Bug 130862

Summary:	kio_http_cache_cleaner starts every few minutes and causes extreme disk I/O or thrashing
Product:	[Unmaintained] kio	Reporter:	Ian <iajava>
Component:	http	Assignee:	kdelibs bugs <kdelibs-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	ahartmetz, bugs.kde.org3, grundleborg, oliver.henshaw, rdieter, sin
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Ian 2006-07-15 16:50:22 UTC

Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.4.3)
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages
OS:                Linux

Every few minutes kio_http_cache_cleaner is started by kdeinit (top shows parent process ID as kdeinit's), causing extreme disk activity, making system unresponsive, which is _very_ annoying.

top says kio_http_cache_cleaner consumes less than 3% CPU, and overall CPU usage _drops_ low, but "waiting" fluctuates around 90%. I'm not sure if this means kio_http_cache_cleaner is grinding the disk or triggering swap thrashing.

I just kill kio_http_cache_cleaner, when I see it, and see no adverse effects.

~/.kde/cache-host/http/ takes merely 50MB. Hmm, oh, that's what I have Konqui set to use (51200KB). There's almost 22,000 files in there. (Foo?!)

Might be the mechanism is merely inefficient, but I smell something foul...
Please help.

Comment 1 Sune Vuorela 2006-12-12 00:31:00 UTC

A debian user have also reported this - and created some kind of patch for it.
I do not have skills/time to try to review it now, but it is located in the debian bugreport 401561 at:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=401561

/Sune

Comment 2 Krishna Sethuraman 2007-08-07 02:34:46 UTC

Would another option be to run the cleaner at a lower ionice (http://friedcpu.wordpress.com/2007/07/17/why-arent-you-using-ionice-yet) priority or a lower nice priority?  Perhaps this would allow it to hang just konqueror rather than the whole system when it runs.

Comment 3 hyper_ch 2009-03-30 17:40:26 UTC

I have noted the same behaviour. it starts regurarly and has high disk i/o that slows the system down (I have all luks/dm-crypt encrypted)

Comment 4 Sergey 2009-06-16 10:05:14 UTC

On KDE 3.5.7, Debian4, kio_http_cache_cleaner starts about every 5 minutes even when konqueror not used. It cracks with HDD, very annoing during the night time. I have a plenty of space for cache. Can it be tuned to start once a day?

Comment 5 Andreas Hartmetz 2009-08-13 21:00:44 UTC

This should be fixed for good in revision 1011001 (it looks like a binary number but it isn't! ;) ) in trunk. Most importantly, the cache cleaner only runs if there is actually activity in the cache. And if it runs it will make sure not to hog the disk all the time by running for 100 milliseconds and then pausing for the same time. This is not elegant or the best way but it works, for now.