I haven't noticed a pattern yet, but sometimes the KDE 'taskbar' and the whole desktop freezes. I cannot open kickoff, I cannot click any program in 'tray', windows seem to be working funky. All programs seems to work (ie. the vsftpd server still works, I can remotely log in to qBittorrent WebUI), even maximized firefox seems to work somehow. But I cannot switch programs, click the desktop to run new, do anything with the taskbar. The only thing I can do is Alt+F2, Konsole and sudo restart lightdm, which fixes the problem. Until it crashes again some time later. Is there a way to fix it?
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Lightdm is not likely causing the problem. It's the DM so when you restart it, you're restarting the entire desktop. If you can do Alt-F2 and open a console, then you're not totally frozen. Try dmesg in the konsole and see if what's crashing is spitting out any error messages. Could be a bad widget or setting. -
yeah, it's possible that it's not exactly lightdm. The point is that's completely clean installation. The only thing outside of installation is Skype. I believe it freezed like that even totally fresh after first post-installation restart. I'll try dmesg when I get back.Comment
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Ok, so after it froze again, I tried restaring lightdm again, which worked, then rebooting the whole computer, but then it froze immediately after loading again. So I tried dmesg, but honestly I have no idea, what I should be looking for. I really don't use any desktop widgets (that I know of). If it helps, here's the pastebin of the output.
But I did notice something. It does not freeze completely. It seems that it has just a 'stuck focus' (for a lack of better words) on a particular window element. For example I can interact with desktop and icons, but I cannot interact with open console. But when I right click into the console opening its context menu, the focus shifts from desktop to console window. Everything else is frozen, even the 'taskbar'. If I manage to invoke context menu on the taskbar, it gets unfrozen, but other windows get frozen. It's a really strange behavior. Is there any fix?Comment
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Looking for a "fix" at this point is impossible because we don't know what's broken. The only thing I noticed at first look of your dmesg was some ACPI warnings, which could be a problem, and it looks like you have an nvidia video card? Also, this is obviously an older machine (AGP video and a parallel port).
Start by eliminating the ACPI as the problem. Boot to the GRUB menu, edit your kernel line where it says "quiet splash" and add "noapic acpi=off" in between the quotes and boot. If the issues go away, we'll work on making the change permanent.
If the issue is still there, we need the model of your video card so we can determine the correct driver.Comment
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It's a really old PC, the video card is nVidia GeForce FX5200, with the latest nvidia legacy 173.14.39 driver. I'll try to go through grub in a few moments.Comment
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Maybe just turning off desktop effects is all you need. ALT-Shift-F12 toggles effects.Comment
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The effects shouldn't be problem, because it works fine, when I restart lightdm. (right?). It's just frozen when booting the whole system. I've had them disabled anyways, because of performance.
Trying to edit GRUB, I'm pressing 'e' wuth Ubuntu selected and then there is a line that says linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0.-2.... ro nomodeset quiet splash $vt_handoff
I'm adding noapic acpi=off before 'quiet splash'.
Nope. Unless I did something wrong, I haven't noteced any change at all. In booting nor freezing.Last edited by JonnyRobbie; May 07, 2014, 10:57 AM.Comment
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Hmmm, before we dig further, have you tried another user? Just in case it's a setting in your home.
Try adding a user and then logging in as that user and see what happens.Comment
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Another approach to diagnosing the issue would be to first open top in a konsole window, and park it where you can watch it, and then proceed with your routine work until the "frozen desktop" happens. Take a look in the top window and see what is sucking up the CPU and memory resources, and that becomes your prime suspect.Comment
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Ok, tried it. It still freezes even with completely clean new user.
After a few experiments, I want to clarify, how it freezes. When I log in, when I move with my mouse, all the mouse hover effects are still there, the kickoff glow, the icon highlighting, until I press a mouse button. Then it freezes like I described. Not sure if that's relevant.
Interesting idea, but there are no unusually hungry processes when frozen.Originally posted by dibl View PostLast edited by JonnyRobbie; May 07, 2014, 04:47 PM.Comment
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Well, xorg is in charge of mouse input. Could be that. Look in your home for .xsession-errors and see if it holds anything. No log files being added to during the lockups? Generally, if nothing is logged, it's a hardware issue.Comment
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.xsession-errors has only three lines: Script for none(auto, default) started at run_im.
I'm somewhat skeptical that it's a hardware issue since it works after restarting lightdm (and goes back after rebooting), but I might be wrong.Comment
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ok, that's interesting, we may be getting somewhere.
So, here's the deal. While I was skeptical about the hardware issue, I wouldn't be able to stay calm if I didn't investigate it a little bit. I disconnected my old wireless Genuis mouse, and plugged it my Logitech G9x and it worked, the whole thing unstuck, just like that. Then I tried to reconnect the wireless one back (I tried fresh batteries), and it got stuck, than back g9x and it works again, so it indeed might be a hw issue-mouse. The problem is why can't KDE handle this mouse? I was running ubuntu 12.something a few years back and it worked just fine with this mouse, and after lightdm restart it works even now.Last edited by JonnyRobbie; May 08, 2014, 05:52 AM.Comment
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Not all mice use the same driver. Try this then plug in the Genuis mouse:
sudo modprobe -r usbhidComment
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