Cinnamon crashes..

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boloog

Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

Hi Guys,

I am experiencing cinnamon crashes on a regular base, say once a week.
It happens after switching users. I don't log off but switch user to another account. Then, when i come back to my account and i want to start a program (in case of the screen shot, firefox) the desktop becomes non responsive.
In the taskbar i get "little wheels" on programs that i try to start. Not everything freezes. The mouse is still working and i can start a virtual terminal. Alt-F2 doesn't work, so i can't start xkill.
Cntrl-alt-backspace doens't work either, and the shutdown or restart command in the gui doesn't do anything.
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The only way to get around is to start a virtual terminal and use killall -g cinnamon.
Linux mint 17.1, cinnamon Kernel 3.13.0-44.
I updated the kernel from default 3.13.0-37 to 3.13.0-44 after i installed linux. Can this be the cause?

Thanks,
Richard

Edit 15-03-22:23
In the update manager there is a newer xorg-server (2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2.7) available.Its is a level 4 update. Could this make a difference or will it do more harm then good?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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Pjotr
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Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by Pjotr »

Not a direct answer, but it's better to avoid "user switch" altogether. I always log off as user 1 and log back in as user 2.

"User switch" has the disadvantage that user session 1 remains active and therefore still uses system resources, when you're in user session 2. Then you don't have the full system power available.
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boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

Pjotr wrote:Not a direct answer, but it's better to avoid "user switch" altogether. I always log off as user 1 and log back in as user 2.

"User switch" has the disadvantage that user session 1 remains active and therefore still uses system resources, when you're in user session 2. Then you don't have the full system power available.
Thanks for your answer.

I am switching from windows 7 to linux for a few reasons (security, updates for everything in one go, cinnamon relaxing looks) but in windows i also got used to switch to another user without logging off. The I5 2500k with 8Gigs of ram that i use still has more then enough steam to leave plenty applications open. I want to leave open what i am working on and then let my son do his things. When he is done, just switch back and proceed.
Windows 7 never ever let me down on stability and the only times i had blue screens or freezes were during overclock experiments. Since linux claims to be so stable i expect to be able to do the switching just like on windows 7.
On the other side, i don't think it is a linux problem but more a cinnamon problem. It could be cinnamon is not as stable as i hoped it would be..

Richard.
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

This is still an issue. Is there nobody else with this problem?
When switching user without log-off, and then coming back to the user, lots of time cinnamon becomes non-responsive. The start menu still works but windows won't open or close. I have to kill cinnamon from a virtual terminal.

Is this a bug? This happens multiple times a week.
Should i re-install linux, should i change to mate or xfce?

thanks,
Richard.
glacian79

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by glacian79 »

Same problem here. Excellent description.
Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
X.Org X Server 1.15.1 Release Date: 2014-04-13

I have no idea how to fix it unfortunately ..

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Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by Pjotr »

In this case you might try if the level 4 and 5 updates can be of help. Make them all visible first, in the settings of Update Manager (by default, only the security updates for those levels are visible). Afterwards, reboot.

When that doesn't help, you might enable the software source Romeo and install the test versions of the updates for Cinnamon 2.4 that it contains. Afterwards, disable Romeo again and reboot.
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Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by karlchen »

Pjotr wrote:When that doesn't help, you might enable the software source Romeo and install the test versions of the updates for Cinnamon 2.4 that it contains. Afterwards, disable Romeo again and reboot.
At this point in time I doubt that the Rebecca Romeo repo holds anything for Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon that the Linux Mint Update Manager will not bring to you from the normal repo anyway:
Cinnamon 2.4.7 has just been released. My "Rebecca" pulled it from the normal repos only yesterday.
Cannot give any valid forecast whether updating Cinnamon 2.4.6 to 2.4.7 will help the situation for the OP, though.
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Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by Pjotr »

karlchen wrote:
Pjotr wrote:When that doesn't help, you might enable the software source Romeo and install the test versions of the updates for Cinnamon 2.4 that it contains. Afterwards, disable Romeo again and reboot.
At this point in time I doubt that the Rebecca Romeo repo holds anything for Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon that the Linux Mint Update Manager will not bring to you from the normal repo anyway:
Cinnamon 2.4.7 has just been released. My "Rebecca" pulled it from the normal repos only yesterday.
Cannot give any valid forecast whether updating Cinnamon 2.4.6 to 2.4.7 will help the situation for the OP, though.
Thanks for this information... :P

I had installed those updates from Romeo myself, and I wrongly presumed that they still wouldn't be in the normal updates.
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boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

I saw cinnamon 2.4.7 today during updates. Let's wait and see if this solves the problem..
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes....sort of...not completely

Post by boloog »

boloog wrote:I saw cinnamon 2.4.7 today during updates. Let's wait and see if this solves the problem..
Too bad, it happened again. With one difference. This time i was able to log out using the startmenu so didn't have to kill cinnamon from a virtual terminal.
Edit...And again, this time had to kill cinnamon.
Just installed level4 updates. Wait and see what happens..
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

Level 4 update didn't help.
There's one level 5 update is named "base files" (This package contains the basic filesystem hierarchy of a Debian system, and several important miscellaneous files, such as /etc/debian_version, /etc/host.conf, /etc/issue, /etc/motd, /etc/profile, and others, and the text of several common licenses in use on Debian systems.) I'am afraid thse level 5 updates will bring me trouble in stead of solutions..
MagicMint

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by MagicMint »

boloog wrote:I am experiencing cinnamon crashes on a regular base, say once a week.
It happens after switching users. I don't log off but switch user to another account. Then, when i come back to my account and i want to start a program (in case of the screen shot, firefox) the desktop becomes non responsive.

Alt-F2 doesn't work, so i can't start xkill …
It’s better to assign xkill directly to a key, e.g. Super (the Windows key) + Escape. But even then, this would hardly be of help to you, as the user interface has no time to respond in a decent manner.

Do you have file manager windows open when you switch to the other user? There is an issue of a memory leak in nemo which isn’t resolved yet but could lead to the behavior you’re describing. In my experience, that bug manifests itself unexpectedly when something is opened from a folder in nemo. After it has been triggered, nemo will eat up system memory which you won’t even notice until parts of the interface must be redrawn, and there is neither time nor resources to do so :x

This can only be stopped when the file manager is killed, that’s why Pjotr’s recommendation to log out and back into the other session is much more likely to work (apart from the old session being lost :( ).
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

I did a complete Linux mint re-install and I haven’t seen the problem since. I will do some more testing.
Reason I did the re-install is that I have been playing around a lot with this installation. Installed and removed lots of software, even installed xfce alongside cinnamon, and removed again. Maybe I broke something in the process.

Richard.
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

MagicMint wrote:
boloog wrote:I am experiencing cinnamon crashes on a regular base, say once a week.
It happens after switching users. I don't log off but switch user to another account. Then, when i come back to my account and i want to start a program (in case of the screen shot, firefox) the desktop becomes non responsive.

Alt-F2 doesn't work, so i can't start xkill …
It’s better to assign xkill directly to a key, e.g. Super (the Windows key) + Escape. But even then, this would hardly be of help to you, as the user interface has no time to respond in a decent manner.

Do you have file manager windows open when you switch to the other user? There is an issue of a memory leak in nemo which isn’t resolved yet but could lead to the behavior you’re describing. In my experience, that bug manifests itself unexpectedly when something is opened from a folder in nemo. After it has been triggered, nemo will eat up system memory which you won’t even notice until parts of the interface must be redrawn, and there is neither time nor resources to do so :x

This can only be stopped when the file manager is killed, that’s why Pjotr’s recommendation to log out and back into the other session is much more likely to work (apart from the old session being lost :( ).
It happened without nemo being open...
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

Aftermy linux mint re-install I was problem free upto today. Same issue again, and needed to kill cinnamon in a virtual terminal.
Also today, i installed the photo organizer "shotwell". Lately I also installed video editing software kdenlive together with the kde runtime environment and openshot..
I removed shotwell today using apt-get purge shotwell, to see if it helps.
I'll keep you informed.
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

After removing shotwell issue seems to be resolved. Shotwell bug??
Update: :evil: This was too early. Happened again. Thinking about returning to windows :(
Nili

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by Nili »

boloog wrote:After removing shotwell issue seems to be resolved. Shotwell bug??
Update: :evil: This was too early. Happened again. Thinking about returning to windows :(
It is not the ideal choice to return back on Win, like you, in a similar situation i've been as well years ago. Cinnamon bore the hell of me with crash and replacing it every hour or day. Finally realized that i must see something else desktop environment (DE). And after many tests made the right choice. So I escaped without turning on Windows back. Linux It is full of alternatives, one better than another. View, Search, Try and Keep.

Kindly regards,
Nili
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

I know what you mean.
I am testing some alternatives in virtualbox. Seriously thinking about mate now. I like the search window in the mate start menu that gives the option to search on the computer, wikipedia google or even packages. Why don't we see something like that in cinnamon? I like the cinnamon look and feel, but maybe mate is more reliable with its gnome 2 roots.
Having said that, i can't live without windows anyway, cause i need it for video editing. I am using cyberlink powerdirector and it is superiour to openshot or kdenlive or whatever for linux available editor. Rendering video using the quicksync capability of my I5 cpu, damn its fast...
boloog

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by boloog »

Nili wrote:
boloog wrote:After removing shotwell issue seems to be resolved. Shotwell bug??
Update: :evil: This was too early. Happened again. Thinking about returning to windows :(
It is not the ideal choice to return back on Win, like you, in a similar situation i've been as well years ago. Cinnamon bore the hell of me with crash and replacing it every hour or day. Finally realized that i must see something else desktop environment (DE). And after many tests made the right choice. So I escaped without turning on Windows back. Linux It is full of alternatives, one better than another. View, Search, Try and Keep.

Kindly regards,
Nili
By the way. What choice did you make??
Nili

Re: Cinnamon crashes..

Post by Nili »

boloog wrote:I know what you mean.
I am testing some alternatives in virtualbox. Seriously thinking about mate now. I like the search window in the mate start menu that gives the option to search on the computer, wikipedia google or even packages. Why don't we see something like that in cinnamon? I like the cinnamon look and feel, but maybe mate is more reliable with its gnome 2 roots.
Having said that, i can't live without windows anyway, cause i need it for video editing. I am using cyberlink powerdirector and it is superiour to openshot or kdenlive or whatever for linux available editor. Rendering video using the quicksync capability of my I5 cpu, damn its fast...
That's the good job doing test with Virtualbox is the simplest and most practical where we can learn new Linux features or from our mistakes :)
Regarding searching through start menu, perhaps cinnamon dev's seen it necessary to be used separately and out of menus?

I for myself, i am searching from "SpaceFM filemanger" that has incorporated search within. I liked cinnamon too, but i can't use on my old desktop.
You know we may use both Win and Linux chosing on boot so why not use both anyway i stoped with Windows fully, Linux serve me better 8) I never edit video stuff because: of unacceptable parameters. I'd like to catch/watch Raw videos and images without editing since my pc won't let me :) i5 is just great, explore and play with it as much you can.

As for question "By the way. What choice did you make??"
Since my computer is 7 years old, first i moved to a lighter distro, then lighter applications, non big DE, ie tiling window (openbox, fluxbox, i3, xmonad, awesome, dwm etc) I used some of them, yes they're very light and rarely for say never crash. But since you're using newest computer it's better not tweaking to the deeply. Or if you want tweak via Virtualbox just for learn.

My suggestion for you is Use Mate because it is more stable than Cinnamon.

Enjoy your Linux adventure,
Kindly Regards,

Nili
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