Comment 5 for bug 1289532

With version of 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu5 I still see one of the threads doing:

inotify_add_watch(8, "/var/lib/ofono", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_ONLYDIR) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}], 2, 3997) = 0 (Timeout)
inotify_add_watch(8, "/var/lib/ofono", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_ONLYDIR) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}], 2, 3998) = 0 (Timeout)
inotify_add_watch(8, "/var/lib/ofono", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_ONLYDIR) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}], 2, 3995) = 0 (Timeout)
inotify_add_watch(8, "/var/lib/ofono", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_ONLYDIR) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}], 2, 3996) = 0 (Timeout)
inotify_add_watch(8, "/var/lib/ofono", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_ONLYDIR) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
poll([{fd=9, events=POLLIN}, {fd=8, events=POLLIN}], 2, 3996) = 0 (Timeout)

So a 0.25 Hz timeout and an inotify watch being added each time which seems redundant on the desktop.

This is on a cleanly installed machine as of last week so I'm confident that my laptop is relatively sane when it comes to installed packages.

To track this down I did:

sudo health-check -p NetworkManager

this showed up as:

System calls traced:
  PID Process Syscall Count Rate/Sec Total μSecs % Call Time
   949 NetworkManager recvmsg 211 3.5167 2520 0.0021
   949 NetworkManager sendmsg 108 1.8000 2044 0.0017
   949 NetworkManager poll 97 1.6167 53977531 45.3342
   949 NetworkManager write 77 1.2833 873 0.0007
   949 NetworkManager read 52 0.8667 606 0.0005
   949 NetworkManager restart_syscall 1 0.0167 5542655 4.6551
   952 NetworkManager rt_sigtimedwait 1 0.0167 0 0.0000
   959 NetworkManager inotify_add_watch 15 0.2500 301 0.0003
   959 NetworkManager poll 15 0.2500 56001456 47.0340
   959 NetworkManager restart_syscall 1 0.0167 3537933 2.9714
   963 NetworkManager restart_syscall 1 0.0167 0 0.0000
 Total 579 9.6500 119065919

and also:

Inotify watches added:
  PID Process Rate/Sec File
   959 NetworkManager 0.250 /var/lib/ofono

so then I just strace'd pid 959 and the rogue polling and inotify watch is apparent. Hope that clarifies.