Cinnamon freezing when deleting files

[last2throw]

Recently I've been working with a large number of small files (think thousands of mp3's) and while sorting them there's been a few times where I've deleted batches of duplicates. Each time I do so cinnamon freezes up until I ctrl+alt+backspace, or sometimes I even have to hard reboot after letting it sit for 15-20 minutes without even mouse movement... I have no idea what's going on, but I can't live with my system like this....

[AZgl1800]

Recently I've been working with a large number of small files (think thousands of mp3's) and while sorting them there's been a few times where I've deleted batches of duplicates. Each time I do so cinnamon freezes up until I ctrl+alt+backspace, or sometimes I even have to hard reboot after letting it sit for 15-20 minutes without even mouse movement... I have no idea what's going on, but I can't live with my system like this....

we can't help you until you tell us which OS and DE you are using.

in Terminal, do this inxi -Fzxd

then copy/paste that result into the code box </> up above the editor.

[last2throw]

I did mention that I'm using cinnamon. I'm on 19.1 fully updated. I'm not at my laptop now to run that command, but I believe that's what you need.

[last2throw]

Code: Select all

System:
  Host: FalcoIgnis-Mint Kernel: 4.15.0-48-generic x86_64 bits: 64 
  compiler: gcc v: 7.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.10 
  Distro: Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire E5-571 v: V1.24 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Acer model: EA50_HB v: V1.24 serial: <filter> UEFI [Legacy]: Insyde 
  v: 1.24 date: 12/12/2014 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 45.3 Wh condition: 45.3/55.9 Wh (81%) 
  model: SANYO 0032334134314C41 status: Full 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Anywhere MX charge: 100% 
  status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-4210U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Haswell rev: 1 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19154 
  Speed: 1097 MHz min/max: 800/2700 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1097 2: 1097 
  3: 1098 4: 1098 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.8 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:03.0 
  Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-48-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000 
  bus ID: 01:00.1 
  IF: enp1s0f1 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Lite-On driver: ath9k v: kernel port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-3: Lite-On Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb 
  bus ID: 2-5:4 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 232.89 GiB used: 150.39 GiB (64.6%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 250GB size: 232.89 GiB 
  Message: No Optical or Floppy data was found. 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 228.23 GiB used: 150.39 GiB (65.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 229 Uptime: 33m Memory: 3.78 GiB used: 1.41 GiB (37.3%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.4.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.19 
  inxi: 3.0.27 

the output of the command you asked for is listed above.

[AZgl1800]

I did mention that I'm using cinnamon. I'm on 19.1 fully updated. I'm not at my laptop now to run that command, but I believe that's what you need.

Yes, I saw that........... but the Cinnamon Desktop is used on many different versions of Mint, and I am only familiar with 18.3 Cinnamon..... which uses NEMO as the default FM.

and NEMO has a known issue with trying to delete huge amounts of files all at once.

I have no clue as to the File Manager used in 19.1 Cinnamon, nor how well it does, or does not handle the deletion of huge directories....

[deepakdeshp]

I use fslint to find duplicate files.
https://vitux.com/find-and-replace-dupl ... in-ubuntu/

[hcentaur13]

A small processor needs a huge amount of time to do a huge amount of work. A huge amount of numbers of sectors to delete from a small disk costs a huge amount of access points that costs a huge amount of time. There is nothing than waitiing all the time until the hugh amount of outstanding work is done on such small CPU.

You gets what you payed for. small power for small money.

[Flemur]

I did mention that I'm using
cinnamon.
I'm on 19.1 fully updated. I'm not at my laptop now to run that command, but I believe that's what you need.

Try using the terminal - it's much faster, far less overhead. Or perhaps a better file-browser, like thunar, pcmanfm or xfe, even though "rm" in a terminal will still be faster.

[smurphos]

Are you deleting from the local drive or a network share?

I've just done a couple of test deletes (both to trash and bypassing trash) of about 15GB of files (a couple of thousand files) with no issues on a local drive.

I'm aware that lots of people report performance issues doing bulk actions over Samba shares with Nemo. I can't test that, I avoid Samba like the plague and use SFTP for network shares.

[pbear]

A small processor needs a huge amount of time to do a huge amount of work. A huge amount of numbers of sectors to delete from a small disk costs a huge amount of access points that costs a huge amount of time. There is nothing than waitiing all the time until the hugh amount of outstanding work is done on such small CPU.

Piffle. This might have some validity if the OP were trying to copy or move the files but delete requires very little work. Also, an Intel i5 CPU is well within the zone of motherboards from which one can expect reasonable performance in Mint.

[pbear]

Hey last2throw, I wonder whether the problem is your hard drive. There's an app for diagnosing such issues called smartmontools. Instructions on how to install and use at Ubuntu Help. I'd recommend you give that a shot.

[last2throw]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies everyone!

Are you deleting from the local drive or a network share?

I'm actually working with files on a local solid state drive, same partition mint is installed on if that matters.

Try using the terminal - it's much faster, far less overhead. Or perhaps a better file-browser, like thunar, pcmanfm or xfe, even though "rm" in a terminal will still be faster.

Not sure why, but I hadn't thought of checking another file browser to see if the issue is Nemo specific... I'll check that as soon as I get a chance!

[last2throw]

I think I've figured it out... And I'm glad I posted in newbie questions lol. When I was deleting files it was always from within a search within Nemo, I didn't even think about that being a factor, but when I just manually select and delete files (even dragging to select) my system freezes. With more experimentation I managed to get cinnamon to crash when the delete finally finishes, but as I said, deleting files without doing a search first, or moving them from the search to a new folder before deleting seems to solve the issue.

[smurphos]

That's interesting - I can't reproduce a freeze or a crash, but I can make cinnamon go a bit sluggish for a minute or so (running with circa 30% cpu use for no obvious reason) post delete by selecting circa 1000 mp3s via Nemo search and deleting them.

I have a hunch it's something to do with deleting a bunch of files while the thumbnailer is busy populating the search results with thumbnails. I end up with a whole load of failed thumbnails in ~/.cache/thumbnails/fail/gnome-thumbnail-factory when I do this.