Suspected memory leak in Mint (MATE)

Linux Mint
1

How does one diagnose, and fight, a memory leak?
Computer had been running for somewhat less than two days, and started slowing down atrociously – I saw that the available memory had gone down to 200 Mb, give or take, closed or killed everything (LibreOffice, FireFox, Caja and Xed) – and here’s where I got:

iad@iad-X505BP:/$ free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           6966        5427        1141           4         398        1293
Swap:         11263         732       10531
iad@iad-X505BP:/$ inxi -It m20
Processes:
  Memory top: 20 
  1: mem: 81.9 MiB (1.1%) command: mintreport-tray pid: 2281 
  2: mem: 26.6 MiB (0.3%) command: xorg pid: 1428 
  3: mem: 21.4 MiB (0.3%) command: systemd-journald pid: 405 
  4: mem: 21.4 MiB (0.3%) command: caja pid: 12282 
  5: mem: 20.5 MiB (0.2%) command: marco pid: 1971 
  6: mem: 16.4 MiB (0.2%) command: mate-screensaver pid: 1998 
  7: mem: 15.2 MiB (0.2%) command: mate-panel pid: 1972 
  8: mem: 14.3 MiB (0.2%) command: wnck-applet pid: 1991 
  9: mem: 12.3 MiB (0.1%) command: mintupdate pid: 2222 
  10: mem: 11.1 MiB (0.1%) command: mate-terminal pid: 2224 
  11: mem: 10.6 MiB (0.1%) command: nm-applet pid: 2027 
  12: mem: 10.3 MiB (0.1%) command: mate-xapp-status-applet pid: 1995 
  13: mem: 9.36 MiB (0.1%) command: mate-settings-daemon pid: 1948 
  14: mem: 8.11 MiB (0.1%) command: mate-power-manager pid: 2003 
  15: mem: 7.38 MiB (0.1%) command: redshift-gtk started by: python3 pid: 2002 
  16: mem: 6.57 MiB (0.0%) command: mate-volume-control-applet pid: 2055 
  17: mem: 6.34 MiB (0.0%) command: networkmanager pid: 1145 
  18: mem: 6.29 MiB (0.0%) command: clock-applet pid: 1993 
  19: mem: 6.19 MiB (0.0%) command: notification-area-applet pid: 1997 
  20: mem: 5.25 MiB (0.0%) command: pulseaudio pid: 1982 
Info:
  Processes: 203 Uptime: 1d 21h 13m Memory: 6.80 GiB used: 5.38 GiB (79.1%) 
  Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32

The top 20 processes add up to 291.61 Mb, so how is the used memory 5427 Mb? What is wrong, and what is to be done about it?

System:
  Host: iad-X505BP Kernel: 5.3.0-40-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc 
  v: 7.4.0 Desktop: MATE 1.22.2 Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia 
  base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Info:
  Processes: 215 Uptime: 1d 21h 36m Memory: 6.80 GiB used: 6.00 GiB (88.2%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 
  inxi: 3.0.32
2

Stop using C, start using Rust.

1 Like
3

I beg your pardon? Where does C (which I have never used) come in?

4

It was partially a joke.

1 Like
5

I’ve got to the wrong forum then. I expected help, not derision.
Unsubscribing.

6

If you consider this 100% unpersonal light half-joke a “derision”, then maybe you’re indeed visiting the wrong place.

2 Likes
7

Whenever I have doubts about hardware I always use a Live Linux distro.
I work with the PC for a while and check the behaviour.
You can have everything you need in a Live mode.

1 Like
8

Hey Akito,
Give the guy a break, can’t you see he’s desperate?
Help him out, please.

1 Like
9

With all those apps open for long periods of time, it will eventually suck memory out. If you open Firefox and be surfing the web for long periods of time, your memory will start to go up. Your Memory though is going down, which is weird. I will investigate further for you and report back as soon as. Please bare with me?