Ubuntu

Google-Chrome (at least) would rather die than use swap

Asked by jobu1324

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 with 8GB RAM and 8GB swap:

$ free -h
             total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 7.8G 5.7G 2.1G 496M 272M 1.3G
-/+ buffers/cache: 4.1G 3.7G
Swap: 8.0G 702M 7.3G

As you can see, the swap partition is active. I am a heavy user of Google-Chrome, and when the system starts running low on RAM, Chrome does one of two things:

* rendered pages "turn off" - i.e. they go completely blank and cease to be rendered.
* when a large amount of memory is required, Chrome crashes _and_ Ubuntu complains that it didn't have enough RAM to file a bug report (??? why doesn't it try using my swap file???)

I have seen both of these issues occur with _more than 7GB of free, unused swap space.

My swapiness value is set to the default 60. How can I make Chrome more reliable, and get my system to take advantage of the swap space?

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jobu1324 (jbulcher) said : 		#1

Chrome is beginning to act up (displaying blank pages). My current memory usage is as follows:

free -h -0- 11:02:21
                    total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 7.8G 6.6G 1.2G 528M 288M 1.6G
-/+ buffers/cache: 4.7G 3.1G
Swap: 8.0G 588M 7.4G

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

What is the output of:

uname -a; lsb_release -a; apt-cache policy `dpkg -l | grep -i google | awk {'print $2'}`

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb) said : 		#3

I’ve seen this behavior as well at least since their introduction of the Aura-based UI. I think you should report a bug to them. http://crbug.com

Revision history for this message
jobu1324 (jbulcher) said : 		#4

@actionparsnip Here's the output:

$ uname -a; lsb_release -a; apt-cache policy `dpkg -l | grep -i google | awk {'print $2'}`
Linux u0036 3.13.0-29-generic #53-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 4 21:00:20 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty
account-plugin-google:
  Installed: 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
calendar-indicator:
  Installed: 0.3.1-0extras14.04.0
  Candidate: 0.3.1-0extras14.04.2
  Version table:
     0.3.1-0extras14.04.2 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/atareao/atareao/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
 *** 0.3.1-0extras14.04.0 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
google-chrome-stable:
  Installed: 35.0.1916.153-1
  Candidate: 35.0.1916.153-1
  Version table:
 *** 35.0.1916.153-1 0
        500 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
google-talkplugin:
  Installed: 5.4.2.0-1
  Candidate: 5.4.2.0-1
  Version table:
 *** 5.4.2.0-1 0
        500 http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/ stable/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
libaccount-plugin-google:
  Installed: 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.11+14.04.20140409.1-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
unity-scope-gdrive:
  Installed: 0.9+13.10.20130723-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.9+13.10.20130723-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.9+13.10.20130723-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
unity-webapps-googledocs:
  Installed: 2.4.16+14.04.20140411-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 2.4.16+14.04.20140411-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 2.4.16+14.04.20140411-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

@adolfo I'll take a look, although my co-worker is on the same version of Ubuntu and Chrome, and he doesn't seem to have the same issues as I do.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

Reboot and log back in then run:

mv ~/.config/google-chrome ~/.config/google-chrome-old

mv ~/.cache/google-chrome ~/.cache/google-chrome-old

If one of the commands gives an error then open it's parent folder and rename manually. I'm not 100% sure of the folder names but you get the idea.

With both the configuration and cache folders renamed, launch the browser.

Revision history for this message
jobu1324 (jbulcher) said : 		#6

I didn't need to reboot to try your suggestion, since Chrome crashed. While Chrome is no longer crashing, this is a workaround, not a solution. I have quite a bit of work stored in my profile that is no longer accessible due to this bug, and I'm dreading the next time it rears its ugly head.

The problem is not solved, although it is clearly not a problem with Ubuntu.