Cinnamon Freezing Metabug

[mtwebster]

In an effort to solve issues many users are having, I'm creating this issue to try to keep everything together and easy to manage, and will be closing other reports. Please read through this entirely before actually doing anything.

Please keep this civil and to the point. I'm not interested in commentary, complaints, threats, FUD or anything else unhelpful. I will remove or edit such posts.

If you wish to paste logs - anything more than a line or two, please use a pastebin service. This stuff is much easier to read there, and keeps this issue from becoming enormous.

General

If you are affected by freezes in Cinnamon, I ask that you report the following:

1. What are you doing when it manifests? (nothing, playing on Steam, alt-tabbing, expo, random, etc...
2. How do you resolve it? Reboot, or switch to tty and back again, or...
3. Your cpu type and whether you're running 32- or 64-bit
4. Your gpu type

Testing

Install the following packages - note, these are only if you're running stable cinnamon from the repos (2.4.8) - nightlies already include the fix I'm testing here. As data is collected, I may publish updated packages containing more fixes. Install all level 1, 2, and 3 updates before doing this.

32-bit:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon_2.4.8_i386.deb
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon-dbg_2.4.8_i386.deb
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon-common_2.4.8_all.deb

64 bit:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon_2.4.8_amd64.deb
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon-dbg_2.4.8_amd64.deb
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8201170/cinnamon-common_2.4.8_all.deb

Do not install these using the graphical installer. Instead, download all three packages to a folder, go to that folder in a terminal, and run:

sudo dpkg -i *cinnamon*.deb

Try to reproduce the problem in the default environment. This is to attempt to have everyone test under the same controlled conditions. I'm not condemning 3rd party applets, desklets and extensions, I'm merely trying to get to the core problems. If it turns out there are issues with 3rd party applets, we'll work with those developers if possible, and within Cinnamon, to mitigate them. For now, I'm looking for consistent data.

A fairly simple way to create a temporary test environment is to do the following:

open a terminal:

dconf dump /org/cinnamon/ > mysettings
dconf reset -f /org/cinnamon/

I recommend logging out and back in at this point, before continuing - depending on your system, it may freeze for a moment, or even require a reboot. Make sure you have nothing unsaved before doing this. This is nothing to be alarmed about.

Now, attempt to reproduce the issue.

Once you're done, to restore all your settings:

dconf load /org/cinnamon/ < mysettings

Again, you should log out and back in (Cinnamon may freeze at this point, just as mentioned above, as you're sending a fairly enormous jolt of changes to it at once - again, this is nothing to be concerned with)

Attempt to reproduce once more.

If there is a change in behavior (something in your settings apparently is the cause), I'd ask that you share your 'mysettings' file - please use a pastebin/dpaste service to do so, and share the link.

One last bit of data I'd like, if you've installed those test packages, is one line from your ~/.xsession-errors file:

St-Message: cogl npot texture sizes SUPPORTED

or:

St-Message: cogl npot texture sizes NOT supported

If you wish to revert back to stable packages afterward, you should be able to simply update through the Update Manager.

If you have any questions or issues don't hesitate to voice them, or I can be contacted on Spotchat irc in #linuxmint-dev channel (I'm always there, though not always available - just be patient)

Thank you in advance for all your patience, understanding, and effort.

[plaa]

I've been facing the problem for some time now (Lenovo Thinkpad T430s, Linux Mint 17.1 64-bit, Intel graphics controller driver=i915). I recently upgraded to 2.4.8 from the repos, and had the freeze occur today, so I still have the issue. I'm now installing your packages and will report if I get the freeze again.

Freezing has occurred totally randomly while at work (typically when docked to an external monitor - I don't recall having freezes undocked). The frequency varies a lot. Originally I typically had 1-2 freezes per day, then it when up to a dozen or more per day for a couple of weeks, and for the past week or so it's been very rare - no idea why. I can fix a freeze either by switching to another terminal / desktop and back, or by undocking my laptop (which changes the resolution as well).

Since I don't know how to reproduce the problem, I'll report back if I have a freeze with the new packages. If you don't hear anything from me, you can assume the new packages have fixed (or at least alleviated) the problem. (I use the laptop for my work, so I'm not comfortable switching to default settings - sorry.)

Thanks for trying to resolve this issue!

[plaa]

I'm unable to install the packages on Mint 17.1. cinnamon depends on libcjs0e (>= 2.5.0), however the latest version in the repos is 2.4.2. Any suggestions?
dpkg output: http://pastebin.com/RwjurGGA

[mtwebster]

Ack - I goofed. I've updated the packages at the links above - re-download and try again.

Sorry!

[plaa]

Thanks, I've now updated the packages and will shout if I still have freezes.

[matthijsmelissen]

What are you doing when it manifests? (nothing, playing on Steam, alt-tabbing, expo, random, etc...

Alt-tab. It does not occur on every alt-tab though.

How do you resolve it? Reboot, or switch to tty and back again, or...

killall -HUP cinnamon from tty resolves it, simply going to tty and back does not.

Your cpu type and whether you're running 32- or 64-bit

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3317U CPU @ 1.70GHz on 64-bit linux

Your gpu type

Not sure where to find this, is this the right information?

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 10fd

The issue seems to occur mainly (or only?) when I'm running Skype, so that might be related?

This is before installing the packages above. I now installed the packages, and will report back if the issue reoccurs.

If you wish to revert back to stable packages afterward, you should be able to simply update through the Update Manager.

What do you mean exactly by that? Does it mean I should off updating through the Update Manager for now as it would overwrite the installation of the installed packages?

[mtwebster]

GPU info is fine - as far as updates, the update manager will see these manually installed packages as of a lesser version than what it offers, so if you blindly update, it will replace these packages. If you find this patch works for you, you can add 'cinnamon' to ignored updates temporarily (right-click on the cinnamon entry, click ignore). When you want to upgrade it eventually (like if we release a new official version), you can then edit your ignored packages list and remove cinnamon.

[mikkovedru]

Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon 64-bit. Version 2.4.8. Kernel: 3.13.0-35-generic. Processor: Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.00GHz x 4. RAM: 7.8GB. Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 (Driver: Nvidia 340.29).

It seems that it can happen anytime. CPU/GPU working/idle. Playing a game, watching a movie, doing nothing. Freezes anywhere from 2 times a day to 1 time a week.

The new information, that will surely help you, is that it freezes only on my second monitor!

I have two monitors. Main = main, secondary for task-manager, temperature monitor, playing movies, copy/extract dialogs, some programs. So only action on the second monitor freezes - never on the main monitor. All the background programs are still working fine: for example I can still pause the video (audio) playing on the second monitor - by using both a keyboard and a mouse. I can see the mouse cursor, but not anything besides that. The funny thing is that cursor works 100% as normal, it even changes according to what action I attempt on the invisible windows on the background.

So everything seems to work on the background, except for the video output on the second monitor (except the mouse cursor).

I fix the problem by going to the "Display" settings, disabling the second monitor and then enabling it again. Not a big deal, except that all the windows go and stay on the first monitor, and I have to reorganize them again. Another funny thing is that the second monitor starts working even if I go to settings, disable the second monitor, but then say that I am not satisfied and want everything to be returned back.

[nkoropoff]

If I tell update manager to ignore the cinnamon package, it still tries to force the install of the official version along with any other package available to update like apt, compiz, or wpa.

[leigh123linux]

@mtwebster
Just added a few thousand Guinea pig's (all F20 - F23 users).

http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/cinnamon.git/commit/?id=54083015a4d6491237a00620a508d7af1a5eb381

[mtwebster]

@nkoropoff Ah you probably should have brought your system up-to-date prior to installing (lvl 1, 2, 3) - you can update, let it do its thing, then just re-install those packages.

[peterhorsley]

// UPDATE: After replacing my power supply, the PC no longer freezes, so it looks like in my case it was a faulty power supply, sorry.

In the past few weeks, my Mint 17 box has been freezing (screen, keyboard, mouse) with only option to hold power button to reset. To rule out HDD first, I took an image and restored it on a new disk (SSD). Now I can reproduce the feeze every boot - it happens right when the login screen is about to appear - i.e. when the video mode is changed. Sometimes I will see the UI with the login box (but everything is frozen), sometimes I'll just see blank screen with an unmovable mouse cursor. Previously, it would freeze on the login screen, or any amount of time thereafter, but now I can't even log in. I have also switched graphics cards to no effect.

What are you doing when it manifests? - Waiting for login screen to appear.
How do you resolve it? - Hold power button.
Your cpu type and whether you're running 32- or 64-bit - AMD CPU 64bit
Your gpu type - Gigabyte (AMD) cards, tried two.

Any suggestion as to what logs I can attach (e.g. via recovery shell) to help? my /var/log/Xorg.0.log is 0 bytes.

[nkoropoff]

I have been running the above 64-bit test packages for a week now and have not been able to experience a single freeze so far. The first day was running a default cinnamon environment and then my customized one. Will continue testing but so far it has been very stable for me.