Linux Minut 17 Freezing

[raybes]

I have upgraded to Mint 17 x64 from Minut 16 on my Dell XPS Laptop. I am now getting random freezing while using the operating system in what I consider to be a normal manner, and the issue has persisted after numerous reinstalls. I haven't noticed any freezing on my Windows 7 install and I didn't have the issue in Mint 16.

I can't pinpoint any action that triggers the freeze. Music playing in the background continues, but the keyboard and mouse/touchpad become unresponive. Sometimes it happens only a minute or two after boot, but sometimes the system seems to stay up for a few hours and I start to think it's fixed, then BAM! it freezes again...

I should mention that with Mint 16, the nvidia drivers weren't working with my hardware (Issue with Nvidia optimus with my 420m card and Dell bios not allowing you to turn on/off either card), but now the latest Nvidia drivers are working out of box in 17 (after selecting them). Perhaps there is an issue with the video card causing the freezing, I am thinking?

The only log file entries that MAY be relevant are:

Jun 10 11:17:01 raybes-xps CRON[8372]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jun 10 11:24:41 raybes-xps sudo: pam_ecryptfs: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/raybes is already mounted

Only because they are the only log entries I really get besides the boot messages unless I do something that would explicitly cause it. Then within the next ~10 minutes I got a freeze. Sometimes I only get (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly), sometimes neither, and sometimes I get those messages and they don't seem to be associated with a freeze, so I am starting to think they may not be relevant.

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts on how we can solve this issue? I want to find the issue to be sure it is not a bug that could affect other people.

[SallyK]

I have very much the same problem, but have had since I upgraded to Cinnamon 2 - I'm also using NVDIA drivers.

On my system it seems to be connected with writing notifications or pop-up descriptions to the screen - if I'm typing, scrolling or clicking at the wrong moment, it locks up the system and I have to log out with Ctrl-Alt-Del to get it working again.

I thought it was connected with the problems listed in the Release Notes about older NVDIA cards, but using the specified driver hasn't helped that much.

[Mute Ant]

I hobbled the kernel on Mint17Mate64 by editing /etc/default/grub

• # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards.
  GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset xforcevesa"
  GRUB_TERMINAL=console

It forces the processor to do all the graphics work, right from the start. Moving the Totem playback window always triggered a system freeze.

[raybes]

I hobbled the kernel on Mint17Mate64 by editing /etc/default/grub

• # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards.
  GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset xforcevesa"
  GRUB_TERMINAL=console

It forces the processor to do all the graphics work, right from the start. Moving the Totem playback window always triggered a system freeze.

If I tried this, then I'd be running the integrated graphics card full-time, correct? Would bumblebee override this? Or can I just use bumblebee from the start to achieve the same thing? I really wanted to use my Nvidia card. I need to use the Nvidia card to use my external monitor, my laptop has a broken screen so sometimes I want to use it and the HDMI port is through the nvidia card.

[Mute Ant]

1) Stop Mint 17 freezing during normal use.
'nomodeset' is telling the kernel 'do not get smart with the graphics hardware'.
'xforcevesa' is more of a hint to anything that is interested [like casper] that you consider using non-vesa commands to be a bad idea.
2) Drivers installed outside the kernel can do whatever they like. Change just one thing and reboot. Did you get closer to the system you want?

[raybes]

1) Stop Mint 17 freezing during normal use.
'nomodeset' is telling the kernel 'do not get smart with the graphics hardware'.
'xforcevesa' is more of a hint to anything that is interested [like casper] that you consider using non-vesa commands to be a bad idea.
2) Drivers installed outside the kernel can do whatever they like. Change just one thing and reboot. Did you get closer to the system you want?

It wouldn't run with nomodeset. Could only get terminal, and it kept displaying something like "couldn't start graphics turbo device" in the middle of what I was trying to do. I am on Cinnamon, BTW.

[c6g5i8J4L7]

All

I have been experiencing identical issues with Linux Mint 16, I downloaded Xfce and made it my default desktop. That seems to have resolved my problem.
Your results may be different.
Olin

[raybes]

I wanted to post an update on the issue.

I continued to experience the freezing. I have recently found that holding back on updating certain packages has seemed to stop the issue.

Initially I had been just installing all the updates to Mint as soon as I installed it, until I read the developers' policy on being conservative on updates. I then tried yet another fresh install, and found it didn't experience the issue on a fresh install, so I updated the packages one by one until I was down to a moderately short list.

As one might gather from the triggers some others in this post have listed, it seems to be related to the GUI. The list of updates I am holding back includes pretty much any which mentioned the gui in the description, Primarily:

gir1.2-dbusmenu-glib-0.4
libdbusmenu*
gtk*
libgail*
libgtk*
libqt*

For now things seem stable, I am sure I could narrow that list down but I am sick of troubleshooting the issue for now and the system is fitting my needs. I will update after Mint 17.1 is released and see if anything changes.

[Spearmint2]

wow, sounds like the old IRQ conflict rearing it's ugly head again.

[papa33]

I am also experiencing frequent freezing issues and it's becoming a real problem for me. I'm running mint 17 cinnamon 64 bits, and I've tried various combinations of kernels and nvidia drivers (from xorg-edgers ppa), but it keeps freezing all the time.
I have to ctrl+alt+backspace to recover.
If somebody has got any clues...

[jcd]

I've been having similar problems for years with my old laptop, where nothing but a REISUB or a hard reboot would work (no Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, and no Ctrl+Alt+F1-F6). My old laptop had an ATI Mobility Radeon graphics card, by the way...

With my new laptop, which has a NVIDIA GeForce card on, I'm experiencing a less severe case of freezes, where I can un-freeze my system by switching to another TTY, and then back to the graphical however-you-may-call-it one. I have to do this regularly (many times in a minute) occasionally, but then most of the time I'm not required to.

If someone experiences similar issues and can't find a way to solve them, try Ctrl+Alt+F1 or F2 (or an F key up to 7) and then Ctrl+Alt+F8, and see if that un-freezes your system. If that's not the case, proceed with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (activate it first through 'Keyboard Shortcuts'), then with REISUB (that's keeping Ctrl+Alt+SysRq pressed, and pressing sequentially the buttons R->E->I->S->U->B) which is a softer kind of reboot, and then (and only then) go with a hard reboot...

By the way, in my older laptop I used Linux Mint without a single problem through at least versions 5 and 6. The freezing problem started at some later version (before 10). I attribute this to some unstable module in the kernel, or some hardware deterioration of my laptop, or both. It was only after many years that I happened to get a glimpse of some shell messages during a freeze (instead of the ususal frozen gui), and I saw that the word for what was happening was 'kernel panic'. Finding the kernel module that was the culprit, or trying an older kernel (which was long removed from the Ubuntu repositories) was a pain, so I never found out...

[raybes]

I take it back, I have still been getting some freezing occasionally. However thanks to jcd I have found that CTRL-ALT-F7 then CTRL-ALT-F8 will get me out of it without a hard reboot.

Can any more experienced members advise us on the best way to get word to the developers about this so we can try and get it sorted out? It seems like there have been a number of users with similar issues reporting just in this thread. Although I do think we should wait for 17.1 and see what that brings.

[kaefert]

Hi there!

I've installed Linux Mint 17.1. on my Asus N550JV a few days ago and experience the same problem as user @raybes.
The GUI freezes and I can get it back without restarting anything simply by switching to tty and back.

Is there any update to the issue, any way to get the freezes to stop? something to install or uninstall?

[kaefert]

I've just dug out my "old" laptop (an Asus UX32VD bought 2012) which has been running Ubuntu 17.1 - I've upgraded it to 17.2 and installed all available updates and now I'm experience these freezes about once every 10 minutes or so (switching to a tty and back brings everything to live again).

On my Asus N550JV I did not experience this problem for a long time.

Anyone has a solution?
I've found this bug-entry https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/4072 here, maybe I'll post a comment to it later if I can't solve the problem before that.

[Spearmint2]

check your power settings?

[kaefert]

check your power settings?

what option in the power settings do you suggest cause the cinnamon UI to freeze?

[Spearmint2]

check your power settings?

what option in the power settings do you suggest cause the cinnamon UI to freeze?

Anything that calls for sleep or hibernate after a period of time. Since this happens daily, check the cron.daily folder and see what might be running there to cause it.

Code: Select all

cd /etc/cron.daily;ls

you can use the cat command followed by any file in that folder to review the contents of them.

Next time it happens, immediately after reboot, open your login viewer program and check the following log areas.

auth, kern, syslog,

see what was called at the time it dropped.

[kaefert]

my hangs do not require a reboot, I simply need to switch to a tty and back.
My power settings contain only one setting that fits your description, "Suspend when inactive for" which is configured to "Never" for both on power and on battery. Also my freezes don't happen after a long period of inactivity but right while I'm using the laptop. And they don't happen daily, yesterday I have been using this machine for around 30 minutes and it happened 3 times randomly (not exactly 10 minutes I think but I'll check the cron.d)

[Spearmint2]

Then you need to check some hardware. Boot to a LIVE DVD and run the memtest option in the menu. If you don't see the menu, then hit Shift key during the bring up to reveal it. Your RAM might be the problem. Have you put the computer into sleep and then have it hang up instead of waking up? That can indicate a RAM problem, or also a "resume" setting not setup properly. Boot to BIOS and then go into the Health section where temps are revealed and let it sit there awhile till warmed up, see what CPU temp it reveals at idle.

I don't know HOW you upgraded to the 64 bit. Was it from a 32 bit system? If so, did you do a clean install? Or did you do a dirty install on top of the 32 bit system? What media was used? Did you run md5sum on the ISO downloaded file? If you burned to a DVD did you run the "verify integrity" of the disc? You can actually get a Linux distro installed from a corrupted download or burned DVD and have it run for the most part, but find problems coming up, since it involved the file area that was corrupted.

[jcd]

I have found that in my case (and many other) it's an interaction between synaptic touchpad and X.org that causes the freezes. I can't search for the specific Ubuntu bug report at the moment (I'm at work).

I suggest plugging a USB mouse and avoid touching the touchpad; see if the freezes keep coming back...

I think the bug is fixed in a newer version of X.org. I'll try to post a link to the bug report, and the specific X.org version that fixes this, during the weekend.