Subject: bug#43389: 28.0.50; Emacs memory leaks

From: Michael Heerdegen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:29:52 +0100

Jean Louis <[email-masked]> writes:

> 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.

Yesterday it was not swapping yet.  I'm monitoring memory usage with
gkrellm.  When it starts blinking red, which was the case yesterday,
memory starts running out.  It skipped the blinking yellow state, which
means that a lot of memory must have been acquired in a short time
period.

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

I regularly use some Helm commands (e.g. for C-x C-f or M-x) but not
helm-mode.

> 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.

I think we see different symptoms.  I don't see any slow-down at all
(unless swapping starts, obviously).  When I do M-x garbage-collect, it
finishes immediately without freeing an significant amount of memory.

> 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.

I was not using this command.

Maybe our problems have a similar cause, but seems they are a bit
different.

Regards,

Michael.