Cinnamon Crash logs?

[newlyminted7]

Recently Cinnamon has been restarting in Fallback Mode when I log in after my computer has been in Suspend mode for a few hours (laptop lid closed). I suspect it is a panel applet (Weather, I think) that is causing these crashes, but I'm not sure.

Is there a crash log for Cinnamon?

[tehringo]

Hey friend. The tool you are looking for is the Sytems Reports program built into Linux Mint. There is s Crash Reports section in that tool, and you will probably see numerous reports of /usr/bin/cinnamon failing in there if (like me) you have been seeing this problem for a while.

My issue seems quite similar, but I am not sure that the cause is 1 of the applets. I have the weather applet enabled too, so that could be the culprit, but I have also tried disabling all applets for a while and got the same random crashes when waking from suspend. But it also could be possible that I did something wrong, or re-enabled applets without realizing it.

I found and posted to another thread in these forums that described similar issues. The common thread there is amd processor and radeon graphics. Does your laptop happen to have either of those?

Let me know if I can help with any further troubleshooting.

[newlyminted7]

Thank you, tehringo, that is a big help to me. I found the logs using the tool you mentioned and yes, I see what you mean. Cinnamon logs are there, with some cryptic references to a few unintelligable things, but I did get one word out of it ("mozilla") that might suggest that Thunderbird was the culprit somehow? I don't know. I also saw Gnome Calendar crashed a couple of times, as well, so maybe that was it. But, if you've seen crashes without applets running at all, then I'm not sure what might it might be.

I have an Intel integrated video card in my laptop, by the way. This only started happening recently, probably the last few days to week, I'd say. Mint has otherwise been stable since I installed it just over a month ago.

[SMG]

I have an Intel integrated video card in my laptop, by the way. This only started happening recently, probably the last few days to week, I'd say. Mint has otherwise been stable since I installed it just over a month ago.

What might be different in the last week or so?

Another place to look for Cinnamon related errors is /home/.xsession-errors

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Click </> from the mini toolbar above the textbox where you type your reply and then place your cursor between the code markers and paste the results of the command between the code markers [code]Results[/code]. This will let us know how Mint sees your hardware.

[newlyminted7]

What might be different in the last week or so?

Unfortunately, I've added and changed a fair number of things, including applications, applets and Cinnamon settings, so it's hard to tell.

Another place to look for Cinnamon related errors is /home/.xsession-errors

Great! Thank you. That file doesn't appear to have timestamps, unfortunately. I'll keep an eye on it for new crashes, though, thanks.

[SMG]

Unfortunately, I've added and changed a fair number of things, including applications, applets and Cinnamon settings, so it's hard to tell.

This is the type of situation where Timeshift snapshots are useful. You can take a snapshot before making changes and then take additional snapshots along the way so you can roll back if you run into issues. That minimizes how much rework you would have to do if you run into issues.

Another place to look for Cinnamon related errors is /home/.xsession-errors

Great! Thank you. That file doesn't appear to have timestamps, unfortunately. I'll keep an eye on it for new crashes, though, thanks.

Mine does. The initial start-up of Cinnamon is the top part of the file, but once you get past that section, there are time stamps.

[newlyminted7]

Unfortunately, I've added and changed a fair number of things, including applications, applets and Cinnamon settings, so it's hard to tell.

This is the type of situation where Timeshift snapshots are useful. You can take a snapshot before making changes and then take additional snapshots along the way so you can roll back if you run into issues. That minimizes how much rework you would have to do if you run into issues.

True. I do have those, I will consider that.

Another place to look for Cinnamon related errors is /home/.xsession-errors

Great! Thank you. That file doesn't appear to have timestamps, unfortunately. I'll keep an eye on it for new crashes, though, thanks.

Mine does. The initial start-up of Cinnamon is the top part of the file, but once you get past that section, there are time stamps.

I see timestamps, just not dates when I look back in the file. Do you see dates?

[SMG]

I see timestamps, just not dates when I look back in the file. Do you see dates?

Check the time stamp of the file.

I shut down my computer each day. I have an xsession-errors file for today and an xsession-errors.old file for yesterday. That means there is a session file for the current boot cycle and the prior boot cycle. I believe that may be how the sessions work because I was helping someone in a different thread to determine why Cinnamon was crashing and I recall that file showing the restart (the person restarted Cinnamon after it crashed) in the same file as the initial Cinnamon start. (That person was also restarting the computer each day.) It's been a while since I've put my computer to sleep and I do not recall that I checked to see how that type of situation showed in the file.

[newlyminted7]

I see timestamps, just not dates when I look back in the file. Do you see dates?

Check the time stamp of the file.

I shut down my computer each day. I have an xsession-errors file for today and an xsession-errors.old file for yesterday. That means there is a session file for the current boot cycle and the prior boot cycle. I believe that may be how the sessions work because I was helping someone in a different thread to determine why Cinnamon was crashing and I recall that file showing the restart (the person restarted Cinnamon after it crashed) in the same file as the initial Cinnamon start. (That person was also restarting the computer each day.) It's been a while since I've put my computer to sleep and I do not recall that I checked to see how that type of situation showed in the file.

The entries in my .xsession-errors look like this:

Code: Select all

Cjs-Message: 14:30:02.117: JS LOG: [LookingGlass/info] [weather@mockturtl#29]: Weather Information refreshed

I don't see a date, just a time. The reason I ask is if I wanted to look back over time in the file for the crashes, it would be useful. I don't restart every night so a "session" can last for a long time, much longer than one day. My current file is almost 4k lines long over the course of 5 days.

[SMG]

The reason I ask is if I wanted to look back over time in the file for the crashes, it would be useful. I don't restart every night so a "session" can last for a long time, much longer than one day. My current file is almost 4k lines long over the course of 5 days.

Look for the line which says "Cinnamon started" which gives the day of the week, month, date, and year as well as the time. I presume you restarted Cinnamon after each crash, so you would just back-track from the restart to see what may have caused the crash.

[newlyminted7]

The reason I ask is if I wanted to look back over time in the file for the crashes, it would be useful. I don't restart every night so a "session" can last for a long time, much longer than one day. My current file is almost 4k lines long over the course of 5 days.

Look for the line which says "Cinnamon started" which gives the day of the week, month, date, and year as well as the time. I presume you restarted Cinnamon after each crash, so you would just back-track from the restart to see what may have caused the crash.

Oh, gotcha, thanks. That'll work.

Also, about 30 mins ago, I plugged in my external drive, ran a backup with BackInTime and TimeShift, then disconnected my external HD. After that Cinnamon was running a bit slow and my system monitor said my CPUs were all being used heavily and the Cinnamon process was taking up around 12% of my machine's resources (which is a lot for my usage). On a whim I checked that .xsession-errors log and it was madly filling up with these entries:

Code: Select all

(cinnamon:221255): Cjs-CRITICAL **: 14:51:24.448: JS ERROR: Error: second argument to Lang.bind() must be a function, not undefined
bind@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/script/lang.js:75:15
_sendNotification@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/placesManager.js:169:61
_removeFinish@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/placesManager.js:293:14

My file was around 4k lines long before this, now it is 372,289 lines long! That means it added about 368,000 lines worth of that error (in about 2-3 minutes!) and would have likely continued had I not restarted Cinnamon...

I'm not sure what as causing this, but I'd like to find out... Any ideas?

[SMG]

I hope your drive is big enough to handle a runaway log.

Lang.js sounds like something related to languages. Do you have something doing translations on your desktop? I have no idea what apps you may have on your desktop, so my ability to help is going to be very limited. You have not provided any info about your system, so I don't even know what version of Cinnamon you are running.

[newlyminted7]

I hope your drive is big enough to handle a runaway log.

Lang.js sounds like something related to languages. Do you have something doing translations on your desktop? I have no idea what apps you may have on your desktop, so my ability to help is going to be very limited. You have not provided any info about your system, so I don't even know what version of Cinnamon you are running.

Yeah the drive is big enough, and that's okay, I didn't want to bother posting my system info. I'm running the latest LM / Cinnamon. At least knowing about these logs gives me quite a bit more to work with, so I really appreciate that. I'll try to recreate what happened and also keep an eye on those logs in the future.

I had the same thought about lang.js regarding translation, but I have nothing doing anything like that. It seems related to placesManager.js, too, which appears to be calling the Lang() function. The only thing I did differently was use the "removable devices" applet that appeared in my Panel to unmount my external drive. Then I found this: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3237 which (indirectly) confirms the connection between /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/placesManager.js and the Removable Devices applet. I've never used that applet before, so I think this is the culprit. My initial, pedestrian debugging makes me think this is a bug in the Removable Devices applet when it calls Lang() in placesManager.js.

[SMG]

I had the same thought about lang.js regarding translation, but I have nothing doing anything like that.

It depends on how the applets may have been written. I would presume there would be a "language" part to each of them so messages could pop up on the screen per the language setting of the desktop.

It seems related to placesManager.js, too. The only thing I did differently was use the "removable devices" applet that appeared in my Panel to unmount my external drive. Then I found this: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3237 which (indirectly) confirms the connection between /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/placesManager.js and the Removable Devices applet. I've never used that applet before, so I think this is the culprit.

That bug report is for LM17. LM18 goes end of life in a couple of months. That gets back to knowing what you have right now and knowing what you did in the past few weeks when this started becoming a problem.

Many people have updated from LM20.0 to LM20.1 recently. If there are issues with the latest version of Cinnamon, then the development team should be made aware of them and that would not require going back to an issue that was raised nearly 7 years ago (date of the bug report) and has since been closed.

[newlyminted7]

I had the same thought about lang.js regarding translation, but I have nothing doing anything like that.

It depends on how the applets may have been written. I would presume there would be a "language" part to each of them so messages could pop up on the screen per the language setting of the desktop.

It seems related to placesManager.js, too. The only thing I did differently was use the "removable devices" applet that appeared in my Panel to unmount my external drive. Then I found this: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3237 which (indirectly) confirms the connection between /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/placesManager.js and the Removable Devices applet. I've never used that applet before, so I think this is the culprit.

That bug report is for LM17. LM18 goes end of life in a couple of months. That gets back to knowing what you have right now and knowing what you did in the past few weeks when this started becoming a problem.

Many people have updated from LM20.0 to LM20.1 recently. If there are issues with the latest version of Cinnamon, then the development team should be made aware of them and that would not require going back to an issue that was raised nearly 7 years ago (date of the bug report) and has since been closed.

No, my point was it was related (why I said "indirectly"), so I'm not referring to the issue from 7 years ago... I'm using that as the basis for the connection of Lang.js and placesManager.js to the Removable Devices applet (not the issue in that post).

And, upon further investigation, I found the Removable Devices applet files (in /usr/share/cinnamon/applets/removable-drives@cinnamon.org/). In there, the file "applet.js" contains a call to placesManager.js on line 75:

Code: Select all

Main.placesManager.connect('mounts-updated', Lang.bind(this, this._update));

I think there's a bug in the Removable Devices applet at this point (line 75), where it tries to call Lang.bind, and is generating this error:

Code: Select all

Error: second argument to Lang.bind() must be a function, not undefined

which is what I saw filling up my .xession-error logs.

[newlyminted7]

And I just confirmed this behaviour by attaching my external drive, performing another backup using Backintime and then Timeshift, then unmounting the drive using the Removeable Devices applet in my panel, and my .xsession-errors file began to fill up with hundreds of error messages within about 30 seconds. Had to restart Cinnamon to make it stop. I do have a FAT32 partition on that drive which was also mounted but unused.

The other quirk is that after clicking unmount in that applet, it doesn't fully unmount the drive as I can still see it in Nemo and in the Disks application (where I have to manually unmount it). Only at this point can I right click on the Linux partition on the external drive in Nemo and select "Safely remove device", which is when the external drive actually shuts off and can be unplugged. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I have more than one partition on the external drive, since I have to go through this lengthy process to safely unmount it.

[SMG]

The only thing I did differently was use the "removable devices" applet that appeared in my Panel to unmount my external drive.

I just plugged in an external volume and a usb. The Removable Devices icon is now in my panel. When I click it, the two choices are "About" and "Remove 'Removable Drives". I do not have an option to Unmount a Drive. Do you have a third option?

I have always unmounted my drives by right-clicking the icon on the desktop which gives me a specific option to 'Safely Remove Drive' for my external hard drive and 'Eject' for my usb. I always wait until the Removable Devices icon disappears before disconnecting the drive or usb because when that icon disappears I know the process has been fully completed. (I have a slow processor in my computer and know it needs a little more time to complete tasks.)

[newlyminted7]

The only thing I did differently was use the "removable devices" applet that appeared in my Panel to unmount my external drive.

I just plugged in an external volume and a usb. The Removable Devices icon is now in my panel. When I click it, the two choices are "About" and "Remove 'Removable Drives". I do not have an option to Unmount a Drive. Do you have a third option?

Yes, it shows the mounted partitions, of which I have two (an "ext4" one for Linux and a FAT32 one for Linux & Mac OS so I can move files back and forth). I also have a two APFS (Mac filesystem) partitions - one of which I should delete, but they don't mount in Linux for obvious reasons, I just get a popup in Cinnamon when I plug it in that Linux can't mount them. Only the FAT and ext4 partitions mount.

I have always unmounted my drives by right-clicking the icon on the desktop which gives me a specific option to 'Safely Remove Drive' for my external hard drive and 'Eject' for my usb. I always wait until the Removable Devices icon disappears before disconnecting the drive or usb because when that icon disappears I know the process has been fully completed. (I have a slow processor in my computer and know it needs a little more time to complete tasks.)

Yes, I use the Nemo entries in the left-hand pane of Nemo which list the same mounted partitions. But when I select "Safely Remove", it pops up an error saying something like "/dev/sda1 is in use", so I have to use the Disks application to do it (and enter my password), then go back to Nemo and select "Safely Unmount". Not sure why. I'm sure the same would happen if I chose to unmount with the desktop icon.

[SMG]

I do not have the same equipment as you, so I am not able to help you troubleshoot that. It does seem like that is a different issue as Cinnamon did not crash (you restarted it), but those lines would make it more difficult to find the cause of the crashes.