Cinnamon 4.6.7 on Mint 20 repeatedly crashing when idle

[JamiePhonic]

 * Cinnamon version 4.6.7
   - Using the daily builds PPA: No
 * Distribution - Mint 20
 * All other relevant system info here: https://termbin.com/mtp3
 * Attach /home/<username>/.xsession-errors: https://termbin.com/0aaiw

Issue Cinnamon appears to be crashing somewhat randomly without any obvious cause, mainly when the system is idle. All power saving features are DISABLED (Screensaver disabled, sleep never)

Steps to reproduce Unknown at this time

Expected behaviour

Other information Full stack trace output: https://termbin.com/hhra (Full Core Dump available if required.)

Configuration info, if applicable Unknown if the issue relates to an Applet, Desklet or Extension

[Tater-K7S5A]

System: Kernel: 5.4.0-58-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.6.7 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20 Ulyana base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal

I, too, have been having occasional random crashes since first installing LM20 Cinnamon in July.

My PC is always on, no hibernation or sleep. I come back to the computer to find it in "fallback mode" usually, but not always, with the "Cinnamon is running in fallback mode. Do you wish to restart Cinnamon?" dialog.

I suspected spices update as being the source of the instability, but disabling it's auto check and other settings has not changed the behavior as far as I can see.

I have about 20 crash reports that I have kept. Here is the most recent (Three hours ago). I am over my head in trying to parse the reports. I am more than happy to upload all of them if needed.

Crash_12-17-20.txt

[JamiePhonic]

@Tater-K7S5A

Random question.... Are you using Powerline (powerline-status, installed via PIP) in your shell? It was the only thing i could think of that i had changed before i started getting these crashes. After removing it and the fonts-powerline package and resetting my fonts to default, i havn't had a crash in the past 24 hours. I'll update this issue again in a few days if that streak holds... (or if it doesn't)

[mtwebster]

Hi, to provide a sort of control for figuring this out, can you try to create a new user (leaving cinnamon's settings and applets at their defaults) to see if it occurs there. I'm curious if there's some issue in a 3rd party applet or extension that may be causing this.

Also, try different themes as well (Desktop themes) - if you're using a 3rd party one, try the default cinnamon or one of the mint ones.

Thanks

[JamiePhonic]

@Tater-K7S5A

Random question.... Are you using Powerline (powerline-status, installed via PIP) in your shell? It was the only thing i could think of that i had changed before i started getting these crashes. After removing it and the fonts-powerline package and resetting my fonts to default, i havn't had a crash in the past 24 hours. I'll update this issue again in a few days if that streak holds... (or if it doesn't)

Since removing Powerline-Status from my system, the associated fonts-powerline package and restoring my fonts back to their defaults, i have not experienced any further Cinnamon crashes at all in the past 3 days. I changed nothing else except removing those 2 things and re-setting my system fonts. I didn't even reboot my system!

It would still be good to know which of these causes Cinnamon to crash. (and why)

• Using Powerline Status
• Using fonts from the fonts-powerline package

Update 23/12/2020: now up to 5 days

[icarter09]

@JamiePhonic glad to hear that your system is no longer crashing. Are you able to add back those frameworks separately to see if either causes? Thanks.

[Tater-K7S5A]

@Tater-K7S5A

Random question.... Are you using Powerline (powerline-status, installed via PIP) in your shell? It was the only thing i could think of that i had changed before i started getting these crashes. After removing it and the fonts-powerline package and resetting my fonts to default, i havn't had a crash in the past 24 hours. I'll update this issue again in a few days if that streak holds... (or if it doesn't)

I'm sorry for flaking on you. Long days and all that.

I am not running Powerline. I was running "Spices Update" which I have removed. I haven't had a Cinnamon crash since. That was 12/20/20. I will continue to monitor and see what happens.

[JamiePhonic]

@Tater-K7S5A Random question.... Are you using Powerline (powerline-status, installed via PIP) in your shell? It was the only thing i could think of that i had changed before i started getting these crashes. After removing it and the fonts-powerline package and resetting my fonts to default, i havn't had a crash in the past 24 hours. I'll update this issue again in a few days if that streak holds... (or if it doesn't)

I'm sorry for flaking on you. Long days and all that.

I am not running Powerline. I was running "Spices Update" which I have removed. I haven't had a Cinnamon crash since. That was 12/20/20. I will continue to monitor and see what happens.

Strange, i'm using Spices Update without a problem...

@JamiePhonic glad to hear that your system is no longer crashing. Are you able to add back those frameworks separately to see if either causes? Thanks.

I'll try installing the fonts first since thats the most likely cause in my mind. The powerline fonts include additional unicode characters used by powerline-status to display symbols in the terminal. Maybe those extra symbols are confusing Cinnamon, causing it to crash?

[JamiePhonic]

@JamiePhonic glad to hear that your system is no longer crashing. Are you able to add back those frameworks separately to see if either causes? Thanks.

I've tested re-installing these packages (Fonts-Powerline and Powerline-Status)

It seems that having them installed does not cause the crashes, however they start occuring when Powerline-Status is actually enabled in the shell.

To re-create the issue, install fonts-powerline from apt then install powerline-status using pip3 install --user powerline-status and finally add the following block to the end of the $HOME/.bashrc file:

if [ -f $HOME/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/powerline/bindings/bash/powerline.sh ]; >
    $HOME/.local/bin/powerline-daemon -q
    POWERLINE_BASH_CONTINUATION=1
    POWERLINE_BASH_SELECT=1
    source $HOME/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/powerline/bindings/bash/powerline.sh
fi

[hedi-sel]

I have the same issue with Mint 19.3 and Cinnamon 4.4.8 If I leave my laptop idle for a few hours, it sometimes crashes