[PLASMA 5] 100 CPU usage and entire system getting stuck

[cesm2109]

Hi, I use to have Kubuntu 19.04 installed and cannot complain about that... everything was fluent, smooth, no delays and/or issues with system in general.

However, Just today I've downloaded the lastest Kubuntu 19.10 .iso and started installation.

During install i noticed that live system started getting stuck since ''copying files'' and continued during ''configuring system'' sections... too slow, i was on the live environment with the installer open and running and was trying to open libreoffice but was a problem, the mouse got stuck every 2-3 seconds and CPU usage went to 100.

Anyway, I was on the live system so did not pay that much attention and continued... however, now that I've already installed and configured the OS... is still the same...

When running multiple apps, (like installing wps-office with DPKG -i + watching a video on youtube at Firefox + having kate and dolphin open) or when copying archives (no matter the size) it freezes... CPU goes to 100 and whole system starts freezing...

I would like to know if someone else is having the same issue and/or knows how to solve it because it has never happened before with 19.04 kubuntu... so I do assume the problem is on the new OS...

Thanks for your advise.

[MoonRise]

I have not had that issue.

Can you get to Konsole and run top? Let us know what is the top running service?

[Caesar]

Very similar problem here - no issues under 19.04, but when switched to 19.10 I experience many. The most annoying are frequent freezes and WiFi disconnections (although not during every session). Seems to me it's quite a buggy release.

[jasoncollege24]

Referencing my own post at the link below, which should answer the question about the console, and top command. No need to reply to that thread anymore, since I found this one. I'll gladly contribute to this one, unless you believe it's not the same issue.

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...-since-upgrade

[jasoncollege24]

For me, this almost exclusively seems to happen when watching videos, regardless of the source. KDE becomes completely unresponsive (LEDs don't even respond for capslock, numlock, etc) When video is playing, it will continue playing sound either until the video ends, or the system is rebooted from a remote SSH session.

Some notes about my case,

* The only ways I've found to recover are to either hold the power button, until the system cuts off, or remote in via SSH, and run the shutdown command.
* When the top command is run during the freeze, xorg is always one of the top 3 processes, claiming 100%, usually followed by plasma, or kwin.
* The only time this wasn't the case was when I was running Minecraft too. That was sitting at over 300%, with xorg right beihind it.
* The entire DE becomes unresponsive, along with the mouse, and keyboard.
* Cannot switch to another TTY
* NVidia drivers are 435.xx
* This never happened to me on Kubuntu 19.04

[Snowhog]

What are the specs of the PC you installed to?

[jasoncollege24]

System: Gigabyte Z97-D3H-CF (Custom Desktop PC)
OS: (Dual Boot) Windows 10 Pro 64bits (Fully up-to-date), and Kubuntu 19.10 (Primary, and up-to-date)
CPU: Intel Core i7 4790 @ 3.60GHz (4 cores - 8 threads)
RAM: 32GB Dual Channel
Graphics: NVidia GeForce GTX 1080 8GB (Currently using driver 435.xx in both operating systems)
Sound: RealTech HD Audio
Display 1 (Secondary): HP 1080p Monitor
Display 2 (primary): Vizio 43" 4k UHD Home Theater Display (most often used at 1080p)
Display 3 (handicapped display): Samsung 1080p HDTV (Used in place of Display 2, if needed)
Network type: Wi-Fi/Ethernet (Interchangeable, but almost exclusively Ethernet with gigabit speeds)
Drivers: All other software, and drivers are up to date, as far as I know.
Storage Space: LOTS
Control type: Keyboard, Mouse, and X-Box One Wireless Controller

Another note, since I dual boot with Windows 10 is that this doesn't happen in Windows. Not sure what that will tell you, other than that it's not a hardware issue.

[jasoncollege24]

Apps and Sources

VLC player - Always local files
Plex Media Player (web version in Google Chrome) - Local network media server, and internet media server
YouTube - Google Chrome

[claydoh]

One slightly possible thing to look at is swap usage. Despite having plenty of ram some systems seem to use it too early/aggressively. This can make CPU usage go straight to 100% as it is trying to manage all the read/write actions as well as all the rest.

If so, the 'swappiness' setting can be adjusted.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sw...I_change_it.3F



Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[jasoncollege24]

Thanks for that! I set my swappiness value to 10 as suggested, (just for this session), so I will check performance, and such over the next few days. Also of note is that these freezes usually happen after a few days of uptime. If this is the culprit, I should know in a few days.

[jasoncollege24]

Overall it seems my system is stable after making the above change. The only issue I have now is that every so often, (about as often as the freezes were happening), kwin crashes, and recovers in a way that resembles Windows 10 recovery from driver crashes. I tried to report it using the bug reporter but was missing a file. I'll make another post on this, unless you feel it's related enough to continue here.

[jasoncollege24]

spoke too soon. 7 days of uptime resulted in the exact same crash. I had left my computer locked, with an idle game running. When I came back to it, I couldn't wake the screen, or change to a TTY, and keyboard was unresponsive.

Jumped on the laptop, logged in and found my game, and Xorg both at 100% (the game always uses that much). I sent the shutdown command more than 2 minutes ago, and still waiting for it to restart. This crash may require a hard reset. Any new ideas?

[jasoncollege24]

With no further replies, and stability getting progressively worse, I ultimately opted to do a fresh, clean install of Kubuntu 18.04LTS on the desktop, including rebuilding my home directory. The only other PC here running 19.10 seems stable enough for what it's used for, and will get an upgrade to the next LTS release. Thanks for the help though.