Starting Zoom client on Ubuntu 20.04 with 5k Resolution and 32:9 Aspect ratio results in OOM crash

[Excyl]

Hey,

since I was not able to find a similar post I thought I can make a new one.

I am running Ubuntu 20.04 with i3-gaps and as a display I am using a Dell UW4919DW @ 5120x1440.

When I try to start Zoom running at the native resolution it results in consumption of all available

memory and then a crash with "Out of memory". 

However when I reduce the resolution to 3840x1080 Zoom seems to have no problems and starts just fine.

This means that the client has trouble running at a horizontal width of larger than 3840 pixels, and I wonder why that is.

It's a bit cumbersome for me to switch resolutions every time I am starting zoom, although it works.

Anyone experienced something similar, or has a workaround in that regards?

[RN]

Hey @Excyl, not too familiar with i3-gaps but it sounds like a processing consumption problem of having the i3-gaps which I believe lets you have gaps between windows on the screen? So essentially running that high of a resolution 5120x1440 which is a lot of screen real-estate and processing power.

Mind I ask with Zoom open and 5120x1440 set, is the window maximized in-meeting and the client window? Is that when you run out of RAM? 

Zoom at max requires Dual-core 2Ghz or higher (Intel i3/i5/i7 or AMD equivalent) and 4 Gb of Ram. Zoom also doesn't support higher than 1080p resolutions in-meetings. Linux also requires a processor or graphics card that can support OpenGL 2.0 or higher if that helps. 

Lastly, suggest updating the Zoom client. Let me know your findings and looking forward to your response! 

[RN]

Hey @Excyl just reaching out! Was my reply helpful as to the potential reasoning of running out of memory and your resolution config? 

[Excyl]

Hey @RN ,

the notification of your reply went under in my inbox and I didn't check your solution.

Zoom is in fact running in full-size during the meetings, and works flawlessy at around 4-5 GB of memory usage.

It's the starting of application on my System that consumes the memory, so when I drop the resolution to the mentioned 3840x1080 and start Zoom. It opens the window and everything is fine, I then close the window and just have the application in my tray.
I can then switch the resolution back to 5120x1440 and open Zoom normally and join meetings.

It just simply doesn't like the resolution when starting the Application.

That's why I ended up making myself a startup script for Zoom that drops the resolution to 3840x1080, starts Zoom and then changes back to the original resolution.

Updates are done on the regular.

The machine I using a Razer Blade 15 from 2020, so that should do it.
As I have no problems in running other apps at native resolution.

It's just nice to have a screenshare to the left, and whole gallery of participants on the right 🙂 

Thanks for the suggestion though.
Maybe if I test a bit I can find something more useful in the system logs. But I haven't had time to dig around, the script does work fine for me at the moment.

[Excyl]

@RN 
I had some time to play around.

It seems that the QT Framework running underneath Zoom, is not selecting my Nvidia card as the correct WebGL renderer. And therefore tries to run it with the Intel UHD Chip, which of course has shared memory, and I think that results in the crash. I am still at a loss why it works when reducing the resolution, and then switching back to the native resolution.

If you'd like I can send you the last error log, maybe that helps the developers to dig around if they have some slack time.

[RN]

Hey @Excyl fantastic, apologies for the reply here. I will go ahead and open a support ticket on your behalf, so that if eng. needs to get involved, the log request can be handled there. I've already created ticket #14034974 for you. Support should be able to jump on the ticket and help you out as soon as possible; in the meantime, let me know if there's anything else I can do.

[conzetti]

@Excyl I've been facing the same issue since upgrading to an ultrawide display (6 months or so). I've been doing the same song/dance of reducing the resolution and then bumping it back after the initial startup. In my experience, oom killer eventually steps in to kill zoom if I don't change the resolution, but that's after exhausting ~64GiB of memory. 

Did you end up coming up with a more sustainable workaround?

[Excyl]

Hey @conzetti ,

sadly not really. I automated the resolution switch with a small script that I launch through an i3 shortcut.

But so far nothing really, but I am suspecting that it's actually coming through the GTK Framework underneath, as I found a bug on their Github page describing an issue that is very similar to our problem.

So maybe in a future update, if they upgrade to a newer GTK version it should be fixed.

In the mean time we have to keep switching resolutions 🙂 

Sorry to not have a proper solution at hand.

Cheers,

Excyl