[Solved] System freezing - Mint 13 Cinnamon

[Darksun]

I recently started using Mint 13 with Cinnamon and it's mostly going well, but I have an occasional issue with my system locking up. When it happens, I can still move my cursor, but I'm unable to click anything, and most keyboard input doesn't work. I can use ctrl-alt-backspace to restart my X session and I'm able to log in again and everything is fine (till next time this happens). I can also use Ctrl-Alt-Fx to switch to a different tty (e.g. TTY1) but if I do this and then try to switch back to TTY-8 for my x session, my system completly locks up and only leaves me the option of a hard reboot. This seems to happen when I'm using firefox, but as that and x-chat are pretty much the only applications I use I can't be sure that is the cause!

Can anyone point me in the direction of relevant log files, etc, that will help me diagnose this issue? Apart from this issue Mint 13/Cinnamon seems pretty great and I'd like to continue using it if I can solve this problem!

edit: I've marked this thread as solved, because for me, this issue is solved. However it seems that there are multiple bugs that can cause similar symptoms. If you are experiencing the freeze randomly and can't find a specific sequence of actions to replicate the problem then I believe that the issue is with cinnamon, and is solved in the next version, follow clem's instructions on updating it.

If you experience the freeze when carrying out certain activities or loading specific programs (particularly java related) then it is likely you have a different issue to what I have had. Read through this thread as there are a number of suggestions and people have reported varying levels of success.

[BopNiblets]

Try Menu -> System Tools -> Log File Viewer

or in Terminal

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tail -f /var/log/syslog

(this will show the last entires and update on new entries, so if you have it open when it freezes you may see something)

[gillmt]

I have the same problem and cannot track the freeze down to anything specific. As soon as I reboot, which I can do from ALT+CTRL+F2, I check the logs and cannot see any warnings or errors. Most frustrating - Mint 12 worked perfectly after I disabled the sound applet so I did the same on Mint 13 - did not make any difference. There doesn't seem to be any particular time/programme/common event to the freeze.

10 minutes later
Just turned the printer on and this happened - can anyone throw any light on this please?

mdm[991]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0

[Sid32]

I am also getting the same issue with the latest Cinnamon daily build. 1.4 up3 in Ubuntu 12.04. I find this happens when I use vlc player. So it might be tied to audio issues as well.

[Darksun]

This is what my syslog shows after a crash

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May 26 15:32:53 serafina kernel: [19032.922118] ===>tx queue is not empty:6, 1
May 26 15:37:40 serafina gnome-session[1394]: Gdk-WARNING: gnome-session: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.#012
May 26 15:37:40 serafina mdm[1127]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
May 26 15:37:44 serafina acpid: client 1142[0:0] has disconnected
May 26 15:37:44 serafina acpid: client 1142[0:0] has disconnected
May 26 15:37:44 serafina acpid: client connected from 25436[0:0]
May 26 15:37:44 serafina acpid: 1 client rule loaded
May 26 15:37:46 serafina acpid: client connected from 25436[0:0]
May 26 15:37:46 serafina acpid: 1 client rule loaded


I've tried googling some of the errors but can't find anything relevant. Can anyone shed some light?

[kherring7383]

Eventhough I too have had Mint 13 crash, I can't seem to narrow down any particular app that may be causing the problem. So I simply restart and move on. After all we all know that when installing any new Distro there are bound to be numerous bugs until it matures a bit. So the reason for this post is to encourage those that may be new to Mint and just stick with it. Hopefully in a couple of weeks the bugs will be identified and addressed.

[gillmt]

One or two crashes every day - searching for mdm[2020] - this bug seems to have been around for a long time?

mdm[2020]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
May 26 19:27:02 gill-desktop bluetoothd[703]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.62 path=/MediaEndpoint/HFPAG
May 26 19:27:02 gill-desktop bluetoothd[703]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.62 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource
May 26 19:27:02 gill-desktop bluetoothd[703]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.62 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink
May 26 19:27:02 gill-desktop kernel: [14299.651058] soffice.bin[3820]: segfault at 9a1475c0 ip 00142f14 sp bfeae6e0 error 4 in libc-2.15.so[110000+19f000]
May 26 19:27:04 gill-desktop acpid: client 2029[0:0] has disconnected

[KBD47]

I had random freezes on my desktop computer with ubuntu 12.04/kubu 12.04/xubu 12.04/lubu 12.04/mint 13, obviously an ubuntu bug. Finally just put SolusOS on my desktop, an an older buntu--xubu 11.10--as a backup. On two of my netbooks ubuntu 12.04 brought a suspend bug that failed to suspend and froze up when I closed the laptop lid. All in all Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 were bad news for everything except one of my computers. One reason why I'd like to see Mint have a reliable LMDE based on Debian Stable, but for now I'm happy to use SolusOS.

[redhatlinux10]

I recently started using Mint 13 with Cinnamon and it's mostly going well, but I have an occasional issue with my system locking up. When it happens, I can still move my cursor, but I'm unable to click anything, and most keyboard input doesn't work. I can use ctrl-alt-backspace to restart my X session and I'm able to log in again and everything is fine (till next time this happens). I can also use Ctrl-Alt-Fx to switch to a different tty (e.g. TTY1) but if I do this and then try to switch back to TTY-8 for my x session, my system completly locks up and only leaves me the option of a hard reboot. This seems to happen when I'm using firefox, but as that and x-chat are pretty much the only applications I use I can't be sure that is the cause!

Can anyone point me in the direction of relevant log files, etc, that will help me diagnose this issue? Apart from this issue Mint 13/Cinnamon seems pretty great and I'd like to continue using it if I can solve this problem!

I have the same issue just like yours.

[chazdg24]

I should have checked this post. I am having similar issues.

[mujaddid]

im having the same issues too
i just press ctrl+alt+backspace to get out of the frozen session

[pere]

The same problem happens to me, but it just appears while I'm watching videos online. I get a black screen and the login screen appears. this is my log:

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May 28 04:22:55 pere kernel: [ 1558.637237] Xorg[1242] general protection ip:7f13106736a9 sp:7fff90e93670 error:0 in nvidia_drv.so[7f1310612000+6e0000]
May 28 04:22:55 pere mdm[1220]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
May 28 04:22:56 pere acpid: client 1242[0:0] has disconnected
May 28 04:22:56 pere acpid: client 1242[0:0] has disconnected
May 28 04:22:56 pere acpid: client connected from 10884[0:0]
May 28 04:22:56 pere acpid: 1 client rule loaded
May 28 04:22:57 pere acpid: client connected from 10884[0:0]
May 28 04:22:57 pere acpid: 1 client rule loaded
May 28 04:24:24 pere kernel: [ 1646.985494] [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

I have tried the 2 nvidia drivers available but the error persists

[synchron]

Same issues here.
It appears often. Mostly when i start "PMS" the Playstation Mediaserver. it crashes 4 of 5 times. But also when i'm surfing or working in LibreOffice...
I checked all Logfiles that are in the viewer. There is no message but the messages that appear because of the ctrl-alt-backspace - X-reboot.
It is not the Problem whith my nvidia driver, i changed to the not-recommended one. That helped against problems every 10 seconds
Hope someone will soon find the problem...if not...i think i had to downgrade my system...

[cowsquad]

Same freezing issues here, I will tried the work around mentioned above: (

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[kirmonkey]

I have the same problem here too.

I will look into it today but in the meantime does anybody know the location of the Cinnamon log files?

[pere]

I have just tried feadanaigh's solution but it doesn't work for me. X-server got updated, but the system keeps crashing.

[Murdock]

My cinnamon install crashed twice today after installing some software with synaptic. It installed the programs fine but crashed on reloading.
Kinda reminds one of the old 98SE daze

[Penurious Penguin]

I'm using Linux Maya (Mate -- not Cinnamon) and this has been occurring several times per day; screen freezes, all keyboard input fails requiring hard reboot, but the cursor is still movable and Desktop is visible but frozen. It just happened twice within two hours. Since I perpetually have Firefox open, I cannot yet determine if it is a factor, but has been involved every time so far. Previously on Lucid Lynx, especially when visiting weatherunderground to check the weather, certain images would log me out and kill x. This is much worse. I will be monitoring logs here forth. It is a pity that such a potentially fine distro be afflicted with such a critical bug. And if it is Flash or Firefox, it is worrisome that either would have such power over the system.

System Info:
Linux Mint Maya 64bit (Mate)
Asus Laptop K53E (Intel i5)

[bu99zy]

I too was having random freezes when I 1st installed Maya.

For me the solution was to update the kernel.

Instructions on how to upgrade the kernel to 3.3.6 can be found here. I have been also been trying the 3.4 kernel, instructions on 3.4 kernel installation is here.

Make sure you updated grub after installing the new kernel

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sudo update-grub

[Penurious Penguin]

Eventhough I too have had Mint 13 crash, I can't seem to narrow down any particular app that may be causing the problem. So I simply restart and move on. After all we all know that when installing any new Distro there are bound to be numerous bugs until it matures a bit. So the reason for this post is to encourage those that may be new to Mint and just stick with it. Hopefully in a couple of weeks the bugs will be identified and addressed.

Having your entire system frequently crash is an EXTREMELY poor introduction to a new distro and would be a fine excuse to run from it, far, far away. I have had errors galore in my years with Linux, but this one is intolerable. And notice that to this date, the only response is to add ppa:upubuntu-com/kernel to the repositories. Why were they so rushed to roll out such a mutant, it's not December yet? No boot for b43 wireless, unstable system for 870+? users, ...what's next? Active X, "illegal action"s, and COFEE? Pardon the flame, but losing my stuff again might make me mad.

Mint -- Kind of like a Ferrari, but suspiciously reminiscent of a Pinto.

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