Mint 17.3 KDE desktop freezes randomly

[FuLl]

17.3 in KDE.

It doesn't seem to happen for any particular reason, different stuff running each time. But when I'm watching Netflix in Chrome it happens that the desktop is all that freezes, the audio from whatever I'm watching keeps playing as if nothing happened. This gives me the impression that there may be a log being written to which may provide a clue. However I don't know what log to check, or what text to grep in said log.

Could anyone let me know what exactly I should do to troubleshoot this, please?

Thanks,
-F

[Laurent85]

Please post the inxi overview report, open a terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

Also provide the command results:

Code: Select all

ubuntu-drivers devices

[FuLl]

Please post the inxi overview report, open a terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

Also provide the command results:

Code: Select all

ubuntu-drivers devices

Code: Select all

christopher@Triborough:~ > inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: Triborough Kernel: 3.19.0-32-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 4.14.2 (Qt 4.8.6) Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 3048h Bios: Hewlett-Packard v: 786G2 v02.01 date: 02/23/2011
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core2 Duo E8500 (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 12635
           clock speeds: max: 3166 MHz 1: 1998 MHz 2: 3166 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 4 Series Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Q45/Q43 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.5.9 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801JD/DO (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.19.0-32-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 0000 bus-ID: 22:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2100 bus-ID: 23:00.0
           IF: eth1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2506.5GB (22.1% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST31000528AS size: 1000.2GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Crucial_CT256MX1 size: 256.1GB
           ID-3: /dev/sdc model: HGST_HTS721010A9 size: 1000.2GB
           ID-4: /dev/sdd model: WDC_WD2500BEVS size: 250.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 95G used: 12G (13%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2
           ID-2: /boot size: 976M used: 50M (6%) fs: ext3 dev: /dev/sdb1
           ID-3: /home size: 1.8T used: 472G (28%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/md127p1
           ID-4: swap-1 size: 32.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/md126
RAID:      Device-1: /dev/md126 - active components: online: sdc1[1] sda1[0]
           Info: raid: 0 report: N/A blocks: 31246336 chunk size: 512k
           Device-2: /dev/md127 - active components: online: sdc2[1] sda2[0]
           Info: raid: 0 report: N/A blocks: 1922278400 chunk size: 256k
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 261 Uptime: 6 min Memory: 2417.6/15920.0MB Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28 
christopher@Triborough:~ > ubuntu-drivers devices
christopher@Triborough:~ >

[Laurent85]

Looks ok. You may try to disable hardware acceleration in the browser preferences settings. Or upgrade to a newer kernel:
See Update Manager > View > Linux kernels > select latest kernel 4.2, install & reboot

[FuLl]

Yesterday I tried changing to a 4x kernel & it went very badly: no keyboard input on login screen & weird screen resolution problems. Had to repair it from a LiveCD since there's a zero timeout on a default Mint grub screen & thus I wasn't able to choose a working kernel. Don't think I'll be trying that again.

I've disabled hardware acceleration in Chrome, hoping that's all that was needed.

I did an experiment & found the freeze didn't happen when Chrome wasn't running. Hoping this is a clue that lends itself to the hardware acceleration being the pertinent factor in this.

Thanks for your input.

-F

[Laurent85]

You may also try the chromium-browser from Software Manager, the open-source browser from chrome.

[FuLl]

You may also try the chromium-browser from Software Manager, the chrome browser open-source version.

I was unable to get Facebook & Netflix videos to play on that version- pretty much a deal-breaker.

[pcpunk]

This might not be a technical answer but I have freezes also periodically. What I find to work is a ClamAV Scan on home directory. People say this an't true, but I think somehow, Windows Browser Infections mess up KDE, or and others as well. Works every time, just Quarantine the CVE's, trojans etc. Then later delete them. Please tell me if this works. Otherwise I find KDE and Linux Mint in general very stable and never have much of an issue besides this same thing you are saying. I think some avoid this by simply Deleting their Browser cache periodically but I choose to use clamav instead.

[rossdv8]

This reply is a bit late as I have been using Elementary OS for a long time and only just started using Mint again. I moved to Elementary because KDE was causing havoc with my computers. But recently I decided to swap one of them to a 64 bit OS so I could use programs like Viber. And that's where Elementary fell over. So I downloaded Mint 17.3 and installed it. And remembered I hate Cinnamon and dislike Mate.

And that's where the problems started. I am posting this just in case people with the KDE freezing and plasma-desktop hogging almost all the RAM sounds familiar. The biggest problem was that KDE did most things fast, then I would do something like open a PDF in a browser and choose to print or save it as a file from the browser. And KDE would simply lock up. I could scroll open programs like a browser page or a document, but scrolling the mousewheel to change work spaces or clicking the workplace pager did nothing for ages. Then all of a sudden the things I had clicked would start happening. And using the System Monitor showed that plasma-desktop was using over 900,000K of RAM and there was 3.7GB of memory used out of the 4GB available.

So I Googled and discovered this has been a long term problem with KDE4. And it is also still a problem in KDE5.
I tried a lot of the fixes and uninstalled stuff, pared effects to the bone and swapped browsers. Nothing worked - nothing at all. Except that if I logged out and back in, everything was fine while plasma-desktop was only using about 125,000 - 170,000 K.

So I added my old 'plasma-quick-start icon' to the panel. At least now I could click one icon without logging out and plasma would restart and reset all the RAM. A dirty solution I guess, but fast and convenient.

Then overnight I got to thinking. In the early days of mint, and before that in various distros going back to Mandrake and Red Hat I used to put a lot of feedback into development. And quite a few dollars in donations. And one thing I remembered is that the MINT team has always had things pretty tight. Mint is really Gnome oriented, But KDE is a whole other animal. And I had problems previously only after I added too much Gnome stuff to KDE (using Synaptic). I wondered if the opposite might be true. So I downloaded the KDE version of Mint 17.3.

For the last couple of days I've been working it hard. Right now, Mint KDE is using 1.1GB of RAM and plasma-desktop is using 133,524 K of that with 4 desktops on each of 2 activities, all with different wallpapers on a dual monitor system.
I even tried different video drivers (I'm using an old AMD 1.6GHZ processor with a Radeon Wrestler graphics card, so it is working pretty hard.

Last night after a day using Mint 17.3 KDE with no freezes and everything running nicely I pushed it to the limit rendering video in Openshot while playing a movie and doing other more normal stuff.

So if you are having problems with KDE, and you really want to use KDE and you realise you actually have added KDE to Mate or Cinnamon, (or if you have added Mate or Cinnamon to KDE), you can probably fix things by doing a fresh install of Mint KDE, and DO NOT install ANY other desktop. And try to limit the number of Gnome programs you run with it.
If, like me you have a separate /home partition you won't lose any files as long as you remember NOT to Format /home!

If you are running anything other than KDE you can install as many other desktops as you like with very few problems and choose one at login. It is just that KDE and the Gnome based desktops are completely at odds with each other.

A follow up thought..
The KDE memory leak problem in KDE4 is still a recognised bug that has not been fixed even in KDE5. So plasma-desktop RAM use will continue to grow. Over a day it might not make as lot of difference unless you are constantly opening and closing programs and they are not releasing RAM from plasma.

The quick and dirty fix is to add a bash script to your panel.

!#/bin/bash
killall plasma-desktop
plasma-desktop &

Just make it executable and once it is on the panel a single click will restart plasma shell without a log out. It doesn't affect your running programs, they all stay open and nothing changes.

Sorry for the long post. I want to detail the problems I had so others can recognise if it is what they have

[pcpunk]

So if you are having problems with KDE, and you really want to use KDE and you realise you actually have added KDE to Mate or Cinnamon, (or if you have added Mate or Cinnamon to KDE), you can probably fix things by doing a fresh install of Mint KDE, and DO NOT install ANY other desktop. And try to limit the number of Gnome programs you run with it.

Well yeah if you start adding things like that then I would expect some issues, in some, if not most cases.

[phd21]

Hi "FuLl",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

1.) I am using Linux Mint KDE 17.3, which I absolutely love, on a very old, underpowered, single core 32-bit processor computer with only 2gb ram , and It almost never locks up. I have hundreds of applications installed and many of them are for the Gnome/GTK, and they all work well, albeit slowly on my system. I do not seem to encounter the "memory leak" that some others have mentioned. I have tweaked some settings,
according to the excellent website below "swappiness", etc... And, I would not recommend mixing desktops.

FYI: If you do not have the "ubuntu-restriced-extras" installed, do that.

Speed up your Mint
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/3

2.) I would not install a kernel upgrade beyond what is recommended in the update manager, unless you are having a specific hardware issues that requires you to do so.

3.) You should not be having problems on your computer with anything "Facebook" related in any browser. As for "Netflix", Google's Chrome should work fine with that, with or without acceleration, but I would think that acceleration would help. I can no longer use Chrome because they dropped support for 32-bit systems.

How to Watch Netflix Natively on Linux – the Easy Way
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/watch-netf ... -easy-way/

If you do not have the "Fresh Player plug-in" for FireFox installed, "PepperFlash plug-in" for Chrome, "Flash Plug-in installer", then you might consider doing that.

Fresh Player Plug-in Sees New Release 2015
http://www.webupd8.org/2015/01/fresh-pl ... lease.html

To install this using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freshplayerplugin

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree


This is an alternative installation command. If the above pepperflash command did not work, type in:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure pepperflashplugin-nonfree

4.) More on "Netflix" and other online video streaming: I highly recommend using a Multi-Media Server - player, like Kodi (xbmc), or Plex home theater, to view Netflix or other streaming services, because it works really well, but you have to have the hardware to run it, and you do.

5.) Your video is built-in (onboard), so allocating your system's memory is important. You have a lot of memory (Ram), so you should have at least 512mb - 1gb of system memory shared with your onboard video in your computer's Bios.

6.) Did you check the "driver's manager" to see if there are any important "recommended" drivers, like video, available to install? Although I do not see any video driver problems in your "inxi "Fxzd" results, perhaps installing the PPA's below will provide better performance.

Solve display problems in Ubuntu and Linux Mint
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... ct/display

X.org-Edgers PPA
you can also add the X.org-Edgers PPA if youre concerned about your graphics performance. This PPA will give you the absolute latest version of the X.org X display server, which is a part of the entire graphics stack. If you want better graphics performance, its important to keep the entire stack updated. You should not use this PPA if you use the proprietary graphics drivers.

Type in at the console terminal prompt each line one by one, or copy and paste each line:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update


Oibaf is a PPA that includes the very latest graphics drivers, and is updated virtually every day. This PPA is only helpful if youre using the open source drivers rather than the proprietary nVidia or AMD drivers proprietary drivers are not included.

Type in at the console terminal prompt each line one by one, or copy and paste each line:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update


Hope this helps ...

[pacho37]

Supposing there are no hardware problems (overheating cpu, failing psu, faulty ram etc), you could check if some process hogs one or more cores. This can be done using the system monitor or, as I prefer, by typing top in the console. This will display running processes and cpu and memory load.
I, for example, had similar problem with kworker process completely utilising one core at constant 100 per cent. System would become laggy and unresponsive. Somewhat brutal solution (which I by no means recommend in this case just yet) was the installation of a newer kernel, not very elegant but everything works now.