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    What's causing my PC to freeze up?

    My screen keeps freezing. Clicking on things does nothing.
    Desktop PC, ASUS board, Intel CPU. 64 GB RAM.
    Just sometimes, maybe once every 1-3 weeks, and always after leaving my PC idle for 1+ hours.
    I do a hard re-boot to get out of it.
    What is the best & easiest way to begin to see which app is causing it? System monitor? What to look for?
    (I try to stop processes/app, but sometimes it doesn't look like anything stopped. Quit/close often don't work.)

    The apps open are always the same:
    Firefox, snap (tabs open on KFN and a few YouTube channel(s)).
    Thunderbird email.
    LibreWriter document(s) open.​
    An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

    #2
    No chance at all to open KRunner or to get to a tty? Completely frozen?

    You could leave a Konsole window open all the time with sudo journalctl -f and have a look at it when your computer freezes.
    And additionally another one with htop open if you have enough space on your screen - I think htop can be more informative than System Monitor.
    Last edited by Schwarzer Kater; May 14, 2023, 09:12 PM.
    Debian KDE & LXQt • Kubuntu & Lubuntu • openSUSE KDE • Windows • macOS X
    Desktop: Lenovo ThinkCentre M75s • Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro 13" • and others

    get rid of Snap script (20.04 +)reinstall Snap for release-upgrade script (20.04 +)
    install traditional Firefox script (22.04 +)​ • install traditional Thunderbird script (24.04)

    Comment


      #3
      I will check and try these two suggestions. Thanks.
      An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

      Comment


        #4
        Got another freeze-up, actually two (or maybe three?), since posting the above OP.
        The freeze-ups have never occurred when I'm using the PC.
        They have occurred after I leave the PC idle for some time (at least 30 minutes idle).
        I'll record some things I observed, trying to piece the puzzle together.
        When it occurred, the following were open: Firefox (with 3 tabs); Thunderbird.
        After it occurred, I was able to open Dolphin and Konsole but their windows had problems as described below.

        The symptoms described below suggest to me that this is not a PC problem (like a faulty memory chip). It suggests something is goofed up with how apps are displayed graphically by the OS, or some-such.

        If you can think of something for me to try next time this occurs, please note it.

        During this freeze-up:

        -- I can't make the Desktop visible by pressing the Desktop icon in the lower right of the tray.
        -- I can't use Thunderbird, even though it is open and I can open a new instance.
        -- Can't use Firefox (FX).
        -- On both T-Bird and FX, the menu bar at the top lost the close "X" at the upper right corner, along with Minimize and Maximize icons.
        -- On both T-Bird and FX, items on the menu bar are there -- File, Edit, View, ...Tools, Help, but they don't work in this sense: I click, for example, File, the drop-down menu displays under File, I can see the entries, but when I try to move the mouse to make a selection, the drop-down menu immediately closes.
        -- I could close T-Bird by using Ctrl + W; I could close FX in two ways: Ctrl + Q; and by closing the tabs one by one. The tabs in FX DID have a close "X" on them, and they worked. But, as I said, the menu bar in FX did not have the Minimize, Maximize, and Close "X" at the upper right corner.
        -- FX Bookmarks window: I could close it with Ctrl - W, but could not close it graphically (there was no "X" in upper right corner). I could not drag the Bookmarks window around.
        -- Apparently, the icons in the tray worked using the mouse (Trash, Audio volume, I could clear the Notifications, I could clear the Clipboard), BUT the Desktop icon at the far right of the tray did not work to show my the Desktop.
        -- I could open Dolphin (using the mouse on the lower panel icon), but it had no top menu bar. I could do: "show menu bar" and then select File > Close, and that worked.
        -- I could not drag windows (of FX, T-Bird, Dolphin, Konsole) by clicking on the top menu bar -- the windows wouldn't move. The top menu bar was white, no defined bar, exactly.
        -- I could open Konsole, but could not drag it anywhere with the mouse.
        I could enter commands htop, journalctl -f, and I could Save Output to a text file on the Desktop. For Konsole, File > Close Window worked.
        -- Even after closing FX and T-Bird, their icons (showing that they are actively open) remained on the lower panel and would not disappear as they normally do when those apps are closed. I could open new instances of FX and T-Bird by clicking on their normal panel icons, but the windows that opened were broken as I described above.
        -- I could restart the PC using: K > Restart with the mouse. After doing so, everything cleared up and worked OK.

        -- I can post output of htop, journalctl -f, but I don't see anything obvious there; I ran those commands long after the problem occurred (by as much as 30 minutes afterwards).​
        An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

        Comment


          #5
          Code:
          mike@mike-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo [B]journalctl -f[/B]
          [sudo] password for mike:
          Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Starting Firmware update daemon...
          Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name fwupd[223040]: 00:13:45:0694 FuEngine failed to get releases for UEFI dbx: No releases found: Not compatible with org.freedesktop.fwupd version 1.7.9, requires >= 1.9.1
          Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name fwupd[223040]: 00:13:45:0696 FuEngine failed to get releases for UEFI dbx: No releases found: Not compatible with org.freedesktop.fwupd version 1.7.9, requires >= 1.9.1
          Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name dbus-daemon[934]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.fwupd'
          Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Started Firmware update daemon.
          Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: fwupd-refresh.service: Deactivated successfully.
          Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Finished Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd.
          Jun 21 18:14:04 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: Started Konsole - Terminal.
          Jun 21 18:14:51 mike-System-Product-Name sudo[223092]: mike : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/mike ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/journalctl -f
          Jun 21 18:14:51 mike-System-Product-Name sudo[223092]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by mike(uid=1000)
          Jun 21 18:15:16 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:15:16 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:16:08 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:16:08 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:17:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[223201]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=0)
          Jun 21 18:17:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[223202]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
          Jun 21 18:17:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[223201]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
          Jun 21 18:18:16 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:18:16 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:19:55 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:19:55 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:20:07 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: Started Dolphin - File Manager.
          Jun 21 18:23:23 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:23:23 mike-System-Product-Name rtkit-daemon[1158]: Supervising 10 threads of 7 processes of 1 users.
          Jun 21 18:24:23 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: app-org.kde.dolphin-dd6b1011dfc04f8696d58040ded46ae0.scope: Consumed 5.941s CPU time.
          Last edited by Qqmike; Jun 22, 2023, 10:19 AM.
          An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

          Comment


            #6
            htop:

            Code:
            0[ 0.0%] 3[| 0.7%] 6[ 0.0%] 9[| 0.7%]
            1[| 0.7%] 4[ 0.0%] 7[ 0.0%] 10[| 0.7%]
            2[ 0.0%] 5[ 0.0%] 8[| 0.7%] 11[ 0.0%]
            Mem[||||||||||||||| 3.65G/31.2G] Tasks: 121, 734 thr; 2 running
            Swp[ 0K/59.6G] Load average: 0.11 0.14 0.08
            Uptime: 5 days, 11:34:16
            Code:
            PID USER PRI NI VIRT RES SHR S CPU%▽MEM% TIME+ Command
            223062 mike 20 0 1935M 139M 112M R 2.7 0.4 0:07.08 /usr/bin/konsole
            1108 root 20 0 1890M 112M 70464 S 2.0 0.4 52:44.82 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -nolisten tcp -auth /var
            204136 mike 20 0 12.7G 651M 245M S 1.3 2.0 44:30.32 /snap/firefox/2760/usr/lib/firefox/firefox
            204569 mike 20 0 7133M 340M 123M S 1.3 1.1 4:54.76 /snap/firefox/2760/usr/lib/firefox/firefox
            1142 root 20 0 1890M 112M 70464 S 0.7 0.4 2:09.79 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -nolisten tcp -auth /var
            204586 mike 20 0 7133M 340M 123M S 0.7 1.1 0:55.12 /snap/firefox/2760/usr/lib/firefox/firefox
            223549 mike 20 0 11804 5308 3484 R 0.7 0.0 0:00.17 htop
            1 root 20 0 164M 13592 8388 S 0.0 0.0 0:06.94 /sbin/init splash
            524 root 19 -1 80904 49428 47968 S 0.0 0.2 0:06.03 /lib/systemd/systemd-journald
            557 root 20 0 26700 7100 4648 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.71 /lib/systemd/systemd-udevd
            841 systemd-r 20 0 26920 14744 9240 S 0.0 0.0 0:36.80 /lib/systemd/systemd-resolved
            842 systemd-t 20 0 89376 6744 5880 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.71 /lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd
            853 root 20 0 8580 4976 1840 S 0.0 0.0 0:08.53 /usr/sbin/haveged --Foreground --verbose=1
            865 systemd-t 20 0 89376 6744 5880 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 /lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd
            927 root 20 0 234M 7848 6664 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.98 /usr/libexec/accounts-daemon
            928 root 20 0 2812 1204 1116 S 0.0 0.0 0:04.51 /usr/sbin/acpid
            932 avahi 20 0 7628 3500 3164 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.20 avahi-daemon: running [mike-System-Product-
            933 root 20 0 9492 2992 2736 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.67 /usr/sbin/cron -f -P
            934 messagebu 20 0 11144 6752 4124 S 0.0 0.0 0:07.22 @dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --
            F1Help F2Setup F3SearchF4FilterF5Tree F6SortByF7Nice -F8Nice +F9Kill F10Quit​
            Last edited by Qqmike; Jun 22, 2023, 10:18 AM.
            An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Qqmike View Post
              ... output of htop, I don't see anything obvious ...​
              There's no kwin process. There should be kwin_x11 or kwin_wayland. kwin is plasma's window manager and compositor. plasmashell is still working, I think.

              The various screen elements you've listed are drawn by kwin, IIUC. kwin has apparently crashed, and not been restarted.

              You could try ctrl-alt-f2, login, and run
              Code:
              DISPLAY=:0 kwin --replace
              then press ctrl-alt-f1 to go back to the GUI. As for the cause, the first thing that pops to mind is, nVidia?
              Regards, John Little

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Qqmike View Post
                […]
                -- I can post output of htop, journalctl -f, but I don't see anything obvious there; I ran those commands long after the problem occurred (by as much as 30 minutes afterwards).​
                I hope I understand your posts correctly:

                My suggestion was to let a simple journalctl -f run all the time in an open Konsole or Yakuake window (not just after the "crash" occured), have a constant look at it or switch to its output directly after the "crash" and if needed scroll back a little bit to hopefully find the culprit.
                If you ran it 30 minutes afterwards there will probably be no relevant output in there…
                From man journalctl:
                Code:
                -f, --follow
                           Show only the most recent journal entries, and continuously print new entries as they are appended to the journal.​

                You can look at log files and run something like journalctl -b -1 -a or sudo journalctl -b -1 -a after the "crash" and comb through it, searching for the assumed timestamps around the time the "crash" occured and for something that can be associated with the "crash" (like KWin).
                Last edited by Schwarzer Kater; Jul 30, 2023, 02:33 PM.
                Debian KDE & LXQt • Kubuntu & Lubuntu • openSUSE KDE • Windows • macOS X
                Desktop: Lenovo ThinkCentre M75s • Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro 13" • and others

                get rid of Snap script (20.04 +)reinstall Snap for release-upgrade script (20.04 +)
                install traditional Firefox script (22.04 +)​ • install traditional Thunderbird script (24.04)

                Comment


                  #9
                  No nVidia here:

                  Motherboard
                  ASUS Prime Z590-P LGA 1200 (Intel 11th/10th Gen) ATX Motherboard

                  CPU
                  Intel Core i5-10500 - 10th Gen Comet Lake 6-Core 3.1 GHz LGA 1200 65W Intel UHD Graphics 630

                  Monitor
                  Asus VA24EHE 23.8” Monitor, 1080P, Full HD, IPS, 75Hz, HDMI D-Sub DVI-D,
                  - - - - - - - - - -

                  Thanks, guys, I made notes and will keep an eye on it with all this in mind.
                  This time, at least, I didn't have to do a hard re-boot; I was able to close everything and work through K > Re-start.
                  An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Looks like you have decent, non-exotic hardware there that should work well with Linux.

                    I don't know if you could tweak the ASUS motherboard's UEFI settings for ACPI/S-states a bit, though - perhaps the "crash" happened when the system tried to go into some S-state (S0-S4)?
                    And did you already check if there is a firmware update available for you motherboard?
                    Debian KDE & LXQt • Kubuntu & Lubuntu • openSUSE KDE • Windows • macOS X
                    Desktop: Lenovo ThinkCentre M75s • Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro 13" • and others

                    get rid of Snap script (20.04 +)reinstall Snap for release-upgrade script (20.04 +)
                    install traditional Firefox script (22.04 +)​ • install traditional Thunderbird script (24.04)

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The firmware update is another issue. It is discussed somewhere around here. There does not exist a firmware update for the motherboard.
                      It looks like the system tries on occasion, like here:

                      .
                      Code:
                      Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Starting Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd...
                      Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name dbus-daemon[934]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.fwupd' unit='fwupd.service' requested by ':1.4838' (uid=12>
                      Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Starting Firmware update daemon...
                      Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name fwupd[223040]: 00:13:45:0694 FuEngine failed to get releases for UEFI dbx: [B]No releases found: Not compatible with org.freedeskt>[/B]
                      Jun 21 18:13:45 mike-System-Product-Name fwupd[223040]: 00:13:45:0696 FuEngine failed to get releases for UEFI dbx: No releases found: Not compatible with org.freedeskt>
                      Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name dbus-daemon[934]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.fwupd'
                      Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Started Firmware update daemon.
                      Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: fwupd-refresh.service: Deactivated successfully.
                      Jun 21 18:13:46 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Finished Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd.
                      Last edited by Qqmike; Jun 22, 2023, 10:18 AM.
                      An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I looked at the journalctl output.
                        The problem occurred around Jun 21 17:30

                        Here's some typical lines that came before the problem occurred, I just grabbed a sampling:

                        Code:
                        Jun 21 16:05:24 mike-System-Product-Name audit[216769]: AVC apparmor="DENIED" operation="capable" profile="/snap/snapd/19457/usr/lib/snapd/snap-confine" pid=216769 com>
                        Code:
                        Jun 21 16:05:24 mike-System-Product-Name kernel: audit: type=1400 audit(1687385124.007:14587): apparmor="DENIED" operation="capable" profile="/snap/snapd/19457/usr/lib>
                        
                        Jun 21 16:32:12 mike-System-Product-Name kernel: perf: interrupt took too long (3965 > 3957), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50250
                        Jun 21 16:34:36 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Started Run anacron jobs.
                        Jun 21 16:34:36 mike-System-Product-Name anacron[217347]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2023-06-21
                        Jun 21 16:34:36 mike-System-Product-Name anacron[217347]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
                        Jun 21 16:34:36 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: anacron.service: Deactivated successfully.
                        Lots of occurrences of Started snap.firefox like these:
                        Code:
                        Jun 21 16:40:47 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: Started snap.firefox.firefox.6c6cbfcb-0c4c-441b-9012-7b6eb1b62a42.scope.
                        Jun 21 16:41:20 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: Started snap.firefox.firefox.54110bbd-1166-44ca-80ab-ccc5342c83b0.scope.
                        Jun 21 16:42:58 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: Started snap.firefox.firefox.bc5bdfcf-ba0a-41c5-a74e-a7595149ccad.scope.
                        Lots of SECCOMP line like this:
                        Code:
                        Jun 21 16:44:04 mike-System-Product-Name audit[204136]: SECCOMP auid=1000 uid=1000 gid=1000 ses=3 subj=snap.firefox.firefox pid=204136 comm="CanvasRenderer" exe="/snap>
                        Made at 5:30 pm, close to when the problem occurred, but this looks routine to me:
                        .
                        Code:
                        Jun 21 17:30:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[222261]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=0)
                        Jun 21 17:30:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[222262]: (root) CMD ([ -x /etc/init.d/anacron ] && if [ ! -d /run/systemd/system ]; then /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d anacron st>
                        Jun 21 17:30:01 mike-System-Product-Name CRON[222261]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
                        Jun 21 17:34:10 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: Started Run anacron jobs.
                        Jun 21 17:34:10 mike-System-Product-Name anacron[222275]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2023-06-21
                        Jun 21 17:34:10 mike-System-Product-Name anacron[222275]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
                        Jun 21 17:34:10 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1]: anacron.service: Deactivated successfully.
                        .
                        Code:
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: Read called with parameters:
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: group: "org.freedesktop.appearance"
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: key: "color-scheme"
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: Read called with parameters:
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: group: "org.freedesktop.appearance"
                        Jun 21 17:52:21 mike-System-Product-Name xdg-desktop-portal-kde[2138]: xdp-kde-settings: key: "color-scheme"
                        And then I came on to find the problem and investigate:

                        Code:
                        Jun 21 18:14:04 mike-System-Product-Name systemd[1427]: [B]Started Konsole[/B] - Terminal.
                        Jun 21 18:14:51 mike-System-Product-Name sudo[223092]: mike : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/mike ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/[B]journalctl -f[/B]
                        Jun 21 18:14:51 mike-System-Product-Name sudo[223092]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by mike(uid=1000)
                        Last edited by Qqmike; Jun 22, 2023, 10:18 AM.
                        An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I hope the above is readable. It is on my screen. If not, I can go back and use code tags.
                          An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                          Comment


                            #14
                            It seems that ASUS provides Windows support only on their website for updating the board:
                            https://www.asus.com/motherboards-co...e=PRIME-Z590-P
                            There have been several bugs fixed in the board's firmware during the past two years…

                            In Konsole what does
                            fwupdmgr get-devices or fwupdmgr get-updates
                            tell you?​

                            Also see fwupdmgr --help for further steps.

                            PS: Yes, it would be nice of you to use CODE tags - most of your previous posts would be much more readable then.
                            Last edited by Schwarzer Kater; Jun 22, 2023, 10:40 AM.
                            Debian KDE & LXQt • Kubuntu & Lubuntu • openSUSE KDE • Windows • macOS X
                            Desktop: Lenovo ThinkCentre M75s • Laptop: Apple MacBook Pro 13" • and others

                            get rid of Snap script (20.04 +)reinstall Snap for release-upgrade script (20.04 +)
                            install traditional Firefox script (22.04 +)​ • install traditional Thunderbird script (24.04)

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Code:
                              fwupdmgr get-updates
                              Devices with no available firmware updates:
                              • SSD 870 EVO 500GB
                              • System Firmware
                              • UEFI dbx
                              No updatable devices
                              An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski

                              Comment

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