I think I only noticed this in 12.1. (I sort of skipped from pre-11.4 to 12.1 during a year-long flurry with Kubuntu.) I have 12.1 installed on 5 very different machines (at least 8GB memory, x64, Opterons, Phenoms, i7s, two are laptops, both Nvidia and AMD video cards) and I always see this: every now and then the KDE desktop will stop responding for 30 - 90 seconds, then suddenly catch up with itself. I have the default video drivers and KDE setup on all machines - which other than this works very well. It may happen once a day, but I don’t spend consistent time on any one machine. The hard drive isn’t thrashing and GKRELLM keeps updating showing no significant processor usage, number of processes, or disk usage. I can move Dolphin windows, but they stop redrawing their contents. I have Nepomunk turned off. The mouse keeps moving and it remembers clicks after the pause is over. I now know that I just have to sit back and wait and try not to be grumpy. Has anyone else noticed this?
THANK YOU!!!
Pattirotfl!
EDIT: You know what’s really weird? Even after all these years of Win7, I still prefer WinXP to Win7. Has anyone else noticed that? maybe I’m just not a Real Geek.
>
> I think I only noticed this in 12.1. (I sort of skipped from pre-11.4
> to 12.1 during a year-long flurry with Kubuntu.) I have 12.1 installed
> on 5 very different machines (at least 8GB memory, x64, Opterons,
> Phenoms, i7s, two are laptops, both Nvidia and AMD video cards) and I
> always see this: every now and then the KDE desktop will stop
> responding for 30 - 90 seconds, then suddenly catch up with itself. I
> have the default video drivers and KDE setup on all machines - which
> other than this works very well. It may happen once a day, but I don’t
> spend consistent time on any one machine. The hard drive isn’t
> thrashing and GKRELLM keeps updating showing no significant processor
> usage, number of processes, or disk usage. I can move Dolphin windows,
> but they stop redrawing their contents. I have Nepomunk turned off.
> The mouse keeps moving and it remembers clicks after the pause is over.
> I now know that I just have to sit back and wait and try not to be
> grumpy. Has anyone else noticed this?
The only times I have seen this kind of behavior is when my hardware was having
a problem. When it happens, switch to the debug console with CTRL-ALT-F10 and
check the log.
On 2012-07-20 19:05, Larry Finger wrote:
> The only times I have seen this kind of behavior is when my hardware was having a problem. When
> it happens, switch to the debug console with CTRL-ALT-F10 and check the log.
Five machines having the same hardware failure?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
I can confirm this problem using stock OpenSUSE 12.1. I am using i915 (intel) drivers. It usually happens more often from the live cd than an installed system though it does happen. During the time it is frozen I can use applications but not interact with plasma. I also have a weird issue where the system is (initially) fully logged in but it seems to be waiting for some kind of authentication for the network manager and plasma stops responding during the time until all of a sudden it works. I might later try to back-up and delete my .kde4 folder to see if that resolves the issue.
Sorry guyz! I should have said I’m using completely vanilla OpenSUSE 12.1, right off the DVD (except for the online updates). That many different machines are had to customize other than changing the desktop wallpaper! I’m beginning to vaguely recall that this might have happened in Kubuntu 11.04 on one laptop. I was therefore thinking it seemed like a kernel issue of some sort since I can interact with apps (and gkrellm keeps going) but definitely Dolphin can’t refresh the display.
Thanks for the log suggestion - OK, so ctrl-alt-f10 should get me to a console - how do I then “check the log,” and how to get back to KDE? Isn’t there a “tail” command or something (I’m not much of a command-line person)? Can I just wait until it unfreezes then “check the log?”
Oops, sorry, it just happened again and I missed it! It was about 45 seconds when Dolphin and Dolphin Super User mode ignored clicks (but I could move them around and minimize/maximize and everything else worked). They ignored clicks on the “X” (terminate) button but I could ctrl-alt-esc kill them OK. No disk thrashing at that time. Hopefully I’ll catch it next time. This time it was a fresh install of 12.1 in a virtualbox machine.
On 2012-07-27 18:16, PattiMichelle wrote:
>
> Oops, sorry, it just happened again and I missed it! It was about 45
> seconds when Dolphin and Dolphin Super User mode ignored clicks (but I
> could move them around and minimize/maximize and everything else
> worked). They ignored clicks on the “X” (terminate) button but I could
> ctrl-alt-esc kill them OK. No disk thrashing at that time. Hopefully
> I’ll catch it next time. This time it was a fresh install of 12.1 in a
> virtualbox machine.
Different hardware… were all patches installed? Ie, did you run the online update?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 07/27/2012 04:23 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2012-07-27 18:16, PattiMichelle wrote:
>>
>> Oops, sorry, it just happened again and I missed it! It was about 45
>> seconds when Dolphin and Dolphin Super User mode ignored clicks (but I
>> could move them around and minimize/maximize and everything else
>> worked). They ignored clicks on the “X” (terminate) button but I could
>> ctrl-alt-esc kill them OK. No disk thrashing at that time. Hopefully
>> I’ll catch it next time. This time it was a fresh install of 12.1 in a
>> virtualbox machine.
>
> Different hardware… were all patches installed? Ie, did you run the online update?
You will need to check both the host and the guest for activity.
I get this too on PC1 (below). PC2 is my wife’s which she doesn’t use much and she hasn’t mentioned a problem.
I see occasions where the mouse pointer stops moving. Sometimes when I’m typing, nothing appears for a while on the screen… I wondered if I’m seeing radio interference to my cordless mouse and keyboard. I’m running 4.7.4, release 13.
The keyboard mouse freeze sounds like a different issue to the one I am having. It mainly seems to be linked to loading of system tray applets in KDE 4.7. It is a temporary loss of responsiveness to plasma where it remembers actions (like clicking on the menu) and does them all at once after plasma unblocks. I am assuming upgrading to a newer KDE would fix it, but my system is very reliable otherwise so I am loth to change so much all of a sudden.
You could install KDE’s system load viewer widget. See if your CPU spikes when the mouse goes non-responsive. CTRL-ESC (sorted by CPU use, just click the CPU % column header) will leave an window showing what processes and programs are hogging the CPU, if any.
Also check the batteries and/or test another mouse (supposing you still didn’t do this:)).
I never see evidence of disk thrashing or heavy CPU use, and the desktop/mouse keeps working - gkrellm doesn’t show anything unusual and it refreshes at 10 Hz so you think it would freeze if there was an issue. I always periodically do updates of the full system using the desktop updater, and after install I do an initial YaST online update. Everything is pretty vanilla. I don’t even install video drivers any more since I’m not gaming on these machines. I think there is some sort of default video drivers installed now that do well with compositing; however, I turn off desktop effects for any machine that will be accessed via !Machine.
In answer to the guest/host posting - Everything keeps going - I could minimize the openSuSE but Dolphin was ignoring me. The WinXP-64 host had very low CPU usage. So this doesn’t seem related to a runaway application or service. Could this be related to dbus (whatever that is) having to timeout before resetting?
Too bad this is so infrequent! I’ll just have to remember ctrl-alt-F10, then is there a “tail” command to a specific file someone can give me that I could examine?
On 2012-08-12 22:06, PattiMichelle wrote:
> Too bad this is so infrequent! I’ll just have to remember
> ctrl-alt-F10, then is there a “tail” command to a specific file someone
> can give me that I could examine?
Try it now. You will see that there is already a log in there.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2012-08-14 03:56, PattiMichelle wrote:
>
> What is the name/path of the file I’m tail-ing?
None.
The contents of VT10 are similar but not the same as the messages file. To see what goes there
you have to look at the configuration of the syslog, and even then it might not explain all
messages.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
I’m confused. Can you give me the exact command line to view the tail of the file? (I don’t know what file I’m supposed to look at for the cause of the lag.)
