Re: Loading fetchmail man page in Gnome-help uses all memory
On Fri, Aug 04, 2000 at 08:54:05PM +0100, Lee Elliott wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> I noticed a curious thing this evening - when I load the fetchmail man
> page in the Gnome help browser, it grabs all my memory - 256MB and ramps
> up swap usage until all that's gone too - another 256MB - previously
> none was used. CPU utilisation runs at about 75% on both cpus (SMP
> system) while this happens.
>
> This all takes about 10 seconds on this system. It then frees all the
> memory, effectively flushing the cache and buffer memory, and displays
> the fetchmail man page ok.
>
> Apart from the cpus being tied up, there's no other obvious effects or
> consequences - nothing crashes (tried a kernel compile and running
> Netscape) and the system then seems fine, although swap usage doesn't
> return to 0MB immediately but seems to drop off over time, probably as
> the system moves stuff back into main memory. I just logged out and
> back in and that cleared most of the swap - only 9.5MB used now, down
> from 64MB after loading the man page several times, dropping to 29MB
> just before I logged out.
>
> There don't seem to be any spurious processes left hanging around.
>
> This happens on consecutive loads on this man page: start
> Gnome help, select Man Pages, select User Commands, select fetchmail -
> memory used. Use the Back button, select User Commands (again), select
> fetchmail - memory used.
>
> I've got three discrete 2.2.17 Potatos on this system, all with the same
> s/w installed - I've tried it on two of them with identical results -
> reboots make no difference. At least it shows I'm keeping them in
> step;)
>
> This doesn't happen if the fetchmail man page is loaded from a Gnome
> term: 'man fetchmail'
Yep! Same on my machine ( potato, kernel 2.2.13, 64 MB + 150 MB swap )
>
> dmesg gives:
>
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for gnome-man2html...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for gnome-man2html...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for procmeter3...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for gnome-man2html...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for init...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for procmeter3...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for tasklist_applet...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for kswapd...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for gnome-man2html...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for gnome-man2html...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for XF86_SVGA...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for sh...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for procmeter3...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for mount...
> VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for procmeter3...
>
No. Nothing like that on my machine .
> I'm getting really crappy conections at the moment so I've not been able
> to check the bug list, but if any one else gets the same behaviour I'll
> check it out and raise a bug if neccessary.
I noticed that the man page of fetchmail is quite long. Gnome Helper calls
'gnome-man2html' to convert man pages into html pages, and probably this
is the program which sucks so much memory and CPU.
Dunno if this counts as a bug, though.
>
> LeeE
> --
Ciao
----------
FB
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