High SHMem memory usage!
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!
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.