LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

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bernd.wechner
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LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

This thread is fascinating because I am using the 5.4 kernel and my Mint 20.1 Cinnamon is regularly hanging (freezing) too. This is a right royal PITA to be honest as it locks up the whole box and I can't even open a virtual console on ALT+CTRL+F1 or such, let alone reach Cinnamon with ALT+F2. I have to ssh into the box from a laptop to look at it and find it's not stressed CPU wise or memory wise, but to be sure I can delete some of the bigger processes close browsers and my IDE etc, but never do I get a peep out of Cinnamon or any response. I try the infamous "cinnamon -d :0 --replace" from ssh and that too just hangs.

I can kill cinnamon and voila lightdm throws up the login prompt again and all is good, I log in and I'm rolling fine. In fact an writing this from just such a cycle of recovery, oh joy of joys. To wit, kernel is happy, as are all daemons like systemd and lightdm and whatever else, Cinnamon is the killer. I love Cinnamon and don't want to move to MATE ...

I read in recent updates that 20.2 promises some significant Cinnamon stability and performance improvements. Perhaps I wait patiently.

What I want to ask while here though is, are there any gurus here who might have in their bag of tricks some CLI commands (that I could use from ssh) to better diagnose what's wrong with Cinnamon. For example I would like to take note of a standard set of diagnostic steps, and gut feels says I want to:

1) Get a summary of the cinnamon process tree, what is expected and compare to what I see. For example I saw a load of subprocesses "reading cinnamon --replace" just now. Does that suggest Cinnamon had crashed a lot and restarted? Guru knowledge appreciated.

2) Get a summary of process stats. Waiting on something?

3) Know if a can send the Cinnamon process a signal to kick it in the pants more strongly than "cinnamon -d :0 --replace" seems to. And a littl less fatally than SIGTERM.

4) Get a summary of resources it's using CPU/Memory, anything else that might provide a clue.

5) any and every other diagnostic and/or soft recovery (without losing all my windows and work) options there might be.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by BrunoMiranda »

I don't have any knowledge about troubleshooting Cinnamon but all I know and you didn't mention it, can you restart Cinnamon or it is really frozen?

You can restart Cinnamon by calling the execute thingy by pressing Alt + F2 and then just type r in it and press Enter iiiiiif it isn't completely frozen.
By restarting it you will keep all your working environment, just wait a couple of seconds until it is done restarting itself and even cleaning some memory up.

Have you tried updating your 5.4 kernel? Or installing a 5.8 or even a 5.11 just for a tryout?
The Update Manager is a very good safe tool for this. On its menu, go to View (between Edit and Help) --> Linux Kernel.

If you wait a couple more weeks, Mint 20.2 is about to go from beta to release and the upgrade path will be open. Mint 20.2 will have an upgraded version of Cinnamon, version 5.0 I believe and a new kernel. With some luck your problem might be solved...

By the way, you can try to open a virtual console on ALT+CTRL+F1, open htop or top on it, leave it running and go back to Cinnamon on Alt + F7 and use it until it breaks. When this happens, go back to that virtual console and have a look at things, you might have some clue there eventually.
Bye for now,
Bruno


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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by Pjotr »

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 -Fxpmrz
(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter, and don't omit the space after inxi!)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

@Pjotr, inxi rocks! No problem at all. Part of me wishes inxi had a single option for that combo like --forumsupport ;-)

Here it is:

Code: Select all

$ inxi -Fxpmrz
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-77-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa 
  base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: All Series v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: MAXIMUS VII HERO v: Rev 1.xx serial: <filter> 
  UEFI [Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 2401 date: 02/24/2015 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 31.31 GiB used: 4.39 GiB (14.0%) 
  RAM Report: 
  permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-4790 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Haswell rev: 3 L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 57564 
  Speed: 1200 MHz min/max: 800/4000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1199 2: 1200 
  3: 1199 4: 1199 5: 1199 6: 1200 7: 1200 8: 1199 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP108 [GeForce GT 1030] vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: NV138 v: 4.3 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 9 Series Family HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108 High Definition Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
  Device-3: Logitech G930 type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid 
  bus ID: 3-3:2 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-77-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I218-V vendor: ASUSTeK driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k 
  port: f040 bus ID: 00:19.0 
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 5.17 TiB used: 3.03 TiB (58.5%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SV300S37A240G size: 223.57 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: SSD 830 Series size: 119.24 GiB 
  ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EACS-00D6B1 
  size: 931.51 GiB 
  ID-4: /dev/sdd vendor: Maxtor model: 6V320F0 size: 298.09 GiB 
  ID-5: /dev/sde vendor: Western Digital model: WD20EZRZ-00Z5HB0 
  size: 1.82 TiB 
  ID-6: /dev/sdf vendor: Western Digital model: WD20EARX-00PASB0 
  size: 1.82 TiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 116.38 GiB used: 29.61 GiB (25.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb5 
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511.0 MiB used: 4 KiB (0.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdb1 
  ID-3: /home size: 293.29 GiB used: 137.81 GiB (47.0%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sdd1 
  ID-4: /media/Backups size: 1.82 TiB used: 1.71 TiB (93.8%) fs: ntfs 
  dev: /dev/sdf1 
  ID-5: /media/Data size: 1.79 TiB used: 1.15 TiB (64.5%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sde 
  ID-6: /media/Home size: 915.89 GiB used: 76.1 MiB (0.0%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sdc1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 37 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/christian-boxdoerfer-fsearch-daily-focal.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/insync.list 
  1: deb http://apt.insync.io/mint ulyana non-free contrib
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/megasync.list 
  1: deb https://mega.nz/linux/MEGAsync/xUbuntu_20.04/ ./
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/linuxmint-packages ulyssa main upstream import backport romeo
  2: deb http://mirror.solnode.io/ubuntu/releases focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://mirror.solnode.io/ubuntu/releases focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://mirror.solnode.io/ubuntu/releases focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/phoerious-keepassxc-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/phoerious/keepassxc/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/saiarcot895-chromium-dev-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/saiarcot895/chromium-dev/ubuntu focal main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xalt7x-chromium-deb-vaapi-focal.list 
  1: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xalt7x/chromium-deb-vaapi/ubuntu focal main
Info:
  Processes: 311 Uptime: 4m Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 
  Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 inxi: 3.0.38 
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bernd.wechner
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

BrunoMiranda wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:08 pm I don't have any knowledge about troubleshooting Cinnamon but all I know and you didn't mention it, can you restart Cinnamon or it is really frozen?
It's really frozen. Happened again just now, hence time to report more. Explained well enough in he original post I thought.
BrunoMiranda wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:08 pm You can restart Cinnamon by calling the execute thingy by pressing Alt + F2 and then just type r in it and press Enter iiiiiif it isn't completely frozen.
By restarting it you will keep all your working environment, just wait a couple of seconds until it is done restarting itself and even cleaning some memory up.
It's worse than frozen, it completely locks up UI! As expolained in the original post even ALT+CTRL+F1 or F2 or F3 or whatever fails tom reach a virtual terminal. The standard recourse for accessing a console on a freeze. Cinnamon has decided not just to freeze but lock up the whole console. Only access is via ssh, and that reveals, as stated earlier, no CPU load, no memory dramas, and yet the whole console is locked. Reboot and it comes good (as I would otherwise suspect my keyboard battery and mouse battery both coincidentally died ;-) But nope they are good and working right now for example after I had to powercycle the PC again to escape this PITA.

One common thread is that I'm working in Eclipse with PyDev when it happens. But that proves little as I'm mostly doing that on this box. Still, it's conceivably Eclipse doing it, though it can't take the whole blame, as it's Cinnamon's job (with the kernel's help) to keep apps tame and the ALT+F2 available, and the kernel's job to keep ALT+CTRL+F1 available for interventions. Frigging weird that these both fail but sshd survives and lets me in and my diagnostic skills reveal nothing in the way of clues and only see a stable system
BrunoMiranda wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:08 pm Have you tried updating your 5.4 kernel? Or installing a 5.8 or even a 5.11 just for a tryout?
The Update Manager is a very good safe tool for this. On its menu, go to View (between Edit and Help) --> Linux Kernel.
No, I could try that. Ironically the thread I linked to found freezes caused by 5.8 and winding back to 5.4 solved them. So it wasn't a first port of call. That said the update manager has a string of 5.8s and the latest is supported till August so it doesn't looks stable and there is a 5.11 on offer!
BrunoMiranda wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:08 pm If you wait a couple more weeks, Mint 20.2 is about to go from beta to release and the upgrade path will be open. Mint 20.2 will have an upgraded version of Cinnamon, version 5.0 I believe and a new kernel. With some luck your problem might be solved...
I know. Here's hoping the Cinnamon upgrade works to fix this (but, again noted in my original post that I know this and that a new Cinnamon with many stability improvments is coming).
BrunoMiranda wrote: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:08 pm By the way, you can try to open a virtual console on ALT+CTRL+F1, open htop or top on it, leave it running and go back to Cinnamon on Alt + F7 and use it until it breaks. When this happens, go back to that virtual console and have a look at things, you might have some clue there eventually.
As noted in the original post and here, I can't access a VT. That being a major PITA!
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by AndyMH »

Given your hardware - 4th gen intel CPU, I don't think a later kernel will make any difference.

Any particular reason you are using the nouveau driver and not the nvidia drivers for your graphics card?
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by Pjotr »

I recommend to take some load off your graphics, like this:
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... html#ID5.1
(item 5.1)

Furthermore, the upcoming Mint 20.2 contains a newer Cinnamon that has better protection against resource hogging. I advise to upgrade as soon as that becomes officially possible.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

AndyMH wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:18 am Given your hardware - 4th gen intel CPU, I don't think a later kernel will make any difference.

Any particular reason you are using the nouveau driver and not the nvidia drivers for your graphics card?
No, happy to try an Nvidia one. Any tips on how (I can look into it too of course, but I ask now as I'm about to retire for the night anyhow and if I found a time saving tip in the orning I'd be chuffed ;-).
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

Pjotr wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:01 am I recommend to take some load off your graphics, like this:
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... html#ID5.1
(item 5.1)

Furthermore, the upcoming Mint 20.2 contains a newer Cinnamon that has better protection against resource hogging. I advise to upgrade as soon as that becomes officially possible.
Thanks, will look into those on the morrow, and yes indeed I will upgrade to 20.2 at earliest opportunity!
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by AndyMH »

You should have no trouble running cinnamon with all the effects with an i7-4790, passmark of 7210 against the 4577 on my i7-3632.

To enable your nvidia graphics driver, mint menu > admin > driver manager. It might solve your problem.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by BrunoMiranda »

@bernd.wechner So it seems I've misinterpreted your desktop was minimally alive. My bad then, sorry.

But yeah, do follow that guideline supplied by @Pjotr, I find that guide a must!
Bye for now,
Bruno


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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

Have disabled all the suggested things here:

https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... html#ID5.1

And installed the NVIDIA driver and will see if it happens in coming week. Thanks for tips. Will keep posted either way. if it's stable for a week I'll come back and say so, if not I'll come back and say so.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

Well, only a few days later and I can confess changing the driver has a) sped up my machine incredibly (like phew) and totally stable for now ... If this lasts a week I'll drop a line for sure. But it's looking like the driver was the culprit. No idea why I had that other one installed, and wasn't even aware of the choice (any more - suspect it was hastily answer question at some stage in the past that I had totally forgotten about!)
Last edited by bernd.wechner on Wed Jun 30, 2021 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by AndyMH »

nouveau is the open source driver, what you get by default. The nvidia drivers are closed source, proprietary.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by BrunoMiranda »

bernd.wechner wrote: Mon Jun 28, 2021 6:53 am But it's looking like the drive was the culprit.
I believe you mean the driver.

Either way, I'm glad it seems to be working now!
Bye for now,
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

Another day of joy. Yes, the driver. Fixed (both the driver and the spelling ;-). Stunning to see such a hug performance difference between nouveau and the proprietary one. I do use a 4K monitor which may be nouveau's achille's heel? But the difference has been astounding ... the system was so sluggish especially when remote controlling one of my other boxes. And I was meaning to diagnose but tolerating it .... it's a box I only use a few hours a day tops so usually am pressed with things to get done and pushing ever onwards .... swapping drivers has blown me away. Mid week now and not a single Cinnamon lockup.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

And a week later, not a single Cinnamon freeze and lock up. Driver issue all along. I wonder is the nouveau driver generally so bad or just because maybe I have a 4K monitor attached?
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by Moonstone Man »

bernd.wechner wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 2:16 am ... is the nouveau driver generally so bad or just because maybe I have a 4K monitor attached?
The first one.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by bernd.wechner »

Bummer. Leaves one wondering why. But c'est la vie.
Last edited by bernd.wechner on Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LM 20.1 and freezes: troubleshooting?

Post by BrunoMiranda »

bernd.wechner wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:07 am Leaves on wondering why.
I'm very rational myself but one of the things I've learnt in I.T. is that there are so many tiny itty little details that the causes of things sometimes go beyond rationality and we could never grasp those whys. I had a teacher that used to say "I.T. is not an exact science!".

Now I'm dealing with a comatose laptop I have for backup. I serviced it properly before storing it: changed the CMOS battery and even replaced the thermal paste on the CPU. Got a case for it and all.
Last time I've needed it it took ages to go past POST. Today I wanted to upgrade Mint to 20.2 but it refused to boot, just the fan gave signs of life. Checked the fitting of all components, resetted the BIOS, not even that. Later on I'll remove and refit the CPU but I have no hopes. Like you said, C'est la vie!
Bye for now,
Bruno


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