Bug 509180 - Discover notifier uses too much RAM when updates are available
Summary: Discover notifier uses too much RAM when updates are available
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Discover
Classification: Applications
Component: Notifier (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.4.4
Platform: Fedora RPMs Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords: efficiency-and-performance
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-09-06 03:53 UTC by guimarcalsilva
Modified: 2025-10-11 14:20 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
Ram usage after fresh boot (47.69 KB, image/png)
2025-09-06 03:53 UTC, guimarcalsilva
Details

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Description guimarcalsilva 2025-09-06 03:53:40 UTC
Created attachment 184761 [details]
Ram usage after fresh boot

SUMMARY
After a fresh boot, the DiscoverNotifier process usually uses over 340MBs of RAM. That's more than Plasmashell, which uses around 250MBs, or even Discover itself, that uses around 280MBs. I don't think it makes sense for it to use more RAM than the entirety of Plasmashell, so there must be a bug somewhere.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Start the computer normally
2. Check the Details tab on System Monitor and sort by RAM usage

OBSERVED RESULT
The DiscoverNotifier process uses more RAM than any other process on the system, including Plasmashell, Kwin or Discover itself.

EXPECTED RESULT
A more reasonable RAM usage considering its function.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 42
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.16.4-200.fc42.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i3-1005G1 CPU @ 1.20GHz
Memory: 12 GiB of RAM (11.4 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: Intel® UHD Graphics
Manufacturer: HP
Product Name: HP 246 G7 Notebook PC
Comment 1 guimarcalsilva 2025-09-06 03:58:12 UTC
Update: it seems it only uses so much RAM when there are updates available. Without any updates it's sitting at 26MBs. I'm sure it wasn't a one off thing though because I often check for RAM consumption and the process usually sits at over 300MBs. I might have to investigate further.
Comment 2 john.liptrot 2025-10-10 20:24:50 UTC
(In reply to guimarcalsilva from comment #0)
> Created attachment 184761 [details]
> Ram usage after fresh boot
> 
> SUMMARY
> After a fresh boot, the DiscoverNotifier process usually uses over 340MBs of
> RAM. That's more than Plasmashell, which uses around 250MBs, or even
> Discover itself, that uses around 280MBs. I don't think it makes sense for
> it to use more RAM than the entirety of Plasmashell, so there must be a bug
> somewhere.
> 
> STEPS TO REPRODUCE
> 1. Start the computer normally
> 2. Check the Details tab on System Monitor and sort by RAM usage
> 
> OBSERVED RESULT
> The DiscoverNotifier process uses more RAM than any other process on the
> system, including Plasmashell, Kwin or Discover itself.
> 
> EXPECTED RESULT
> A more reasonable RAM usage considering its function.
> 
> SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
> Operating System: Fedora Linux 42
> KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
> KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
> Qt Version: 6.9.1
> Kernel Version: 6.16.4-200.fc42.x86_64 (64-bit)
> Graphics Platform: Wayland
> Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i3-1005G1 CPU @ 1.20GHz
> Memory: 12 GiB of RAM (11.4 GiB usable)
> Graphics Processor: Intel® UHD Graphics
> Manufacturer: HP
> Product Name: HP 246 G7 Notebook PC

Hi,

I'm not sure this is actionable by KDE developers.

I'm not exactly sure what "too much RAM" entails, but please understand that there is a constant effort to improve things behind the scenes.

Can you share why exactly you think that ~300MB of RAM usage is an issue on a system that has 12GB of memory?

Thanks.
Comment 3 guimarcalsilva 2025-10-10 20:29:16 UTC
(In reply to john.liptrot from comment #2)
> (In reply to guimarcalsilva from comment #0)
> > Created attachment 184761 [details]
> > Ram usage after fresh boot
> > 
> > SUMMARY
> > After a fresh boot, the DiscoverNotifier process usually uses over 340MBs of
> > RAM. That's more than Plasmashell, which uses around 250MBs, or even
> > Discover itself, that uses around 280MBs. I don't think it makes sense for
> > it to use more RAM than the entirety of Plasmashell, so there must be a bug
> > somewhere.
> > 
> > STEPS TO REPRODUCE
> > 1. Start the computer normally
> > 2. Check the Details tab on System Monitor and sort by RAM usage
> > 
> > OBSERVED RESULT
> > The DiscoverNotifier process uses more RAM than any other process on the
> > system, including Plasmashell, Kwin or Discover itself.
> > 
> > EXPECTED RESULT
> > A more reasonable RAM usage considering its function.
> > 
> > SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
> > Operating System: Fedora Linux 42
> > KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.4
> > KDE Frameworks Version: 6.17.0
> > Qt Version: 6.9.1
> > Kernel Version: 6.16.4-200.fc42.x86_64 (64-bit)
> > Graphics Platform: Wayland
> > Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i3-1005G1 CPU @ 1.20GHz
> > Memory: 12 GiB of RAM (11.4 GiB usable)
> > Graphics Processor: Intel® UHD Graphics
> > Manufacturer: HP
> > Product Name: HP 246 G7 Notebook PC
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm not sure this is actionable by KDE developers.
> 
> I'm not exactly sure what "too much RAM" entails, but please understand that
> there is a constant effort to improve things behind the scenes.
> 
> Can you share why exactly you think that ~300MB of RAM usage is an issue on
> a system that has 12GB of memory?
> 
> Thanks.

It's because that's not the normal amount of RAM that process uses usually. Normally it's around 50MBs but for some reason I cannot pinpoint it shoots up to over 300MBs. The notifier process in that case uses more RAM than the entirety of Plasma Shell or even the full Discover application.

If there's a tutorial somewhere teaching how to debug memory usage I could try to get some more actionable debug information.
Comment 4 john.liptrot 2025-10-10 21:05:15 UTC
> It's because that's not the normal amount of RAM that process uses usually.
> Normally it's around 50MBs but for some reason I cannot pinpoint it shoots
> up to over 300MBs. The notifier process in that case uses more RAM than the
> entirety of Plasma Shell or even the full Discover application.
> 
> If there's a tutorial somewhere teaching how to debug memory usage I could
> try to get some more actionable debug information.

Hi,

Are you saying that in the past 50MB of RAM usage was used, even when checking for/installing updates, and suddenly it is using 300+MB? Because that would be interesting and worth looking into. If it has always been that way, it is unlikely to be a bug. On my system, I opened Discover to find 627.8MB of pending updates. I checked system Monitor, Discover shows 254.7MB of RAM usage.

For the 'expected outcome' in your original bug report, you wrote "A more reasonable RAM usage considering its function."

What is a "reasonable amount" of RAM? What exactly is a "normal" amount of RAM? How much RAM is "too much" RAM?

I'd love to help, but I don't know exactly how this is actionable. Do you have any reason to believe that this is a bug?
Comment 5 guimarcalsilva 2025-10-11 00:21:11 UTC
>Are you saying that in the past 50MB of RAM usage was used, even when checking for/installing updates, and suddenly it is using 300+MB? Because that would be interesting and worth looking into.

Yes. It's usually under 50MBs, but sometimes I find it using >280MBs for no known reason. To be honest I haven't for sure confirmed updates to be the cause. Just now I made Discover look for updates and it was still using around 41MBs, even with updates available. I don't know exactly what causes the RAM usage to spike so high and stay high. Maybe it's some kind of memory leak? But then I don't know why sometimes it's high after a fresh boot and sometimes it's fine.

Maybe when can keep this issue open for some more time until Fedora gets Plasma 6.5. I'll keep the NEEDSINFO tag and if I can't find anything to help solve this then it will get closed automatically in a month, I think.

I'll look into finding a way to capture some useful info about the process when the issue happens again in the meantime.
Comment 6 john.liptrot 2025-10-11 08:21:01 UTC
*** Bug 473310 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2025-10-11 14:18:39 UTC
300 MB is more than what all of Plasmashell uses on my system half the time. It's definitely excessive for a tiny status notifier icon.