SUMMARY The baloo file index seems to load the whole index file into memory and thus using huge amounts of memory and crippling the system STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Ask baloo to index your files 2. Check the memory usage with top and note the RES use of baloo_file_indexer It seems to use a bot more than the size of the index file. 3. Kill it before it use up all of your memory (I killed it at 2.5GB RES usage) OBSERVED RESULT Too much memory used EXPECTED RESULT An indexer should use a lot less memory SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: 5.42.0 (available in About System) KDE Plasma Version: 5.12.2 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.42.0 Qt Version: 5.9.4 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This is a long lasting problem which reduce usability of KDE Plasma in the whole: https://forum.antergos.com/topic/10830/baloo-memory-leak/10 https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/7ch2kz/baloo_file_extractor_memory_leak_when_indexing/ https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=193169 https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=121495 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1067499/baloo-file-extractor-in-ubuntu-18-04-lts-taking-up-a-lot-of-memory https://forum.manjaro.org/t/baloo-file-extractor-running-wild-until-all-ram-is-used-and-computer-freezes/47545 https://forum.manjaro.org/t/baloo-file-uses-a-lot-of-ram/70079 https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/723fzj/wtf_is_this_baloo_going_krazy/ https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=141221 Tons of reports. The only solution is to disable baloo completely. May be it's worth to get rid of baloo, replace it in the Plasma environment with, say, GNOME Tracker until this bug fixed?
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 394750 ***