futex_wait user-space locking does not work properly

Dear all,
I beg your pardon if this question is out of the current forum theme. I need help with periodical freezing the computer because of “quick user-space blocking”. It just hangs in futex_wait state and does not react on any my actions, I even can’t leave the KDE desktop by Ctr-Alt-F1 (F2, F3, etc.) button. Computer is just happy with itself communicating with own HDD and that’s all. Is it possible to tune up the system to avoid usage of “quick user-space blocking” action?

uname -a output:
Linux linux-zlw7.site 3.11.10-17-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Jun 16 15:28:13 UTC 2014 (fba7c1f) i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
System is: openSUSE 13.11.10-17 (Bottle).
KDE version: 4.11.5.
System is up to date, all latest updates are applied.

Thanks in advance,
Dmitry

Not sure you are not clear but I’m guessing you are seeing a lock up with heavy disk activity???

If so that can mean the disk is going bad and the OS is rereading the drive to get the data from a sector that is bad

You can run smartctl to see if there are bad sectors

Thanks for reply. The disk is OK, problem appears when I use any web browser under KDE - does not matter which one: firefox, konquerror, chrome, etc. From time to time Suse freezes itself and the only way to get out of this state is reboot by power button because computer does not respond even to mouse gestures. As far as I have read futex mechanism is intended for quick user-space processes locking but it locks them so deeply that no ways remain to communicate with system at all.

Ok that is a bit more info

What video card and driver?

As far as I managed to find it out:
hwinfo.drivers = { ‘radeon’ }
hwinfo.vendorname = ‘ATI Technologies Inc’
hwinfo.hwclass = ‘graphics card’
hwinfo.model = ‘ATI VGA compatible controller’

I forgot to mention that during the frozen state “top” shows that “wait” state takes more than 99 per cent of CPUs time. top managed to refresh its screen occasionally once or twice during hang-up of computer.

You may want to install the propritary ATI driver

But that sounds more like some activity is causing the freeze Is the hard drive in constant use? If so that sounds like a bad sector so did you actually run smartctl?

The hard drive is not used constantly in normal computer state. There is the output of smartctl command:
sd@linux-zlw7:~> sudo /usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/sda3
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [i686-linux-3.11.10-17-desktop] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B
Device Model: Hitachi HTS545032B9A300
Serial Number: 100728PBPC01FDC8NGSM
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 61fc3efd5
Firmware Version: PB3OCA1G
User Capacity: 320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Tue Jul 8 22:04:57 2014 EEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 645) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x51) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 106) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 100 062 Pre-fail Always - 0
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0025 100 100 040 Pre-fail Offline - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0023 141 100 033 Pre-fail Always - 2
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1345
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 005 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 100 067 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0025 100 100 040 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 090 090 000 Old_age Always - 4556
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1317
183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1048576
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 098 079 000 Old_age Always - 312
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 070 045 045 Old_age Always In_the_past 30 (Min/Max 27/30)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 16
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4390979
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 81188
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0036 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
223 Load_Retry_Count 0x002a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Shall I try smartctl - t long … ?
For information there are results of df and mount commands:
sd@linux-zlw7:~> df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 117672276 64274640 47397100 58% /
devtmpfs 1406036 16 1406020 1% /dev
tmpfs 1417880 75692 1342188 6% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1417880 3672 1414208 1% /run
tmpfs 1417880 0 1417880 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 1417880 3672 1414208 1% /var/lock
tmpfs 1417880 3672 1414208 1% /var/run
sd@linux-zlw7:~> mount
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=1406036k,nr_inodes=209119,mode=755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
/dev/sda3 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuacct,cpu)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=30,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
tmpfs on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
gvfsd-fuse on /var/run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)

id -a:
sd@linux-zlw7:~> id -a
uid=1000(sd) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),0(root)

You miss understand When the computer freezes is the hard drive light on constantly or is it blinking rapidly is there an unusual tick sound? Remember we can’t see over your shoulder you have to report what you see and maybe hear.

But in any case smart looks clean. You can tun the long test but I doubt it would show anything more.

So did you try installing the propritary ATI driver for your video???

The matter is communicating the KDE wit kernel, what i s you opinion?

I think it is video card/driver

About the previous question: no, hard drive is not blinking, the lamp is lighting constantly in freeze state.
Trying to find the right ATI driver…

The only info I’got from this driver was: “It is not for your hardware”. Thanks.

Various flavors of Linux are trying to be M$ Windows. Dealing in such a way they hope to bring common user to “they will do all what my wish”. UNIX way is just another: we’re trying to understand what we’re doing.

s

You obviously need the Linux drivers not Window drivers.

http://en.opensuse.org/Fglrx

A simple look up for ATI drivers on the first openSUSE page

I Use NVIDIA so I really don’t know a lot about ATI stuff, but flaky hangups are often caused by video driver problems. Most of the time the proprietary driver will fix the problem

How can I find the proper driver if suggested command gives the following:
su -c’lspci -nn | grep VGA’
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250] [1002:9712]

en.opensuse.org prposes drivers for these:

Where is the point of understanding between my hardware and proposed drivers?

Your hardware is not supported by the fglrx driver.
So don’t try to install it.

The fglrx driver only supports Radeon HD5000 and up.

There is a legacy driver that would support your card, but that one does not work any more on openSUSE 12.3 and 13.1, because the included kernel and Xorg are too new.

OK, thank you!