Version: unspecified (using KDE 4.5.95) OS: Linux Currently I have two zombie kded4 processes. I just restarted my computer because I had about 5 zombie kded4 processes, with the only non zombie one using about 130MB of ram. My swap was 1GB used, which is not at normal for my system, so it could have been using more then the 130MB. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: start KDE, open system monitor. notice the multiple kded4 process, all of which 1 are zombies. I do not know how to get kded4 to start making more zombies though, I have never 5 of them on me before.
Reading this bug report I looked into System Activity and I also see 2 kded4 zombies. Thus I can confirm this behaviour although I have no idea whether this is intended to work this way. The parent process of both is the normal running kded4 process. I use Kubuntu 10.10 with KDE 4.6 RC2.
To check which module of kded4 prevents the clean shutdown of the process, please selectively disable modules, kill all remaining kded4 processes, and start kded4 again. Then logout, and watch if the process still runs. To disable a kded4 module, use System Settings > System Administration > Startup and Shutdown > Service Manager. Some modules cannot be disabled via the System Settings application, and you need to manually disable them by removing one of the .desktop files in KDEDIR/share/kde4/services/kded/ If you found the offending module, report a new bug for it, or add a comment here.
there are two offending modules, they are: Kubuntu's notification helper, Muon Notifier Muon's notifier is actually based on kpackagekit if I remember right, so if you are using kpackagekit the Kpackagekit notifier should be one. Neither are KDE's problem so I guess this bug would be invalid?
Well, Muon and KPackageKit bugs are tracked in the KDE bugtracker, but lets wait what Robby or other people find. I have seen this occasionally, too, but I do not use any of those notifiers. Right now, I cannot reproduce it. Adding Muon maintainer so that he can have a look. He is also part of the Kubuntu team, so maybe he can check the other notifier, too.
The two notifier modules share the same core design. I'll track this in the Muon product here, and fix the problem in the Kubuntu notifier once I find/fix it in Muon.
Git commit c1e24dca77f42ee8b00d6cb274dac7838803123c by Jonathan Thomas Pushed by jmthomas into branch master Somehow running a python script directly without calling python /path/to/script causes zombie processes on exit. The Kubuntu Notification Helper also runs a different python application directly, so I shall fix it there too. BUG:263790 M +1 -1 kded/distupgradeevent/distupgradeevent.cpp http://commits.kde.org/f941090a/c1e24dca77f42ee8b00d6cb274dac7838803123c
Git commit 90dbeaa6afeff295baf360d99aa10b7d1af1e670 by Jonathan Thomas Pushed by jmthomas into branch 1.1 Somehow running a python script directly without calling python /path/to/script causes zombie processes on exit. The Kubuntu Notification Helper also runs a different python application directly, so I shall fix it there too. BUG:263790 M +1 -1 kded/distupgradeevent/distupgradeevent.cpp http://commits.kde.org/f941090a/90dbeaa6afeff295baf360d99aa10b7d1af1e670
There definitely was a fault in the Muon Notifier (or at least python) that was causing zombie processes while using it. As you can see, I've patched git master and the 1.1 branch of muon with this fix. The memory leak also reported is unrelated to the zombie processes, as zombie processes are processes that have had all their memory deallocated and such, but still have a process ID due to not having been reaped. Other zombie process issues in kded4 are likely different bugs. (Though maybe could be of the same shade, with funky KProcess behavior being the culprit)