Desktop slow to load

[quarkslot]

Hi,

After entering my login password I'm getting a long delay before the plasma desktop appears, instead I get to look at a black screen. Normal behaviour on my system was about 20 seconds but now it's more than 1 minute 30 seconds.

Applications will load using keyboard shortcuts, it's just the desktop (panels, menu etc.) that take so long.

Here's my output from journatctl -b which shows startup messages after boot, I'm hoping someone might be able to explain what it all means!

Here the output from a boot process which started at 09:10:50. All seems fairly sensible until 09:11:20 and then it shows the following:

Feb 18 09:11:20 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO org.kde.KScreen[1965]: kscreen.xrandr: Output 87 : connected = true , enabled = true
Feb 18 09:11:21 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO systemd-timesyncd[885]: Initial synchronization to time server 91.189.94.4:123 (ntp.ubuntu.com).
Feb 18 09:11:21 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO systemd[1]: systemd-hostnamed.service: Succeeded.
Feb 18 09:11:21 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO org.kde.KScreen[1965]: kscreen.xrandr: Emitting configChanged()
Feb 18 09:11:29 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO dbus-daemon[920]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.bluez': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Feb 18 09:11:29 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO pulseaudio[1528]: GetManagedObjects() failed: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut: Failed to activate service 'org.bluez': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Feb 18 09:11:36 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO PackageKit[1882]: get-updates transaction /3528_deaaedad from uid 1000 finished with success after 320ms
Feb 18 09:12:16 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO org.freedesktop.Notifications[1932]: org.kde.knotifications: WaitForName: Service was not registered within timeout
Feb 18 09:12:16 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO dbus-daemon[1530]: [session uid=1000 pid=1530] Activated service 'org.freedesktop.Notifications' failed: Process org.freedesktop.Notifications exited with status 1
Feb 18 09:12:25 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO nfsidmap[2153]: nss_getpwnam: name 'admin' not found in domain 'localdomain'
Feb 18 09:12:26 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO systemd[1]: Started Daemon for generating UUIDs.
Feb 18 09:12:31 nick-B450-AORUS-PRO dbus-daemon[1530]: [session uid=1000 pid=1530] Activating service name='org.kde.KSplash' requested by ':1.30' (uid=1000 pid=1821 comm="/usr/bin/plasmashell " label="unconfined")

There's an 8 second delay, followed by 7, 30, 9 and 5.

Any ideas what the culprits are and if I can fix them?

Thanks

Nick

[GreyGeek]

systemd-analyze
will give you your boot timings.
systemd-analyze blame
will give you a list of services from the longest times down to the shortest.
systemd-analyze blame > plot.svg
will dump the blame output into an svg file which you can load with your browser to see a graphical representation of your boot times.

Here's my systemd-analyze

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]:[/COLOR][COLOR=#5454ff][B]~[/B][/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]$ systemd-analyze [/COLOR]
Startup finished in 3.122s (kernel) + 4.295s (userspace) = 7.417s  
graphical.target reached after 4.283s in userspace[/FONT]

However, earlier this week an analyze gave me 1m26sec. When I checked with blame it was the fstrim command doing its weekly run on my SSD. My next boot was back to normal, which is shown above.

[quarkslot]

@GreyGeek

Thank you. As I suspected, there is a delay with NFS network mounts, but that still only accounts for 7 seconds. I'll have to do some more digging!

[Fred47]

Wow you have a fast boot time, mine is really slow. I wait for my router/modem to boot and that takes awhile. In general I turn my pc on and then go make a pot of coffee so I don't really care how long it takes.

fred@fred-HP-Laptop-17-bs0xx:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 7.643s (firmware) + 5.178s (loader) + 4.088s (kernel) + 2min 25.621s (userspace) = 2min 42.532s 
graphical.target reached after 34.017s in userspace
fred@fred-HP-Laptop-17-bs0xx:~$ systemd-analyze blame
2min 10.266s fstrim.service                                       
    22.773s man-db.service                                       
    17.610s snapd.service                                        
    13.373s networkd-dispatcher.service                          
    12.432s udisks2.service                                      
    10.838s NetworkManager-wait-online.service                   
    10.661s accounts-daemon.service                              
    10.364s dev-sda2.device                                      
     8.527s systemd-journal-flush.service                        
     7.789s polkit.service                                       
     7.117s NetworkManager.service                               
     7.064s avahi-daemon.service                                 
     7.064s bluetooth.service                                    
     6.735s thermald.service                                     
     6.720s wpa_supplicant.service                               
     6.717s systemd-logind.service                               
     6.688s apt-daily.service                                    
     5.776s ModemManager.service                                 
     5.163s bolt.service                                         
     4.666s logrotate.service                                    
     4.610s systemd-resolved.service                             
     3.950s dev-loop3.device                                     
     3.630s gpu-manager.service                                  
     3.626s dev-loop4.device                                     
     3.258s grub-common.service                                  
     3.110s dev-loop1.device                                     
     2.509s secureboot-db.service                                
     2.232s rsyslog.service                                      
     2.118s dev-loop0.device                                     
     2.023s dev-loop5.device                                     
     1.781s user@1000.service                                    
     1.713s lm-sensors.service                                   
     1.539s apport.service                                       
     1.529s dev-loop2.device                                     
     1.456s systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service                       
     1.225s apparmor.service                                     
     1.128s laptop-mode.service                                  
     1.119s e2scrub_reap.service                                 
      855ms systemd-modules-load.service                         
      766ms systemd-udevd.service                                
      762ms systemd-udev-trigger.service                         
      733ms snapd.seeded.service 
      730ms snap-zoom\x2dclient-136.mount                        
      675ms apt-daily-upgrade.service                            
      642ms pppd-dns.service                                     
      596ms keyboard-setup.service                               
      591ms snap-snapd-11107.mount                               
      583ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service                   
      573ms upower.service                                       
      550ms systemd-sysusers.service                             
      516ms systemd-random-seed.service                          
      515ms swapfile.swap                                        
      464ms systemd-rfkill.service                               
      452ms snapd.apparmor.service                               
      446ms snap-zoom\x2dclient-134.mount                        
      428ms grub-initrd-fallback.service                         
      411ms systemd-user-sessions.service                        
      398ms snap-core18-1944.mount                               
      393ms snap-core18-1988.mount                               
      375ms alsa-restore.service                                 
      308ms systemd-journald.service                             
      289ms systemd-timesyncd.service                            
      283ms systemd-sysctl.service                               
      239ms sddm.service                                         
      226ms setvtrgb.service                                     
      173ms systemd-remount-fs.service                           
      149ms snap-snapd-11036.mount                               
      144ms systemd-update-utmp.service                          
      139ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-80B2\x2d359D.service
      127ms kerneloops.service                                   
      120ms plymouth-read-write.service                          
      115ms systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service  
       97ms dev-hugepages.mount                                  
       97ms dev-mqueue.mount                                     
       96ms sys-kernel-debug.mount                               
       95ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount                             
       68ms kmod-static-nodes.service                            
       63ms motd-news.service                                    
       61ms rtkit-daemon.service                                 
       53ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service                       
       52ms hddtemp.service                                      
       51ms ufw.service                                          
       46ms console-setup.service                                
       38ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service                 
       34ms plymouth-quit.service                                
       33ms boot-efi.mount                                       
       22ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service                        
       15ms plymouth-start.service                               
        4ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount                        
        3ms sys-kernel-config.mount                              
        1ms lmt-poll.service                                     
      916us snapd.socket

[quarkslot]

Thanks to everyone who replied to this. I never did get to the bottom of it, a clean install of 21.04 was the fix. I'd like to have identified the culprit but at least things are back to normal!

[GreyGeek]

Wow you have a fast boot time, mine is really slow. I wait for my router/modem to boot and that takes awhile. In general I turn my pc on and then go make a pot of coffee so I don't really care how long it takes.

fred@fred-HP-Laptop-17-bs0xx:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 7.643s (firmware) + 5.178s (loader) + 4.088s (kernel) + 2min 25.621s (userspace) = 2min 42.532s 
graphical.target reached after 34.017s in userspace
fred@fred-HP-Laptop-17-bs0xx:~$ systemd-analyze blame
2min 10.266s fstrim.service                                       
    22.773s man-db.service                                       
    17.610s snapd.service                                        
    13.373s networkd-dispatcher.service                          
    12.432s udisks2.service                                      
    10.838s NetworkManager-wait-online.service                   
    10.661s accounts-daemon.service                              
    10.364s dev-sda2.device                                      
     8.527s systemd-journal-flush.service                        
     7.789s polkit.service                                       
     7.117s NetworkManager.service                               
     7.064s avahi-daemon.service                                 
     7.064s bluetooth.service                                    
     6.735s thermald.service                                     
     6.720s wpa_supplicant.service                               
     6.717s systemd-logind.service                               
     6.688s apt-daily.service                                    
     5.776s ModemManager.service                                 
     5.163s bolt.service                                         
     4.666s logrotate.service                                    
     4.610s systemd-resolved.service                             
     3.950s dev-loop3.device                                     
     3.630s gpu-manager.service                                  
     3.626s dev-loop4.device                                     
     3.258s grub-common.service                                  
     3.110s dev-loop1.device                                     
     2.509s secureboot-db.service                                
     2.232s rsyslog.service                                      
     2.118s dev-loop0.device                                     
     2.023s dev-loop5.device                                     
     1.781s user@1000.service                                    
     1.713s lm-sensors.service                                   
     1.539s apport.service                                       
     1.529s dev-loop2.device                                     
     1.456s systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service                       
     1.225s apparmor.service                                     
     1.128s laptop-mode.service                                  
     1.119s e2scrub_reap.service                                 
      855ms systemd-modules-load.service                         
      766ms systemd-udevd.service                                
      762ms systemd-udev-trigger.service                         
      733ms snapd.seeded.service 
      730ms snap-zoom\x2dclient-136.mount                        
      675ms apt-daily-upgrade.service                            
      642ms pppd-dns.service                                     
      596ms keyboard-setup.service                               
      591ms snap-snapd-11107.mount                               
      583ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service                   
      573ms upower.service                                       
      550ms systemd-sysusers.service                             
      516ms systemd-random-seed.service                          
      515ms swapfile.swap                                        
      464ms systemd-rfkill.service                               
      452ms snapd.apparmor.service                               
      446ms snap-zoom\x2dclient-134.mount                        
      428ms grub-initrd-fallback.service                         
      411ms systemd-user-sessions.service                        
      398ms snap-core18-1944.mount                               
      393ms snap-core18-1988.mount                               
      375ms alsa-restore.service                                 
      308ms systemd-journald.service                             
      289ms systemd-timesyncd.service                            
      283ms systemd-sysctl.service                               
      239ms sddm.service                                         
      226ms setvtrgb.service                                     
      173ms systemd-remount-fs.service                           
      149ms snap-snapd-11036.mount                               
      144ms systemd-update-utmp.service                          
      139ms systemd-fsck@dev-disk-by\x2duuid-80B2\x2d359D.service
      127ms kerneloops.service                                   
      120ms plymouth-read-write.service                          
      115ms systemd-backlight@backlight:intel_backlight.service  
       97ms dev-hugepages.mount                                  
       97ms dev-mqueue.mount                                     
       96ms sys-kernel-debug.mount                               
       95ms sys-kernel-tracing.mount                             
       68ms kmod-static-nodes.service                            
       63ms motd-news.service                                    
       61ms rtkit-daemon.service                                 
       53ms systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service                       
       52ms hddtemp.service                                      
       51ms ufw.service                                          
       46ms console-setup.service                                
       38ms systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service                 
       34ms plymouth-quit.service                                
       33ms boot-efi.mount                                       
       22ms user-runtime-dir@1000.service                        
       15ms plymouth-start.service                               
        4ms sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount                        
        3ms sys-kernel-config.mount                              
        1ms lmt-poll.service                                     
      916us snapd.socket

I got rid of snapd (which, IMO, is mainly a "telemetry" tool :wink :wink ), and the chromium browser because they are joined at the hip. Once I disabled snapd I masked it. Then I uninstalled it and chromium.

The man.db.service probably doesn't run at every bootup, BUT, if there is a service that does and it is slowing your boot times, you can set a timer for it so that it runs after a certain amount of time after boot up has past. The process is described here.