Bug 1713162 - VirtualBox causes an X11 memory leak seeming to do with cursor changes
Summary: VirtualBox causes an X11 memory leak seeming to do with cursor changes
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: xorg-x11
Version: 30
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: X/OpenGL Maintenance List
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2019-05-23 03:33 UTC by Ian Wienand
Modified: 2020-05-26 17:01 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-05-26 17:01:46 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
A log of "cursors" from xrestop tracking VirtualBox (22.42 KB, image/png)
2019-05-23 03:33 UTC, Ian Wienand
no flags Details
Screencast of xrestop cursors increasing each time the mouse cursor changes (725.17 KB, video/webm)
2019-05-23 03:34 UTC, Ian Wienand
no flags Details


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
VirtualBox 15892 0 None None None 2019-05-23 03:33:29 UTC
VirtualBox 18669 0 None None None 2019-05-23 10:28:09 UTC

Description Ian Wienand 2019-05-23 03:33:29 UTC
Created attachment 1572299 [details]
A log of "cursors" from xrestop tracking VirtualBox

Description of problem:

For some time now, VirtualBox has been slowly causing X11 to eat up memory, getting to the point where X11 must be killed and restarted to continue.

I started looking at xrestop for Virtualbox, and what struck me was that "cursors" seemed to be constantly going up.

---
6 - VirtualBoxVM ( PID:18815 ):
	res_base      : ox2400000
	res_mask      : ox1fffff
	windows       : 58
	GCs           : 6
	fonts         : 1
	pixmaps       : 2
	pictures      : 0
	glyphsets     : 0
	colormaps     : 0
	passive grabs : 0
	cursors       : 15015        <------ this
	unknowns      : 97
	pixmap bytes  : 0
	other bytes   : ~365248
---

I graphed it out over a day or so, and I could see that it was constantly increasing whenever I was using the VM, but remained stable otherwise (graph attached).  It never went down.

I started searching for related issues and came across https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15892 which described the same thing.  It correctly identified the issue -- every time the cursor switches (like mouseover a link in a browser) the cursors count goes up, and it never goes down.

I've attached a small screenshot video (for whatever reason, it seems gnome screenshot didn't actually capture the cursor... but you can see the link highlighting and the cursors value constantly increasing).

I can't pinpoint when this started but it's been at least through Fedora 29 & now Fedora 30.  I have been unable to use Wayland; it randomly crashes and takes out the VM's.

The upstream bug was closed suggesting that the leak must be in X11; there are so many libraries linked I'm not sure how to debug it.  It is linked with "libXcursor" which, just by the name, seems related; but that hasn't had updates in years (https://github.com/freedesktop/libXcursor/commits/master).

I would not this does *not* happen if you turn cursor capturing on (i.e. have to press right-ctrl to exit, rather than have it integrated into the desktop).  

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

---
[iwienand@localhost ~]$ rpm -qa | grep x11
xorg-x11-drv-evdev-2.10.6-4.fc30.x86_64
pulseaudio-module-x11-12.2-3.fc30.x86_64
libxkbcommon-x11-0.8.3-1.fc30.x86_64
qt5-qtx11extras-5.12.1-1.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-vmware-13.2.1-9.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-ati-19.0.1-1.fc30.x86_64
ghostscript-x11-9.26-4.fc30.x86_64
dbus-x11-1.12.14-1.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-vesa-2.4.0-6.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-utils-7.5-30.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-common-1.20.4-3.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-font-utils-7.5-41.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-xinit-1.4.0-4.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-Xwayland-1.20.4-3.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-fbdev-0.5.0-3.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.20.4-3.fc30.x86_64
qt-x11-4.8.7-49.fc30.x86_64
libreoffice-x11-6.2.3.2-1.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-wacom-0.36.1-6.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-utils-7.7-28.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-xkb-utils-7.7-29.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-qxl-0.1.5-11.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-libinput-0.28.2-1.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-openchrome-0.6.0-7.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-wacom-serial-support-0.36.1-6.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-xauth-1.0.9-14.fc30.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-nouveau-1.0.15-7.fc30.x86_64
---

Comment 1 Ian Wienand 2019-05-23 03:34:48 UTC
Created attachment 1572300 [details]
Screencast of xrestop cursors increasing each time the mouse cursor changes

Comment 2 Ben Cotton 2020-04-30 21:10:01 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 30 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 30 on 2020-05-26.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '30'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 30 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 3 Ben Cotton 2020-05-26 17:01:46 UTC
Fedora 30 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2020-05-26. Fedora 30 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


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