Subject: Re: bug#43389: 28.0.50; Emacs memory leaks

From: Jean Louis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 08:13:04 +0300

* Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]> [2020-12-08 04:08]:
> Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
> > > Compliance!
> > >
> > >   (gdb) call (int)malloc_info (0, stdout)
> >
> > I'm very sorry, but it's gone.
> 
> Today, "it" happened again (not sure how many problems were are
> discussing here, though).
> 
> I had been cleaning my web.de INBOX with Gnus.  Started Gnus, deleted or
> moved some messages, shut down, and repeated.  Then I suddenly saw that
> our problem was back, Emacs using 6GB or so.  The session is gone now (I
> shut it down normally).  I'm sure that at least a significant part of
> the problem materialized while using (more or less only) Gnus.
> 
> And here is that heap output you wanted:

Michael, since I stopped using helm-mode always on, I still use it,
but not awlays on and I do not query system packages with helm, since
then I have not get problem of swapping hard with 5 GB and more.

I could observe that vsize is increasing as Eli asked me for that. And
I could observe slow down, like that it slows down being harder to
type. But hard disk was not working. I could do garbage collect
without waiting 40-50 minutes for function to finish. And I did not
update or changed Emacs version yet. I have all the mtraces when it
happened and also after when I stopped using helm and waiting for
developers to tell if they need those mtraces.

Now question is, do you use helm with helm mode always on?

Of course it need not be related. But it is interesting as since I
stopped using it at least I did not get swapping problem where Emacs
tries to get some memory or has troubles with it.

Especially I am thinking of the helm function helm-system-packages
which always takes longer time as it searches through many
packages. It need not be related but I do remember that I had problem
with memory hours after using that function or turning helm always
on. Since I do not use, I did not yet observe the same
problem. Usually it would be after one day.