Cinnamon freezing and no way to recover

[fw190]

Hello!

Since a while I have a serious problem. At some point during work my laptop is freezing and the only way to bring it back is a hard reset with power button. The keyboard and mouse give no response.

I think that it may be somehow related to the amount of software used - I have opened Tunderbird, Chromium, FIrefox, Gimp, spotify is playing in the background via web player.

I don't know how to provide logs after such a crash.

I have 4 GB o ram. Maybe it is something related with the lack of ram and swapping?

[utack]

Have you tried another desktop environment to see if it still happens?
Run a memcheck too, could be bad RAM

[Cosmo.]

At first: If you again run into this situation, try to avoid the hard reset via power button. This might sooner or later lead to far bigger problems (possible data loss) because of a possibly damaged file system.

Try this approach, which works in 99 %: Press and hold the alt-key and the print key. Now enter one after the other with a little break in between: r e i s u b. This should reboot the computer.

How big is your swap? Open the system monitor -> 2nd page and see, how much of swap is used. Do this after you have opened all of the programs, which you usually use side-by-side.

[fw190]

Hello Cosmo!

RAM is 3,8 and SWAP is 3,8 GB.

Right now when all the apps are opened I can see that 3 GB of RAM is used but only 80 kb of SWAP. I can remember that at some point I have decreased the swappines as in this tutorial:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd

Could this be the problem? It is now at 1 as int he link above. I'm on SSD.

Thank you for the tip with the alt-key but as the left alt is on my keyboard my laptopop doesn't have a print button - there is only PrtScr for print screen.

[Cosmo.]

PrtScr is the key to use.

Reset swappines to the original value (60) and see, if this helps.

[fw190]

I went with 30 for a test and Today hand no crushes so maybe this was it.

Thank you for the print button clarification.

[Pjotr]

It's highly unlikely that a swappiness of 1 could cause this problem. With that setting, the swap isn't deactivated; it's just reserved for emergencies (extreme RAM use). My desktop machine (SSD-only) has been running for years with that setting, without a hitch.

Note that many people even claim good results with a totally disabled or absent swap partition....

So my guess is, that there's something wrong elsewhere. Perhaps a rotten RAM strip with problems in the high range. A higher swappiness would mask those problems in the high range of the RAM, because before the high range would be used, the swap would kick in. I suggest you do a memtest.

[fw190]

I have booted into Grub and did the memtest - 1 pass, no errors.

[Pjotr]

Then I suspect that there's a problem with your video (driver).

Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);
- make the terminal window fullscreen, in order to avoid chopped lines;
- copy/paste this command into the terminal (copy/paste can be done with your mouse):

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

if you type: the letter F is a capital letter

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[fw190]

Code: Select all

fw190@fw190 ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: fw190 Kernel: 4.4.0-47-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.0.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.1)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18 Sarah
Machine:   System: LENOVO product: 0301FCG v: ThinkPad Edge
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 0301FCG
           Bios: LENOVO v: 80ET40WW (1.17 ) date: 07/30/2010
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i3 M 370 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9575
           clock speeds: max: 2399 MHz 1: 1199 MHz 2: 1066 MHz 3: 2399 MHz
           4: 933 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.01hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ironlake Mobile
           GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 11.2.0 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-47-generic
Network:   Card-1: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 [Condor Peak]
           driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000 bus-ID: 09:00.0
           IF: enp9s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 560.1GB (6.2% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: GOODRAM_C40 size: 60.0GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD5000BEVT size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 52G used: 29G (59%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 4.08GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-0
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: 0.0C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 216 Uptime: 2 min Memory: 662.9/3750.5MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.421) inxi: 2.2.35 

[Pjotr]

It's as I suspected. A weak old video chipset, which is unfit for the heavy demands of Cinnamon....

This should help:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... n-Cinnamon
(item 6.1, right column)

But the best solution is a clean installation of the lightweight Xfce edition of Mint. I advise to do that, and even in Xfce, disable all visual effects: https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... ts-in-Xfce
(item 6.3, right column)

[modele62]

Hello,

I had the same problem of frequent freezes on Mint 18 Cinnamon and i finally had to downgrade to Mint 17.3 to get things working (and it works perfectly: no more freezes and lower resources consumption).
That may be a good alternative if you prefer Cinnamon to XFCE as your DE.

[LloydHayes]

I am also have this problem occasionally. But this happens very occasionally. Mint 18, wireless keyboard and mouse. Everything just freezes up. Waiting doesn't help.

I am not sure of the cause since I have an external docking hub with a 12 TB tower and printer hooked into it. I am seeing notes in the log file about the built-in CD ROM not being missing. I believe it is because the system is loosing track of the attached hardware.

I have wondered if it could also be related to automatic file backups to the external hard drives.

Anyway, my only recourse is the the Hard Reset via the On/Off button.

It seems to happen every couple of weeks, or so. No real frequency. Just not very often either. However, this basically just started in the last couple of months then at any time previous to that.

I am also running Mint 18 on a Netbook, which is not having this problem.

Since I have recently been having issues with Cinnamon crashing, posted elsewhere, I am wondering if this may not be related.
(The Cinnamon crashing seems to be related to updates to compatibility issues with the latest Linux Nvidia drivers.)

Lloyd Hayes

[fw190]

@Pjotr

I had visual effects turned off. Did the extra things from our link.

[LloydHayes]

I gave up and re-installed Mint 18 with a fresh download. I had started having a bunch of problems.

[Arrababiski]

Hi!

Sorry for recovering such an old post, but I was having the same issues described in this. I've been using Mint + Cinnamon for years without problems until one day Cinnamon started to freeze. The keyboard stops responding, screen freezes, mouse still moves but no response to buttons, Ctrl+Alt+Esc or Ctrl+Alt+Fn didn't work but fortunately the computer can be rebooted via the "reisub" sequence. Mate can be used with no problems (I have both installed in my computer) so I thought it was a Cinnamon issue. Increasing swappiness from 1 to 30 gave no solution, then disabled all the visual effects as Pjotr told in his post (I have an old Nvidia 6200) but still have random freezes. Finally upgraded kernel from 4.4 (the same as fw190) to 4.10 and goodbye all the problems!!!

So if anybody also has cinnamon freezes in Linux Mint 18.2 x64 and kernel 4.4, here you have another workaround to try to solve it.