Cinnamon freezes, only mouse pointer can move around. Linux Mint 17.1

[mxa]

I have sporadic freezes with Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon 64, only the mouse pointer can move. I can switch to another terminal. Programs keep running, music keeps playing (until the next song), just interaction with the desktop is impossible and screen gets not updated (except the mouse pointer). This happens when pressing alt+tab or alt+shift+tab, but is not reliably reproducable.

[clfarron4]

Have you looked in the system logs (in the /var/log/ folder), which might say what is going on?

[mxa]

I can't find anything suspicious in the logs.

[pacharanero]

I had the same problem but updating the linux kernel from the stock (3.13) to latest (currently 3.15.7) seems to have fixed it. (I hope)

[mxa]

It's hard to believe that a different Kernel would fix this kind of problem that seems to be so top level, window manager related. But I have updated to the current Kernel to give it a try. Unfortunately the sporadic crashes on alt-tab persist.

[mxa]

The problem occurs on alt-tab, seemingly particulary when pressing this command during the startup of an application. It just happened earlier and i switched to another tty with Ctl+Alt+F1, logged in and typed: egrep -i 'error|fail' ~/.xsession-errors here is a picture of the output:

[mxa]

Another occurance:

[shirish87]

I'm facing this issue while switching workspaces with Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right.

(cinnamon-settings-daemon:4755): media-keys-plugin-WARNING **: Grab failed for some keys, another application may already have access the them.
(dropbox:4849): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_window_thaw_toplevel_updates_libgtk_only: assertion 'private->update_and_descendants_freeze_count > 0' failed
Window manager warning: Log level 16: Error converting selection

[mxa]

@shirish87 I'll start using Ctl+Alt+Left/Right to see if I get freezes. Would you mind trying to use Ctl+Alt+(shift)+Tab? This way we can figure out if it is the same issue. Give it a few hours/days before drawing a conclusion.

[shirish87]

Agreed :) Is there any other log file we need to keep track of, apart from .xsession-errors?

[mxa]

Very good qustion. I'm afraid I am not qualified to answer that. @clfarron4 says something about the system logs. I couldn not find anything there what seems relevant though.

[shirish87]

Just experienced the freeze again, and this time it was when I clicked a minimized window. @mxa, I think this happens whenever we switch away from the current window, either while switching workspaces or tabs or restoring a minimized window.

.xsession-errors this time contains about 50 entries of No such key 'picture-options'.

In my experience, I think I've always had a browser window (Maxthon) in the foreground and switched away from it.

Update: The most recent freeze on my machine correlates to a segfault caused by Maxthon.

shirish@SIRIUS-3 ~ $ cat /var/log/kern.log | grep segfault
Aug 11 23:29:45 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [21172.052150] events[24314]: segfault at 40 ip 00007f43c42c3b3f sp 00007f43c0edcbd0 error 4 in libusb-1.0.so.0.1.0[7f43c42bc000+15000]
Aug 12 20:41:30 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [ 5064.377192] cinnamon-settin[8432]: segfault at 8 ip 00007fafe9cbc51e sp 00007fff5ae2beb0 error 4 in libnetwork.so[7fafe9cac000+1f000]
Aug 12 20:41:37 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [ 5071.528480] cinnamon-settin[8441]: segfault at 8 ip 00007ff96b9d451e sp 00007fff80076270 error 4 in libnetwork.so[7ff96b9c4000+1f000]
Aug 13 04:09:21 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [31952.298496] plugin-containe[30828]: segfault at 4068 ip 00007fd1e8a9f414 sp 00007fffedd1b2f0 error 4 in libpthread-2.19.so[7fd1e8a95000+19000]
Aug 13 04:09:37 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [31968.321200] plugin-containe[31551]: segfault at 4068 ip 00007f760be4b414 sp 00007fffe2c76b50 error 4 in libpthread-2.19.so[7f760be41000+19000]
Aug 13 04:10:17 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [32008.421912] plugin-containe[31580]: segfault at 4068 ip 00007f2e10619414 sp 00007ffffa083100 error 4 in libpthread-2.19.so[7f2e1060f000+19000]
Aug 13 04:13:28 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [32199.408023] plugin-containe[32046]: segfault at 4068 ip 00007f2d76137414 sp 00007fffab3445e0 error 4 in libpthread-2.19.so[7f2d7612d000+19000]
Aug 13 04:26:39 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [32990.969440] plugin-containe[32150]: segfault at 4068 ip 00007fdd5f466414 sp 00007fff6b4adc30 error 4 in libpthread-2.19.so[7fdd5f45c000+19000]
Aug 13 18:11:05 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [ 3805.775249] Watchdog[3292]: segfault at 0 ip 00007fa23924ab1e sp 00007fa2291d92d0 error 6 in maxthon[7fa23504a000+6917000]
Aug 13 19:02:05 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [ 6867.241369] Watchdog[9679]: segfault at 0 ip 00007fc51d454b1e sp 00007fc50d3e32d0 error 6 in maxthon[7fc519254000+6917000]
Aug 13 19:02:15 SIRIUS-3 kernel: [ 6877.423742] Watchdog[13727]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f556530fb1e sp 00007f555529e2d0 error 6 in maxthon[7f556110f000+6917000]

@mxa The next time you experience a freeze, please check the above logs on your system.

Update 2: Ignore all of the above. Finally tracked my issue to be caused by Variety (wallpaper changer). Thanks.

[mxa]

I've restrained myself not to use Ctl.+Alt+(Shift)+Tab any more. I use Ctl.+Alt+Left/Right to switch between workspaces rather than changing the Z order of apps now. This is running stable for me. No crashes. Also I never had problems minimizing applications by clicking on the taskbar. I start to think we have two different issues.

[mxa]

@shirish87 nothing suspicious in my logs after the freeze. I was able to restart cinnamon with Ctl.+Alt+Backspace however this time.

[mtwebster]

The issue with the window alt-tabber still exists in current Cinnamon master (workaround for now is use a different alt-tab style), but I'm hoping the freeze issue is fixed now - are there any brave souls here that could try the nightly ppa?

[mxa]

what's the different alt-tab style? Is the nightly PPA this one: ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly ?

[mtwebster]

If you go into Settings->Windows-> Alt-Tab Switcher Style - use preview, coverflow, or timeline for now.

Yes, that's the nightly. If you're on Mint though, you can't just add it, update, and upgrade. Instead, do this after adding the ppa and apt-get updating:

sudo apt-get install -ttrusty cinnamon muffin cinnamon-settings-daemon libcinnamon-desktop0 libcjs0e cjs

If you use nemo-preview, you'll want to uninstall that first.

[mxa]

@mtwebster thank you so much for the workaround - I had no more freezes since. I'm not brave enough to try the nightly as I'm in the middle of production.

[mxa]

After some weeks I can say that this workaround does reduce the likelyhood of a freeze drastically, but it still happens some times. I have now "Window preview (No icons)" selected in the Window properties.

[ghost]

I can confirm the problem is still here. It append when I switch windows from the taskbar. It almost always reproductible (to make it crash) when I switch between windows quickly for 30s to 1mn.

It's like this one https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/2946

[ghost]

I just tried with a live USB on an other PC, a laptop with intel integrated graphics (I have a desktop with Nvidia GPU) and I had a freeze in 2mn simply by quickly switching windows and moving windows order from the taskbar.

So I guess everyone install of Linux Mint 17.1 has the bug but it occur ramdomly when you switch/move windows with the tasktar or with alt+tab.

[pollend]

I've been experiencing a similar issue. Everything on the desktop freezes, but the mouse cursor.

[ghost]

Same, I've been getting these random Cinnamon glitches on all my Mint 17 setups. I can restart cinnamon by opening another tty (e.g. CTRL + ALT + F2) and, after logging in as root, killall -9 cinnamon Any ideas?

[jonorthwash]

For me, the glitches are momentary. I'm not sure what triggers them, but video playback seems to make it last longer. Normally it's only a few hundred milliseconds every 5 or 6 seconds under a normal load. Everything freezes except the mouse cursor for that period. For instance, I can rapidly drag a window in a continuous circle, and when the freeze happens, my cursor continues in the circle while everything else on the screen is frozen. Alternatively, I can hold a key on the keyboard, and get a steady rate of input of that character, but when the glitch occurs, everything on the screen freezes. After a short pause, everything "catches up" to where it should be—i.e., the window "reattaches" to where the mouse cursor's new location, and the keystrokes that were not displayed appear all at once.

My guess would be that it has something to do with threading in the composite manager, or something similar...

[HerrDierk]

Same issue here. When Cinnamon freezes, the only icon I can click on is the menu. The menubar and others are frozen. I have to open a new program (mostly Firefox) and my desktop wakes up. I never had such a "problem" in my previous versions. But this makes it interesting, isn't it :-) I never have this with pushing Alt-Tab or any other button.

[mxa]

@mtwebster I am now using the nightly and my cinnamon is version 2.4.6-20150210040008-trusty. The freeze is still occurring sometimes, albeit not as often as before. When it is occurring I can still quit Cinnamon with Ctl+Alt+Backspace (loosing all open applications). That's a little bit more convenient then having to do a hardware reset.

[shirish87]

@mxa You can avoid losing all open applications by:

• Ctrl + Alt + F2
• Log in with your credentials
• Terminate all cinnamon processes killall -HUP cinnamon
• Come back to your desktop with Ctrl + Alt + F8

[mxa]

That is definitely not working. On coming back to F8 everything is still freezed, mouse still moves.

[wrouesnel]

I am experiencing this as well with current cinnamon nightlies (I update every morning). In my case it happened while I was switching desktops - the the windows got stuck mid-way in the slide animation.

Notably, the keyboard locked up for me to - the mouse still moved, but Ctrl+Alt+F1 F2 etc. would not switch TTYs.

[mtwebster]

@wrouesnel (or anyone else feeling adventurous) Do you have a second PC (or smartphone) you can ssh into the problem machine? If you can, you might be able to get a trace of where it freezes - see https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/wiki/How-to-use-GDB-to-gather-debug-information-on-a-program where it says "Debugging Cinnamon" - you'd basically let it run until you get a freeze, then ctrl-c on the ssh client and get a trace at that point.

Thanks

[cpitclaudel]

I have this problem too, or at least one that looks similar. The freezes seem to happen mostly when I open certain applications (Evince, qpdfview, and the archive manager mostly). In my case the freeze is only temporary, and most of the time using Alt-tab to change applications makes it stop. I'll try the nightly and report.

[jonorthwash]

For me the "freezes" are temporary as well (and fairly momentary most of the time). From all indications, it's only a display issue of some kind—everything keeps on running while it's frozen (and the cursor moves, but doesn't appear to interact with anything, though when the freeze ends it's clear that it did). The freezes get longer the more time I've had the X Session running for, and are longest with programs like evince and gvim (especially when there's a lot of text in the buffer).

[mvdberge]

@mtwebster I tried to debug cinnamon on a Debian Jessie (running cinnamon 2.2.16-5) via gdb. Unfortunately, this cause cinnamon to freeze again. The log file had no interesting information in it, here are the last lines:

Reading symbols from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_dns.so.2...Reading symbols from /usr/lib/debug//lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_dns-2.19.so...done.
done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_dns.so.2
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/ISO8859-1.so...Reading symbols from /usr/lib/debug//usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/ISO8859-1.so...done.
done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/ISO8859-1.so
0x00007fd13b7d350d in poll () at ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S:81
81 ../sysdeps/unix/syscall-template.S: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden.
A debugging session is active.

   Inferior 1 [process 16234] will be detached.

Quit anyway? (y or n) Detaching from program: /usr/bin/cinnamon, process 16234

[mtwebster]

@mvdb-christmann I should have mentioned - once gdb attaches to the process, cinnamon will freeze, and you have to "c" or "continue", and it should proceed normally (then you can try to reproduce the real issue, etc..)

[mvdberge]

@mtwebster Was able to reproduce the bug with active gdb debugging but the output says nothing interesting. Just some debug symbols loading and normally starting and exiting threads. So obviously, the cinnamon process is not the root of all evil... Any other ideas what could be the cause?

[mtwebster]

Well, not necessarily, cinnamon might just think it's doing anything wrong - when it freezes, do a ctr-c on the debugging terminal to break the process, then do a thread apply all bt - that'll spit out what all threads are doing (i'm guessing one of them is stuck waiting on something else) - after you've gotten the trace, you can 'c' to let cinnamon continue running. I'm curious what the traces show.

Thanks for helping out!

[mvdberge]

Just pasted the main output to pastebin: http://pastebin.com/rAkeRqNv

[mtwebster]

@mvdb-christmann You're still on Cinnamon 2.2 it looks like - this particular freeze has been fixed in 2.4.

[mtwebster]

Ah I see you did mention you were on 2.2 - sorry. Unfortunately, the fixes are not things we can backport (we completely updated cjs to a newer upstream, and refactored Cinnamon as well)

[mvdberge]

Huäääh... okay, let's see what debian maintainers will do... Thanks for helping me out!

[mtwebster]

@ EVERYONE....

There were huge changes between Cinnamon 2.2 and 2.4 with interaction between multiple packages - if you're experiencing freezing issues in 2.2, there's really nothing we can do - please upgrade to 2.4 (if possible) and see if your issue is resolved. These changes were done precisely because of a lot of these problems.

Of course with change comes new bugs - see https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/2946#issuecomment-76622190 for an easy-to-apply fix to try, or please try the Cinnamon Nightly PPA or build from source if that doesn't fix it (though drag-and-drop issue exists for everyone on Mint 17.1, it just depends on your use habits whether you encounter it or not).

I'll try to post up-to-date instructions on the wiki here later, on how to build from source (in debian systems) and in what order, etc..

Thanks

[jonorthwash]

I'm running straight from git (admittedly, it's been several weeks since I last pulled), and neither of those freezes describe what's happening for me. Should I open a new issue?

[mtwebster]

@jonorthwash I'd first try rebasing and re-building - just so our playing field is even. You can describe it here if you want.

The drag-and-drop bug could happen even if you're not intentionally dragging and dropping (It would happen to me 'accidentally' when clicking on window list items, and moving my mouse away too quickly, so it wasn't at first apparent what was causing it)

[Fantu]

Will 2.4.7 have the fixes included, right? About debian for now 2.4 packages are only in debian experimental (with cinnamon 2.4.6). 2.4 can't be uploaded to jessie now in freeze, cjs 2.4 and also needed changes in cinnamon for cjs and this problems are too big. I'll try to put 2.4 in jessie-backports when possible.

[matthijsmelissen]

I can confirm the freeze on alt-tab issue in Cinnamon 2.4.6.

Is there anything information I can provide to help resolving this issue?

[leigh123linux]

@mtwebster

My UI froze yesterday for about 30 seconds, this warning was in the logs could it be related to the freeze?

(nemo:1789): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_container_foreach: assertion 'GTK_IS_CONTAINER (container)' failed
Cjs-Message: JS LOG: Invalid or null source id used when attempting to run Mainloop.source_remove()
== Stack trace for context 0x24bbcc0 ==
overrideMainloop/Mainloop.source_remove@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/overrides.js:114
MessageTray.prototype._updateNotificationTimeout@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1732
MessageTray.prototype._onNotificationDestroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1521
_emit@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/signals.js:124
Notification.prototype._onDestroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1022
Notification.prototype.destroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1027
Source.prototype.destroyNonResidentNotifications@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1199
NotificationDaemon.prototype._onFocusAppChanged@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/notificationDaemon.js:532

Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05e85 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05e85 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05e82 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05e82 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05f37 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05f37 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05f34 already in stack
Window manager warning: Log level 16: STACK_OP_ADD: window 0x2a05f34 already in stack
Cjs-Message: JS LOG: Invalid or null source id used when attempting to run Mainloop.source_remove()
== Stack trace for context 0x24bbcc0 ==
overrideMainloop/Mainloop.source_remove@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/overrides.js:114
MessageTray.prototype._updateNotificationTimeout@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1732
MessageTray.prototype._onNotificationDestroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1521
_emit@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/signals.js:124
Notification.prototype._onDestroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1022
Notification.prototype.destroy@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1027
Source.prototype.destroyNonResidentNotifications@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/messageTray.js:1199
NotificationDaemon.prototype._onFocusAppChanged@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/notificationDaemon.js:532

[ProfKnowby]

Hello, I've been experiencing the same problem everyone else appears to be having. Does any of the following raise a red flag?

~ $ inxi -Fxz System: Host: colossus Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca Machine: System: Dell product: Vostro 1000 Mobo: Dell model: 0WY383 Bios: Dell version: 2.6.2 date: 10/17/2006 CPU: Single core Mobile AMD Sempron 3600+ (-UP-) cache: 256 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3) bmips: 1600.07 clocked at 800.00 MHz Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS482M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200] bus-ID: 01:05.0 X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1280x800@59.9hz GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on ATI RS480 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.1.0 Direct Rendering: Yes Audio: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-24-generic Network: Card-1: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX driver: b44 ver: 2.0 bus-ID: 08:00.0 IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: Card-2: Broadcom BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN driver: b43-pci-bridge bus-ID: 05:00.0 IF: wlan0 state: down mac: Drives: HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (23.6% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: FUJITSU_MHY2120B size: 120.0GB Partition: ID: / size: 109G used: 27G (26%) fs: ext4 ID: /boot size: 236M used: 44M (20%) fs: ext2 RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 57.0C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A Info: Processes: 146 Uptime: 34 min Memory: 474.1/873.7MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4

ClamTk, v5.15 Wed Mar 18 18:53:28 2015 ClamAV Signatures: 3772303

Found 5 possible threats (100490 files scanned).

/usr/lib/mono/4.5/mscorlib.dll PUA.Win32.Packer.PrivateExeProte-7
/usr/lib/mono/4.0/mscorlib.dll PUA.Win32.Packer.PrivateExeProte-7
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/drivers/i386/Broadcom4318_Dell1390/bcmwl5.sys PUA.Win32.Packer.PrivateExeProte-7
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/drivers/i386/WUSB54Gv4/rt2500usb.sys PUA.Win32.Packer.NspackDotnetNor-1
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/drivers/i386/Dell_bcmwl5/bcmwl5.sys PUA.Win32.Packer.PrivateExeProte-7

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided.

[cpitclaudel]

Running for about three weeks using nightly builds; the situation is much better; the freezes still happen after at least one suspend-resume cycle, and often when using a PDF reader (could it be something poppler does? This sounds weird)

[mxa]

Reliable freezes with Cinnamon 2.4.6-20150405040008-trusty nightly PPA and using scribus opening eps documents and copying & pasting them into other documents while playing back music with clementine. (heavy disk i/o). Moved to MATE, no freezes of the OS there while doing the same work.

[mtwebster]

@mxa Is it a permanent freeze? or momentary? I'm attempting to reproduce what you're describing.

Heavy text eps files? images? Is clementine playing local files?

Thanks

[mxa]

Longer then my patience, which is about a minute. EPS have text and images but are not very complex. Clementine plays local files.

Am 6. April 2015 03:03:45 GMT+09:00, schrieb Michael Webster notifications@github.com:

@mxa Is it a permanent freeze? or momentary? I'm attempting to reproduce what you're describing.

Heavy text eps files? images? Is clementine playing local files?

Thanks

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3275#issuecomment-89821794