X lockup when using Libreoffice calc (Intel GPU)

English Hardware
1

I hope someone out there can help me with this. It has caused me much frustration and lost productivity time.

I have had a recurring problem where my X window system crashes after heavy usage of Libreoffice Calc (other applications are running too, but i have only experienced the crashes when running Calc). When this happens i need to perform a Alt+SysRq+k combination to reboot my X server. This usually works and i can return to my work, but obviously i lose work that wasn’t saved immediately prior to the crash.

I suspected the problem had something to do with the version of Libreoffice, or my intel driver, or the linux kernel itself so i upgraded to the Tumbleweed repository (and KDE 4.8 because i wanted to try it out). However the problem has continued.

Unfortunately I can’t replicate the bug every time i use Libreoffice Calc, but it happens regularly enough to **** me off. I need some assistance to investigate the problem further, e.g. is there a log file i can look into that might throw light on the cause? From what i can tell, my experience is pretty unique.

I am running a Dell Vostro 3350 2011 laptop with i5 Sandybridge processor and an AMD/i915 switchable graphics set-up - however i switch off the AMD using vga_switcheroo and run only the Intel GPU. I am running the i915 rc6, downclock and framebuffer compression power saving measures, but have not tested if this stops the problem.

At this stage i am seeking if anyone has had similar experience and can help my track down further the possible cause of the crash.

2

it would be nice if you could watch /etc/var/log/messages from a remote desktop (using ssh)

3

This is an update to my previous post.

It seems that the problem happens when my GPU tries to render a large chart in Calc (X crashes when i scroll over the chart).

Sometimes when i restart the X server and log back in my plasma desktop seems to have problems, namely i don’t have any window decorations (the minimise, maximise, close etc are gone). These are recovered when i log out and back in again.

I have also sometimes experienced an associated crash with OpenGL in KWin, which means my desktop effects are disabled. I get an error message in the desktop effects menu that states something about OpenGL crashing KWin and that i should back-up my data before re-enabling desktop effects and gives me a button to press to enable OpenGL rendering again.

So sounds like it could be a rendering problem, a plasma problem, a quirk in LibreOffice, a driver problem, or possibly a GPU hardware problem (although i don’t experience the problem on Linux Mint Gnome 12, which i also have on this computer).

Again any help would be appreciated.

4

The problem seems to have resolved itself when i disabled hardware acceleration for graphics rendering in Libreoffice.

Although i don’t necessarily consider this solved!