KDE5 freezing randomly

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1

I just installed Leap 42.1 on my desktop (i7 4790, GeForce GTX760) and all appeared to be well immediately after installation. However when I attempted to open Firefox, the system froze. After hard rebooting, I was able to open Firefox and use the system fine for a long while, albeit with my other monitor blank (no background, but the display configuration showed it and I could move my cursor over to it).

After booting my system back up today, I noticed that my other monitor was working again. At that point I thought maybe it was a graphics driver issue; so I opened YaST to get the NVidia proprietary drivers installed, and the system froze again.

Another hard reboot and now it appears that I’ve angered it; I can’t open anything without it freezing. YaST, Dolphin, any application freezes the system when I try to open it. KDE5 menus all work fine, kickoff opens, menus work, desktop context menu works, but once I click to open any other window, it freezes.

And the freezes aren’t complete: the screen is stuck with a static image, but the mouse still moves. There’s no response to keyboard input; Ctrl-Alt-F1 and other combinations to get to a terminal don’t work (I was hoping to do init 3/init 5). The system will remain frozen for several minutes with no changes, e.g. it doesn’t seem to turn into a full-blown kernel panic. I will also admit that I haven’t tried to wait it out more than a few minutes.

For absolute clarity on my hardware situation, in case it helps, I’m running it on a Z97 chipset, Core i7 4790, GeForce GTX760. Root partition is Btrfs on an SSD, /home is XFS on a rotating rust (HDD) drive. I wasn’t expecting major issues like this; OpenSUSE 13.2 ran mostly fine. I did a fresh install because I had already destroyed my 13.2 install (I thought I knew better than Zypper. I was wrong.)

Anyway, I’m sorry for the rambling post. Is my only recourse a(nother) fresh install, and try to put the NVidia proprietary drivers on there before it breaks again? Has anyone else had similar issues?

2

Plasma 5 certainly seems to have a problem with freezes. I’m using it in openSUSE 42.1 and OpenMandriva 3 Beta. This on several different computers all with Intel graphics. One problem is that the problem itself is very difficult to pin down when, and in what circumstances, does freeze occur. Seems in my case to most commonly happen when starting an application with Dolphin, Firefox, and Thunderbird (especially Dolphin) being more commonly involved though can happen with other applications.

I’ve found that changing compositor in SystemSettings>Display and Monitor>Compositor>Rendering Backend seems to help me. Basically I change it from openGL 2.0 to 3.1 or visa versa. Does not seem to matter which version I use but DOES seem to matter that I change it. No idea why.

Also using Oxygen theme instead of Breeze seems to help.

To sum up perhaps playing around with the above settings maybe you’ll find something that works.

3

I had some issues with nouveau and Firefox freezing my system an install of the propitiatory nvidia drivers fixed that, the only reason I didn’t have the nvidia drivers is cos I installed a few days before the official release and there wore no nvidia drivers out.
the easy install is really easy


zypper ar -f ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/leap/42.1/ nvidia
zypper ref
zypper in x11-video-nvidiaG04
4

Upgrade or new install? Using old KDE settings or all old cleaned out and starting from fresh? NVIDIA or nouveau?

5

benbullard79 wrote:

>
>
> Plasma 5 certainly seems to have a problem with freezes. I’m using it in
> openSUSE 42.1 and OpenMandriva 3 Beta. This on several different
> computers all with Intel graphics. One problem is that the problem
> itself is very difficult to pin down when, and in what circumstances,
> does freeze occur. Seems in my case to most commonly happen when
> starting an application with Dolphin, Firefox, and Thunderbird
> (especially Dolphin) being more commonly involved though can happen with
> other applications.
>
> I’ve found that changing compositor in SystemSettings>Display and
> Monitor>Compositor>Rendering Backend seems to help me. Basically I
> change it from openGL 2.0 to 3.1 or visa versa. Does not seem to matter
> which version I use but DOES seem to matter that I change it. No idea
> why.
>
> Also using Oxygen theme instead of Breeze seems to help.
>
> To sum up perhaps playing around with the above settings maybe you’ll
> find something that works.
>
>
I can confirm that intel graphics also has a similar problem.

In my fresh install, plasma segfaults so I only have a blank screen
with a mouse arrow that I can move around.
ctl-alt-backspace twice produces an unreadable login screen.

I’ve removed plasma/kde entirely and changed the login sreen to gdm
and now boot to lxde.

6

For anyone else, if you encounter this, try keeping plasma and instead disable special desktop effects. IF that is not enough,then disable acceleration in the 50-device.conf.

IMHO both approaches, in the face of such a problem, give the opportunity of a KDE desktop still with features significantly superior than LXDE features (unless of course you wish to try LXDE, where I also like LXDE for a lightweight fast environment).
.

7

I had an older 13.2 install that I accidentally destroyed; I formatted both partitions and installed 42.1 fresh.

Since I couldn’t open either KDE desktop settings or YaST without the system freezing, I decided to do another fresh install reformatting everything. After that, the system worked long enough for me to install the NVidia proprietary drivers on it. After that it seems to be working fine; no freezes since and with another restart in between.

As for setting OpenGL to 3.1 (from 2.0), that’s one of the things I did on my first install before it started freezing so much, so I’m kind of scared of that setting now. Problem is, being KDE setting, I don’t know of any way to “roll it back” if I change it and it starts freezing, because the freezing would prevent me from getting to that option.

I’ve also noticed that with the NVidia drivers, KDE System Settings will sometimes segfault when I go to Desktop Behavior > Desktop Effects.

So all in all, so far it looks like the NVidia drivers are holding up better than nouveau.

8

be sure yo use the systemsettings5 program the older systemsettings can be a problems but may be included because some old stuff is still there.

9

When I posted (Comment # 2) 2 days ago I was in an install of Leap 42.1 Beta or RC that had been upgraded. I wiped that yesterday and did a fresh install and since then have not experienced any freezes.:wink:

10

THANK YOU!!

I just one day ago switched to openSUSE 42.1-0 and have an Nvidia GPU. My rig kept randomly freezing and not showing any indication why.

I booted and used your instructions before trying anything else it worked!! I’ve been able to do everything without any freezes!

11

Hello, oldcpu.

Recently replaced 13.2 with 42.1. (clean install). But from the start it had freezing problems. Today, I tried to get into Yast in response to an update notice. It froze. I hardbooted and now I can’t even get to the desktop. I log in, and the thin login bar expands from left to right. And that’s it. The bar remains and the desktop does not appear. I try hard booting a number of times, but same effect. I can no longer get into the system to identify (remind myself) of the video card though I believe it is a higher end gforce. Otherwise, it is a bog standard Asus i7 board with an Asus Xonar sound card. Otherwise, just disk space and 6 GB memory. Never had a problem like this with 13.2 or any version back to 7.

I might add that I made no adjustments after a bog standard install.

Any thoughts? Perhaps I will simply reinstall - but won’t that lead me back to the same result? Perhaps best to go back to 13.2? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

12

Have you checked the integrity of your RAM memory? Run a check on it from the login screen. I had a similar problem and one 4gb Ram stick had thousands of errors. I replaced it and the freezing quit.

13

Embarrassingly, I did not find a memory check on the login screen. Would it be on the installation screen? I did do a media check on the disk at installation without fault found. I would be surprised if the memory was at fault -> though can’t be sure. I want to keep Plasma as the reviews are good. But… ; )

14

Video card?

My guess is the if froze while updates the kerenl try advanced at boot screen and see if you can select the previous kernel

15

Thanks for the reply. I have the default (installation) kernel it would appear. I went back to ‘snapshot’ to the first option (after installation). I log on but it sticks, still, at the login progress strip. Grrr.

16

Try reinstall with ext4 for root and /home.

17

It is listed on the screen where it asks you if you want to boot from the hard disk. Maybe it is called the boot screen. The screen that gives the option to boot into a windows system if it is installed. Like you, I did not stop to think that the RAM could be bad, but that is exactly what was causing the same problems that you are describing.

18

Thanks, all, for the replies.

jd, I realise now that the traditional option screen does not appear in my version. I have Leap 42.1 which I downloaded from the OpenSuse site. The OpenSuse Wiki presents the screen I should see as this: File:Leap bootmenu.png - openSUSE Wiki

However, my installation disk presents only “installation”, “upgrade”, “rescue system”, and “check installation media”. It lacks “boot from hard disk” and “memory test”. It also lacks the “boot options” facility.

I tried my v. 13.2 installation disk, but it show the same.

Any thoughts why I don’t have the traditional boot screen when I start from the installation disk?

Thanks

19

I think I solved my problem. Here is how I did it:

(1) did a memory check using the installation disk booted in non-EFI mode; (no errors, so memory not a problem)
(2) booted into Gnome and installed the nVidia drivers.

To do (2), I added “nVidia” to repository (in community packages) and then went to Software management where I clicked on “extras” at the top and then selected “install all matching recommended packages” and clicked ‘okay’ when presented with selection.

(3) rebooted back into KDE.

Seems now to work. (fingers crossed)

20

I can confirm this. Ever since LEAP got its kernel updated I started to experience random freezing. It varied in both in workload and time. Sometimes it just freezes when all that I did was reading news on firefox, at other time it freezes when many applications opened. Sometimes it also freezes just a few minutes after I login (I had not opened any application).

Also, does it make a difference to the hardware, when the computer freezes, whether I wait for it to restart on its own or click the restart/power button.

For the time being I am using the previous kernel (No more random freeze).