Graphical User Interfaces Freezes Randomly

Support GNOME
1

Hi there!

I am observing random freezes of my GUI, which means I cannot move my cursor.

Usually it resolves itself after a few seconds. It happens mostly on high system load. Also some specific applications cause this. For example the CISCO AnyConnect VPN Client.

It also happens independent from the Kernel Version used.

journalctl --boot -1 --priority=err shows for me:

Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.GP17.MP2], A>
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.GPIO._EVT due to previous error (AE_NO>
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0001
Sep 17 18:41:31 florian-manjaro kernel: amd_gpio AMDI0030:00: Invalid config param 0014
Sep 17 18:41:33 florian-manjaro kernel: iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: WRT: Invalid buffer destination
Sep 17 18:41:34 florian-manjaro systemd[1]: Failed to start Service to inject keycodes without the GUI applicat>
Sep 17 18:41:34 florian-manjaro kernel: iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: WRT: Invalid buffer destination

I do not think my system is just too weak. I am using Manjaro with GNOME with this setup:

 ██████████████████  ████████     florian-manjaro
 ██████████████████  ████████     OS: Manjaro 23.0.2 Uranos
 ██████████████████  ████████     Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.5.3-1-MANJARO
 ██████████████████  ████████     Uptime: 59m
 ████████            ████████     Packages: 1920
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Shell: zsh 5.9
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Resolution: 1920x1080
 ████████  ████████  ████████     DE: GNOME 44.4
 ████████  ████████  ████████     WM: Mutter
 ████████  ████████  ████████     WM Theme: CustomAccentColors
 ████████  ████████  ████████     GTK Theme: Adw-dark [GTK2/3]
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Icon Theme: Papirus-Dark-Maia
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Font: Noto Sans 11
 ████████  ████████  ████████     Disk: 585G / 932G (67%)
                                  CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics @ 16x 4.68GHz
                                  GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (renoir, LLVM 16.0.6, DRM 3.54, 6.5.3-1-MANJARO)
                                  RAM: 15379505152-
2

This is perfectly normal behavior, although you may want to investigate what causes the high system load. Best use the GNOME System Monitor, or htop, which runs in a terminal window.

3

How can it be perfectly normal behaviour that the whole screen blocks ? Are you sure that this is normal for several seconds ?

Also happens at not so high system load thought.

4

If the CPU cannot handle the load — read: it’s a local denial of service — then how do you expect anything visual to continue getting updated?

Furthermore, heavy I/O is always blocking, so what you need to investigate is which process is hogging your CPU that hard.

5

Okay now I get what you are talking about.

I do not talk about situations of absolute CPU stress. It happens also at situations where the CPU usage is about 70% or even at situations < 10% e.G. Initilazing a VPN Session. Update some packages etc.
I do not think it is caused by a single app as this happens in various situation.
Usually I have htop open most of the time already in order to monitor this :wink:

Of course I am aware that maxing out can cause freezes.

6

Are you on X11 or on Wayland?

1 Like
7

I am a wayland user. X11 causes even more trouble for me. Especially in terms of freezing.

1 Like
8

And are you using the stock mesa or the mesa-nonfree package?

1 Like
9

I am using the free mesa stock drivers :slight_smile:

1 Like
10

Well, you could try the mesa-nonfree drivers instead then. The instructions are at the page itself. (It’s maintained by the community, so it’s not malware.)

1 Like
11

Will give it a shot! Thank you very much so far :slight_smile:

What I also observed is that the gnome-shell process demands up to 30 / 40 % CPU if the freeze happens. Maybe it also comes from that side ?

1 Like
12

It is possible, yes. There’s something peculiar going on with AMD graphics nowadays, which requires the use of non-free codecs.

I don’t know the finer details, because I’m on Intel graphics myself, and Intel does not have this issue. Nor does Nvidia for that matter if one uses the proprietary driver, but yeah, then there are other issues… :confused:

1 Like
13

Well I thought AMD made the drivers all open source at some point, but I might be wrong

1 Like
14

The drivers are, yes. But they require codecs which are now no longer free — at least, for trouble-free operation, they do.

1 Like
15

Sound like a perfectly muddled situation.

Honestly I am not sure if I want to add a 3rd party repo with the nonfree mesa implementation.

1 Like
16

Well, the Manjaro community decided to do it this way for legal reasons. The codecs used to be included by default, but then we received word from lawyers that this was a potential issue, given that Manjaro also has a commercial branch.

1 Like
17

This might be caused by a extension, do the freezes happen with extensions disabled?

Edit: Extensions can have significant impact on the way the shell works and can cause the shell to become unresponsive.

2 Likes
18

Hey I think we are on a hot lead here.
Deactivated evrything, updated it and activated only the necessary and updated those.
Looks promising so far :slight_smile:

19

try 6.1-lts kernel.

I’m using arch + gnome, and it started to freeze a lot after 6.5 kernel, like when changing focus to another windows, etc…

Probably caused by amd p-state epp driver which is default now, but not sure.

20

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