Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot a freezing cinnamon desktop?

[jtello001]

Hi, I'm using Mint 17.3 with Cinnamon.

Over the last couple of weeks my desktop froze intermittently (Cannot do anything, not even move the mouse pointer for about 30 seconds, then it resumes working and does all the queued actions and freezes again for another 30 seconds.... and so on). So far I rebooted but I would obviously like to troubleshoot and figure out what is causing this... During those times the CPU showed a low CPU usage (10% to 20%), Memory was about 75%, and No high I/O (E.g. disk usage), but I can hear the CPU fan during the time it was freezing and stop as the freeze cycle finish, and start again when the system froze again.

I am suspecting is related to something going on with Cinnamon, as I restarted Cinnamon and it work well for a minute or two but then it went back to it. After a reboot it will work well for days.

I just rebooted so I might not see the problem for several days, but if you have any suggestions on what to check for when it happens again; please share.

Thanks in advance

[Tartanspartan01]

Hi, im new to mint and linux in general, but maybe i can help you to get closer to the problem while we wait on a real expert arriving

could you run "inxi -Fxzd" in a terminal window and post the results here please would help us to see what you are working with and maybe give others an idea of what might be causing the issues.

I saw a post earlier where someone had a somewhat similar issue maybe we can rule out some possibilities in the meantime, have you tried running system monitor to see what background processes are running? are your cpu and or gpu drivers up to date and or system updates etc? to me , and again im a noob with mint and linux in general, it sounds like a background process is ticking or checking for something periodically, one user on these forums found a cpu monitoring applet was the culprit which no longer received updates , if you can think of any programs that may have been turned on or off a few weeks ago it may be responsible for what you are seeing. I have been experiencing a sort of similar issue on my laptop, it happens sort of randomly and can then disappear randomly aswell , particularly when i run cheese it will usually start to happen, im also wondering if google chrome is responsible .By going into chromes advanced settings i found an option to turn off background processes when it is closed, dont recall it happening after that but just something to consider if you run chrome. Its also might be a hardware thing in which case im not to good at helping to diagnose that, i would suggest paying close attention to system monitor in the meantime and when it happens take note of what you are seeing , the cpu usage is similar to mine, its also low when this happens but only freezes for a second then resumes for about 7, then repeats, it does sometimes stop on its own for me though. if you can work through the running apps closing browsers etc until it eases off or stops you might be able to single out whats causing the problem or we might gain a better understanding of how its affecting your cpu etc.

sorry i cant be more helpful, let us know how you get on.

[Pjotr]

As Tartanspartan01 already suggested, 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 full screen, to avoid chopped lines;
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal:

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.

[jtello001]

Hello, thanks for replying. Below the data from the inxi -Fxzd command. I had the issue yesterday once again and I was able to login via SSH from another system run the top command, and I noticed the Xorg process is using 100% of CPU and running with root, that's why I was not able to see it with the regular system monitor.

One more thing, I decided to go with the NVIDIA propietary drivers (Instead of Noveau) a couple of years back because I read the Noveau drivers cause overheating in this laptop (And I had overheat problems) and also because I use VMware and need not to use software rendering in the guest VM; at the time the only way to get hardware rendering was to use Nvidia propietary drivers (It wouldn't work with Noveau drivers). I have not reaearched if this is still true or if using the propietary drivers is still the best way to go.

• System: Host: X505Q896 Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
  Desktop: Cinnamon 2.8.8 (Gtk 3.10.8~8+qiana)
  Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
  Machine: System: TOSHIBA product: Qosmio X505 v: PQX33U-052025
  Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Qosmio X505
  Bios: TOSHIBA v: V2.90 date: 12/10/2010
  CPU: Quad core Intel Core i7 Q 740 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
  flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 13833
  clock speeds: max: 1734 MHz 1: 933 MHz 2: 933 MHz 3: 933 MHz
  4: 1066 MHz 5: 933 MHz 6: 933 MHz 7: 1066 MHz 8: 933 MHz
  Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF106M [GeForce GTX 460M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
  Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
  Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz
  GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 460M/PCIe/SSE2
  GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 375.66 Direct Rendering: Yes
  Audio: Card-1 Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio
  driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
  Card-2 NVIDIA GF106 High Definition Audio Controller
  driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
  Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.19.0-32-generic
  Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller
  driver: rtl8192se port: 4000 bus-ID: 0a:00.0
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet
  driver: atl1c v: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port: 5000 bus-ID: 0b:00.0
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (11.0% used)
  ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST9500420AS size: 500.1GB
  Optical: /dev/sr0 model: MATSHITA BD-CMB UJ141EL
  rev: 1.00 dev-links: cdrom
  Features: speed: 62x multisession: yes
  audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
  Partition: ID-1: / size: 167G used: 23G (14%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 32.77GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
  RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
  Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:50C
  Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
  Info: Processes: 243 Uptime: 13:15 Memory: 1806.9/7972.8MB
  Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
  Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28

[Pjotr]

Disable all visual effects in Cinnamon:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... n-Cinnamon
(item 6.1, right column)

Written for 18.1's Cinnamon, but probably applicable for 17.3 as well.

[jtello001]

Thanks Pjotr, I made the changes you suggested that day and have been testing, unfortunately the desktop keeps stalling.

I can login via terminal and I can see either Xorg or Cinammon using 100% of the CPU in the tops command report

[Pjotr]

Try the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 18.2 (still in bèta, but already surprisingly bug-free):
http://mirrors.kernel.org/linuxmint/tes ... t-beta.iso

[Huecuva]

I was having a similar issue in Mint 17.3 Cinnamon except that I could still move the mouse. It wasn't stalling every 30 seconds or anything, only every few minutes. As I said, I could still move the mouse around but nothing else would register. Then it would unfreeze and everything I clicked on while it was frozen would happen. I don't recall having the problem when I first installed Mint 17.3 Cinnamon so I thought it might be my RAM or SSD starting to fail (it's all cheap, second hand crap) but since I upgraded to 18.1 Cinnamon last week it hasn't frozen yet. I quite like 18.1. Seems quite smooth and snappy. I just wish the Kodi bug would get fixed.

EDIT: Alright, it's been a few days since I upgraded to 18.1 Cinnamon and now the desktop is starting to freeze again from time to time. Every few minutes it grinds to a halt for a good minute or so. Hell, I just had to reboot my rig completely because it froze solid and stayed that way. Still no one has found a fix for this? Is it just a bug in Cinnamon that needs to be fixed by the devs?

Coupled with the compositor bug that affects Kodi and makes it nearly unusable, this freezing thing makes Cinnamon next to useless. Maybe it's time to try MATE until Cinnamon gets fixed. If it ever gets fixed. Very unfortunate.

[tkocou]

Not one to sit by and wait for more information, I dug into the desktop freezing situation (yes my desktop is doing the freeze up with the mouse working, but no response when I click on stuff). Based on the posted hardware readout, the other gentleman and I share a commonality - we both use wireless connectivity. I dug around the various posts here on Linux Mint and found one referencing the use of the "perf" command. Following the instructions on that post, I found that the kernel worker threads (which seemly multiply to insane levels) are all about the handling of the wireless interface.

Terminal snapshot:

Samples: 254K of event 'cycles', Event count (approx.): 28663424357
Children Self Command Shared Object
+ 0.09% 0.02% pavucontrol pavucontrol
+ 0.09% 0.09% cinnamon libgirepository-1.0.so.1.0.0
+ 0.09% 0.08% alsa-source-USB libasound.so.2.0.0
+ 0.08% 0.05% gkrellm gkrellm
+ 0.08% 0.08% cinnamon libgdk-3.so.0.1800.9
+ 0.08% 0.01% alsa-source-USB libpthread-2.23.so
- 0.08% 0.08% kworker/u16:2 [kernel.kallsyms] .........<<<<- the kernel thread which multiplies
- 0.08% ret_from_fork
- kthread
- 0.08% worker_thread
- 0.07% process_one_work
+ 0.04% wb_workfn
- 0.02% ieee80211_iface_work
+ 0.01% ieee80211_sta_rx_queued_mgmt
+ 0.00% kfree_skb
0.00% mutex_unlock
+ 0.00% ieee80211_stop_tx_ba_cb
0.00% mutex_lock
+ 0.00% skb_dequeue

In my case, apparently the kernel thread children are not shutdown on a suspend command and with each wake-up, spawn a new set of child threads to re-establish the wireless connectivity. Eventually, enough threads get spawned that the cinnamon desktop is affected. At this point, I guess that I will have to stop using the suspend mode. Good luck to everyone.

[Huecuva]

It sounds like this bug is pretty widespread in Cinnamon, then. I am using neither wireless nor suspend mode so my freezing desktop cannot possibly be caused by the same thing. Do you mind posting a link to that thread you found about the perf command?

[tkocou]

My apologies. I thought the item was on this forum, but it isn't. Try this: http://www.copyandsave.com/SuyreFq9

[mcorbae17]

Has there been a solution to this issue yet? I'm experiencing the same problem and am using a wireless ethernet adapter.