.6 MiB = 8.8 MiB evolution-source-registry 8.7 MiB + 338.5 KiB = 9.0 MiB ibus-daemon (2) 8.0 MiB + 1.1 MiB = 9.0 MiB gnome-session-binary (2) 5.7 MiB + 3.7 MiB = 9.3 MiB php5-fpm (3) 7.8 MiB + 1.8 MiB = 9.7 MiB pulseaudio (2) 7.6 MiB + 2.4 MiB = 10.0 MiB ibus-ui-gtk3 9.9 MiB + 507.5 KiB = 10.4 MiB tracker-store 11.0 MiB + 74.5 KiB = 11.0 MiB teamviewerd 10.0 MiB + 2.0 MiB = 12.0 MiB ibus-x11 (2) 14.5 MiB + 599.5 KiB = 15.1 MiB geoclue 11.8 MiB + 4.7 MiB = 16.5 MiB easystroke 16.2 MiB + 1.8 MiB = 18.0 MiB goa-daemon 17.3 MiB + 4.0 MiB = 21.3 MiB vineyard-indica 18.8 MiB + 2.8 MiB = 21.5 MiB evolution-alarm-notify 23.4 MiB + 499.5 KiB = 23.9 MiB fwupd 19.4 MiB + 5.7 MiB = 25.0 MiB gnome-system-monitor 24.9 MiB + 1.6 MiB = 26.5 MiB aptd 26.8 MiB + 4.6 MiB = 31.4 MiB gnome-settings-daemon (2) 28.4 MiB + 5.9 MiB = 34.3 MiB python2.7 (2) 34.6 MiB + 760.0 KiB = 35.3 MiB dbus-daemon (6) 37.4 MiB + 1.8 MiB = 39.3 MiB evolution-calendar-factory 22.1 MiB + 19.6 MiB = 41.8 MiB nautilus 54.6 MiB + 2.5 MiB = 57.1 MiB docky 71.1 MiB + 107.0 KiB = 71.2 MiB ipfs 73.7 MiB + 2.4 MiB = 76.1 MiB gnome-software 133.9 MiB + 661.5 KiB = 134.6 MiB dropbox 158.4 MiB + 4.5 MiB = 162.9 MiB evolution-calendar-factory-subprocess (4) 154.8 MiB + 20.7 MiB = 175.5 MiB Xorg (2) 507.9 MiB + 19.1 MiB = 527.0 MiB gnome-shell (2) 473.7 MiB + 93.7 MiB = 567.4 MiB chrome (16) --------------------------------- 2.3 GiB =================================
dmesg
looks clear so I won’t bother posting that here…The output of
df -h
:Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 3.9G 3.9G 0 100% /dev tmpfs 788M 14M 774M 2% /run /dev/sda4 264G 148G 104G 59% / tmpfs 3.9G 20M 3.9G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs 788M 12K 788M 1% /run/user/120 tmpfs 788M 80K 788M 1% /run/user/1000
At this point, it looks like the shared memory (shmem) is hogging all my memory. I have no idea why this is happening.
Can anybody be of assistance? Thanks so much in advance. I have used Ubuntu for a long time but this is the first time I have run into this issue and I am stumped!
Answer
According to df
, your /dev
filesystem is full. This is a tmpfs, and so is stored in shared memory. Normally it should only contain a very small amount of data, mainly device nodes that provide a file interface to kernel drivers, so something is incorrectly filling it up. You can dig around with du
to see what files are taking up all of the space.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : nulldev , Answer Author : psusi