Cinnamon Lockups/Freezes

[chemikul30]

Don't use "sudo gedit" but "gksudo gedit". Because running a graphical application with "sudo" might mess up file permissions in your home folder.

Otherwise: what chemikul30 says might indeed help to troubleshoot the problem. First make a backup of /etc/default/grub though, that's safer and makes restoring the old situation easier.

Pjotr. I had no idea that sudo using a graphical app would affect permissions in my home folder...how exactly would it chmod anything in there and to what, dirs, files? I dont understand how they would affect each other. Can you explain?

[Pjotr]

Don't use "sudo gedit" but "gksudo gedit". Because running a graphical application with "sudo" might mess up file permissions in your home folder.

Otherwise: what chemikul30 says might indeed help to troubleshoot the problem. First make a backup of /etc/default/grub though, that's safer and makes restoring the old situation easier.

Pjotr. I had no idea that sudo using a graphical app would affect permissions in my home folder...how exactly would it chmod anything in there and to what, dirs, files? I dont understand how they would affect each other. Can you explain?

See this (under the header "Graphical sudo"):
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootS ... hical_sudo

[Cosmo.]

In short: If a program does store anything - not only by will of the user, but also something (like settings, history, ...) in the background - it reads the variable $USER to find the appropriate place. sudo does not change this variable and consequently saving happens inside the user's home, but as the program runs, if sudo is used, in the context of root, the respective files belong afterwards to root. Depending where and what gets written, all kinds of problems can arise - until the point, where you cannot log into your account.

gksudo does change the $USER variable and prevents by doing so the problem.

[bob12564]

Thanks for the troubleshooting information. I have some new clues: the original freezing problem has returned to the second machine - the HP Elite 8000 with onboard Intel graphics. It seems to happen when I'm scrolling in a web browser using the mouse wheel of the Logitech wireless mouse. I've tried Firefox and Chrome; it happens on both. When I was on 17.2, I tested with a generic wired USB mouse and the freezing also occurred. Using some tips from other posts, I've been able to alt+ctrl+F2 into a TTY session successfully. I've tried several commands I found to try to kill Cinnamon and restart it but they don't seem to have any effect. I'm fine as long as I stay in the TTY session but that doesn't help me because I need the GUI session. Upgrading to 17.3 introduced the occasional boot problem on top of this so now I have 2 problems, unless they're connected. I was convinced it was a problem with Cinnamon but now I'm not so sure. The freezes occurred with the 3.13, 3.16, and now the 3.19 kernel.

I've used Mint for a year having come from Ubuntu which I used since 2007. I'm comfortable with the GUIs but I'm ignorant of Linux internals so I appreciate the help. I'll see what I can do about the grub suggestions.

[Pjotr]

Disable hardware acceleration in both web browsers:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... d-Chromium
(item 17, right column)

[bob12564]

Pjotr, thanks for the tips and links. I disabled hardware acceleration in Firefox and I'll continue testing.

I continue to have the boot problem. I now have the suggested grub changes active and I am getting bootup messages. I don't know if these messages get saved to a log file, so I jotted down what I saw. I seem to get stuck at this message: "starting enable remaining boot-time encrypted block devices". After about a minute, another group of messages appears. The next line is "info: task kworker /u8:0:6 blocked for more than 120 seconds". This is followed by about a half dozen messages for other "u" objects. then the system hangs again. I don't know if it's dead at this point. I decided not to wait any longer and I hit the power button to force a hard reboot. It's interesting that the reboot always seems to be normal (so far).

I did some reading on the "boot-time encrypted" message and it seems to be a common problem and it has something to do with a corrupted fstab file, usually something to do with USB drives attached at boot time. I have 2 USB hard drives attached but they're not powered at bootup so they should be invisible to the boot process. I looked at the fstab file after I rebooted and I didn't see anything abnormal, just a reference to the ext4 portion of my hdd and another to the swap area, but I admit that this is over my head and I'm not sure what I should be seeing or if the file can actually change from the non-booting session to the reboot session. The fact that other messages eventually pop up might suggest that there's another problem.

If anyone has more things for me to test, I'll give it a try. Thanks to all.

[bob12564]

Just had another freeze when scrolling in Firefox. This time hardware acceleration was turned off. Same issue as before. Could this be related to the booting problem?

[Telinome]

I updated my office computer to 17.3, and I'm sad to announce that my freezing problem has returned. Since I fixed it in 17.2 by doing a kernel upgrade, I'm upgrading my kernel in increments to see if one of them solves my problem. I'll post again if it does.

Re: Logitech

My laptop, which now also runs 17.3, uses a Logitech wireless mouse and has never experienced this problem.

[AZgl1800]

I have 17.3 Cinnamon on my laptop, and it is also using a LogiTech Wireless mouse.
it has never locked up yet, and that is what impressed me with this version.

A GUI that is easy for a Windows user to deal with, and an OS that is clean and fast.


all of my problems getting Linux installed did not have anything to do with the OS, they were all BIOS Secure Boot problems.

[cogsncogs]

Thanks for the troubleshooting information. I have some new clues: the original freezing problem has returned to the second machine - the HP Elite 8000 with onboard Intel graphics. It seems to happen when I'm scrolling in a web browser using the mouse wheel of the Logitech wireless mouse. I've tried Firefox and Chrome; it happens on both. When I was on 17.2, I tested with a generic wired USB mouse and the freezing also occurred. Using some tips from other posts, I've been able to alt+ctrl+F2 into a TTY session successfully. I've tried several commands I found to try to kill Cinnamon and restart it but they don't seem to have any effect. I'm fine as long as I stay in the TTY session but that doesn't help me because I need the GUI session. Upgrading to 17.3 introduced the occasional boot problem on top of this so now I have 2 problems, unless they're connected. I was convinced it was a problem with Cinnamon but now I'm not so sure. The freezes occurred with the 3.13, 3.16, and now the 3.19 kernel.

I've used Mint for a year having come from Ubuntu which I used since 2007. I'm comfortable with the GUIs but I'm ignorant of Linux internals so I appreciate the help. I'll see what I can do about the grub suggestions.

Same symptoms here except Cinnamon boots fine. I get a hard freeze on both Cinnamon 17.2 and 17.3 when I use the wheel scroll on my Logitech USB mouse in Firefox 39, 40, 41, 42, 43. Hardware acceleration on/off makes no difference. When I restart Cinnamon, it's still stuck in a hard freeze. Same problem in Ubuntu 14.04 on the same machine, an eMachines EL1852G-52w with onboard Intel graphics. The cursor changes however, as I hover over links etc. No such problem with Linux Mint 17.2 KDE, Linux Mint 17.2 Xfce, Xubuntu, Peppermint OS6, Peach OS or Zorin 9, which I multiboot on the same machine. I did have Kubuntu 15.04 and I don't recall having the freeze problem with it.

After I done a LM Cinnamon in-place upgrade from 17.2 to 17.3 on the day it first became availible, the freezing problem went away until today when an update for mintsources 1.51 -> 1.52, then 5 minutes of browsing Facebook in Firefox, then bam, Cinnamon froze.

[tanstaaflnz]

Hi Bob12564
I also have this problem and suspected it was the mouse when using Firefox. My laptop is only about 18 months old but I have had this happening from new. the fault hasn't changed from 17.1, 17,2 and now 17.3. I've tried all the latest kernels 3.13 through to 4.2, and Cinnamon (now 2.8.6) with no improvement. My laptop is an Acer R14 R3-471.

I can fix mine each time with CTL+ALT+F1 ..F8, and I know the mouse (and touch screen) doesn't stop working because I can touch a spot on the screen before CTL+ALT... and the cursor is in that spot when the display comes back to life.
At the tty1 screen there is a message
[50753.628601] [drm:intel_pipe_config_compare [i915]] *ERROR* mismatch in ips_enabled (expected 1, found 0)
The numbers at the start increment by random amounts but the first part is sometimes the same, and a new line is generated for each screen freeze.

I hope this helps someone figure this out.
Cheers

I started getting freezes only after upgrading to Mint 17.2. It affects 2 machines with different motherboards and video controllers. I noticed that it happens when I'm in any web browser and using the mouse wheel to scroll. The only common link between the 2 machines is the Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse that I use on both machines by moving the unifying receiver from one machine to the other. That made me suspicious and I tried using a wired mouse for a few days and there were no freezes (so far). I then went back to the wireless mouse and I experienced a freeze within 5 minutes.

So far my working theory is that the Logitech wireless equipment is somehow at the center of my problem. I'm a newbie with Mint and not very technically knowledgeable with Linux, but maybe this can be another clue for the more skilled users into what is behind the freeze problem.

I'm using the recommended 3.16.0-38-greneric kernal. None of my equipment is new except for the Logitech keyboard and mouse and even they are a year old.

[idee]

I am new to Mint as well, but have been using linux since the mid '90s (SuSE, then openSuse). This mouse problem started showing up for me about 2 or 3 years ago. Specifically when using XFCE. That is when I looked around and found LXDE, which I love btw. My old distro has been giving me fits over the last two year, so from looking around and testing I found Ubuntu and then Mint (and LOVE it!).

All of that said, in my testing I have run across this problem quite often. It is still not a problem with LXDE (I tested Lubuntu, it was great, but couldn't get it to run multiple monitors), but it is in multiple DE's and distros. I have changed out multiple mouses. USB, PS/2 and USB wireless. The PS/2 runs with the fewest freezes, but it still does happen. Cinnamon showed more freezes than Mate, so I have landed with Mate. It is a clean install of 17.3.

Additional issues with the freeze have been when watching video on line, the clip periodically locks and does a Max Headroom effect, sound and video flickers and repeats. It also freezes the system periodically when using the mouse, selecting an object or dragging an object.

I am searching for that final fix. I ran across the following when testing Xubuntu. (I thought that was awesome until I tried Mint. OK, its a close second, lol). https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... omments/17 The answer he presents is adding a kernel boot parameter. "processor.max_cstate=1" I haven't tested it yet, but will once I get a few setting finalized.

Glad to have found a new linux home, hoping to get this solved soon.

[idee]

Interesting additional find. When I had only one monitor, the mouse did not freeze. As soon as I set up the other two monitors, the freeze started immediately.

Correction on this. If the two monitors are running from the same card, in my case a NVIDIA G86 [Quadro NVS 290], there is no freeze. But when I activate the second card, a NVIDIA GT216 [GeForce GT 220], the freezes kick in.

Using the Driver Manager, the recommended drivers for the Nvidia cards is the nvidia-340. I assume it is safe, but wanted to check with the gurus first. The installation is using the nouveau driver.


Any help?

[bob12564]

I tried a fresh install of 17.3 and also had a freeze. I'm now testing a fresh install of 17.3 Mate which some people claim is more stable than Cinnamon. My original problem was on 2 machines, each with different video cards but same Logitech mouse. I also tried a wired USB mouse and also had a freeze. There are several threads on the Mint forums relating to freezes. Some people are thinking it's video related, some seem to think it's kernel related. We may all have the same problem but are chasing down different paths. Misery loves company, I guess, and it's interesting that I'm not the only one with the problem.

I also have a boot problem on one machine (Intel graphics) using 2 different 3.19 kernels. The boot stops when the Mint logo is first displayed. One or 2 hard reboots eventually fixes it. The clean install didn't help. Another problem, to be sure, but I wonder if all these problems are somehow connected.

[peterling]

@Telinome
Have you tried just waiting 3 to 5 min? My system is then back again fine after this time.

@bob12564
Can you still move the mouse while the system freezes? Are you still hearing music / listen to video while the system freezes?

Have you both got an SSD inside?

[happnatious1]

I wanted to try Mint 18 so I loaded it on a VMware esxi 6.5 virtual machine and it's locking up there as well. Looks like a nice operating system, too bad it doesn't work. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig.

[WharfRat]

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