I happened to hit the same problem and so did some digging. lsof output showed that terminator's (grand-)process gdm is leaking file descriptor:
/usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 25u REG 8,3 6413711 42205304 /tmp/vteZRV4BY (deleted) /usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 26u REG 8,3 1070400 42205305 /tmp/vteHMV4BY (deleted) . . . /usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 1020u REG 8,3 2407 42206629 /tmp/vte7G4CFY (deleted) /usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 1021u REG 8,3 113 42206606 /tmp/vteY9YUFY (deleted) /usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 1022u REG 8,3 64 42206627 /tmp/vteO5YUFY (deleted) /usr/bin/ 2143 ldaye 1023u REG 8,3 3350 42206628 /tmp/vteTCOLFY (deleted) Also, strace on gdm showed that open() failed with EMFILE (Too many open files), which matches well with the limit of open files is at 1024. Web search on "gdm file descriptor leak" landed on a few hits, the following could be relevant: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=532319 ** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #532319 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=532319 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/785501 Title: Terminator has a (some?) memory leak To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/terminator/+bug/785501/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
