Hi guys,
I have installed Netrunner 17.01 a couple a days ago and I see a lot of KDE freezes. I can still switch to terminal (via Ctrl + Alt + F1-F6) so please advice me what commands should I use and which logs to look at when freeze occurs.
Previously I was using Debian 8 with KDE (version 4, I think) and it was much more stable.
My system is desktop with:
First of all right after a freeze in a tty check with dmesg if it isn’t a gpu lockup.
If it is like I fear it is a driver issue. Which driver do you use? Nouveau (the one included by default) or the proprietary nvidia driver?
Some issues regards freezing are solvable by swichting the OpenGL version the compositor uses in systemsettings.
Hi aversario,
yes. KDE4 probably was more mature, as it was still longer in development mode.
But its like comparing Gnome2 and Gnome3: While Plasma 5 nowadays reached feature parity while being much more modern, its not really comparable.
Or like WinXP vs. Windows7, where WinXP was a great system, but Windows7 or Win10 feel much more modern, and WinXP is more of a nostalgic past.
Since the world now is much more diverse, its probably a mix of components and one component not optimal for your setup, also Netrunner 17.03 with Plasma 5.9.3 could be solving the freeze issues for your setup.
I used plasma, but switched to LxQt (it’s great!) - but before I did, I ran this Bash script several times a day to restart Plasma:
#!/bin/bash
killall plasmashell #to stop it
kstart plasmashell #to restart itWithout that script, the only option was to restart the entire machine - because everything except the drop-down terminal (F12) was frozen.
I agree with Leszek, this sounds like your graphics driver is not playing nice with kwin’s compositor.
What NVidia GPU do you have?
What driver are you using with it (Nouveau or Nvidia)?
Is the on board Intel GPU disabled in the UEFI (BIOS)?
Thank you for all the replies.
My graphic card is Gigabyte GTS 250, or as the “About system” says:
OpenGL Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NV92
OpenGL Driver: Nouveau
Xorg-Server/Wayland: 1.19
Mesa3D: 13.0.2
I’ll try dmesg on next freeze and I think I don’t have the Intel GPU in my CPU.
I see this at the end of dmesg:
[15653.872184] perf: interrupt took too long (3988 > 3910), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50000
full dmesg attached
OK, it looks like my GTS 250 is running to hot, so I swapped it with GTX 260 I also have.
Now the “About system” says:
OpenGL Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NVA0
The problem still exist, KDE freezes a few times a day, without anything to see in dmesg.
The funny thing is that when it freezes, I go to tty (Ctrl + Alt + F1) and back to KDE (Ctrl + Alt + F7) and problem goes away.
This is something new:
[10806.267616] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nv84_xuc00f (-2)
[10806.267624] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for nouveau/nv84_xuc00f failed with error -2
[10806.267629] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: vp: unable to load firmware nouveau/nv84_xuc00f
[10806.267631] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: vp: init failed, -2
[10806.267660] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: firmware: failed to load nouveau/nv84_xuc103 (-2)
[10806.267664] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for nouveau/nv84_xuc103 failed with error -2
[10806.267667] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: bsp: unable to load firmware nouveau/nv84_xuc103
[10806.267669] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: bsp: init failed, -2
Beside KDE freezing I also see a lot of Chromium freezing alone, for example when I open tabs from the last session.
And no strange dmesg output this time. Can anyone suggest what logs should I also be looking?
I have switched to Netrunner 17.03 2 days ago and so far I haven’t noticed any freezes yet 
Good to hear! Might be new mesa/xorg/drivers related.