14.04 random lockup after several days of 24/7 uptime

[Frank616]

I have 14.04 installed on a desktop machine that runs 24/7. In the past few months I have been getting random overnight lockups. The machine will not respond to anything, and requires the 'big red button' to force a reboot. It appears to happen only when I leave multiple instances of Chrome running, but I cannot be sure of that.

I am currently suspecting a memory leak somewhere associated with Chrome. I assume that some clues will be in a log somewhere, but I need some help on where to look to sleuth this.

Thanks.

Frank.

[Snowhog]

Well, if Chrome is the cause, reboot and don't run (or shutdown) Chrome and leave the PC running overnight. Did the PC lockup when you check in the morning?

[GreyGeek]

THAT is why I quit using Chrome.

[Frank616]

Snowhog and Greygeek:

The lockups happen after several days or even weeks, not just overnight. And they appear to be random.

I could quit using Chrome, but I don't find Firefox that great either.

Is there nothing that would help me pinpoint the issue?

Thanks.

Frank.

[GreyGeek]

The next time it locks up, if you happen to be at the keyboard when it happens, make note of the exact time. Then open ksyslog and check the various logs at the time to see what was running and/or when a reboot occurred.

[SecretCode]

I'm on 14.04 with updates up to date. I can't say I've experienced random lockups recently. Occasionally, but rare.

In my experience, Chrome uses more memory for a given set of pages than Firefox, sometimes a lot more. It's better at handling some pages, so I keep it around.

But even though I reboot my system (also 14.04) as rarely as possible, I do make a habit of closing the browsers quite often, usually at the end of the day. Otherwise when I wake it up (physically, after hibernation, or metaphorically after just being locked), it thrashes for a long time.

Another thing I routinely do is keep the ksysguard monitor open with a view on RAM and Swap (and CPU and Load and sometimes Temperature!) - when application RAM gets high and Swap use increases, I find things get slow (obviously), and this is when apps tend to crash.