[SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

jpark · 2022-02-04 15:17:47

The other day the desktop locked up..

I could move the mouse around, but couldn't control any windows, and nothing in the task bar worked.. couldn't click to exit anything etc..

So I did ctrl alt F1

Ran htop

and looked around at programs using a lot of memory , tried to kill a bunch of those

went back to desktop (ctrl alt F7) but still same thing

So went back and tried restarting the panel and xfce window manager

But kept getting an error saying something like cannot connect to the display...

I ended up just issuing "shutdown -r now" and restarting

So any advice or what should I do next time.. so I wouldn't have to restart and save what I'm doing..

hevidevi · 2022-02-04 15:54:09

try to debug using dmesg. you may be able to find the event in /var/log/syslog if you can remember the time/date it happened.

sounds like a kernel regression maybe.

jpark · 2022-02-04 16:12:09

hevidevi wrote:

try to debug using dmesg. you may be able to find the event in /var/log/syslog if you can remember the time/date it happened.
sounds like a kernel regression maybe.

Seems like around the time it locked up, there were these messages.
Maybe ran out of memory and it was shutting down chrome? And just wouldn't let me back to desktop ui?

Feb  3 12:47:11 user rtkit-daemon[2673]: Warning: Reached maximum concurrent process limit for user '1000', denying request.
Feb  3 12:47:11 user rtkit-daemon[2673]: Failed to look up client: Device or resource busy
Feb  3 13:06:54 user kernel: [1443046.597471] chrome invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x100cca(GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE), order=0, oom_score_adj=300
Feb  3 13:06:54 user kernel: [1443046.597478] CPU: 8 PID: 16803 Comm: chrome Not tainted 5.10.0-10-amd64 #1 Debian 5.10.84-1
Feb  3 13:06:54 user kernel: [1443046.597487]  dump_stack+0x6b/0x83

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-02-04 18:11:39

jpark wrote:

Feb  3 13:06:54 user kernel: [1443046.597471] chrome invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x100cca(GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE), order=0, oom_score_adj=300

Yup, looks like Chrome ate all the RAM. Next time drop to a TTY and use

pkill chrome

Or install earlyoom to kill it from user space before the kernel jumps in and messes things up. Linux really is shit at handling OOM events

EDIT: you do have swap, right? You need swap.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2022-02-04 18:30:41)

golinux · 2022-02-04 18:34:31

I have an xkill launcher in my xfce panel. Very helpful for misbehaving browsers

jpark · 2022-02-04 21:11:22

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

EDIT: you do have swap, right? You need swap.

Yeah it looked like it had been trying to do stuff with swap also later on

Maybe I should have waited awhile longer? I think I waited about 30 minutes as it was

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-02-04 21:25:23

I would have just

pkill X

Then logged in again.

jpark · 2022-02-05 02:00:49

golinux wrote:

I have an xkill launcher in my xfce panel. Very helpful for misbehaving browsers

Will xkill kill the panel / taskbar if you click on that ?

Not sure if I wanted to try because not sure how to get it back if it does.. lol

golinux · 2022-02-05 02:48:22

jpark wrote:

golinux wrote:
I have an xkill launcher in my xfce panel. Very helpful for misbehaving browsers
Will xkill kill the panel / taskbar if you click on that ?
Not sure if I wanted to try because not sure how to get it back if it does.. lol

In my experience, it won't destroy the panel even if you do accidentally click it! At least on jessie and earlier because I have accidentally clicked outside the intended target a few times. It does kill the browser when you click and on restart, the session has been saved and I am able to get right back to work. I just tested FF on a chimaera VM and it seems to remember where I left of without saving the session. IOW, it reloaded the pages automatically.

ruenoak · 2022-02-05 05:54:05

Interesting, I had a misbehaving browser today actually, Firefox + Youtube stream = misbehaving browser.
I never thought of adding xkill to the panel, that's a good Idea. Certainly faster than trying to open a terminal while Firefox slowly melts my laptop into the Earths core. I'm going to try this out right now.
Thanks!

golinux · 2022-02-05 06:12:37

Here's the old gnome xkill icon xkill It has disappeared from the search engines but I have been keeping it alive for a very long time in my icon collection. Enjoy!

ruenoak · 2022-02-05 07:58:56

Perfect! Thanks.

jpark · 2022-02-05 17:08:35

golinux wrote:

Here's the old gnome xkill icon https://dev1galaxy.org/files/gnome-panel-force-quit.png It has disappeared from the search engines but I have been keeping it alive for a very long time in my icon collection. Enjoy!

Awesome, thank you also !

JWM-Kit · 2022-02-05 17:35:27

I think you need to go back to Head_on_a_Stick's suggestion of using earlyoom. I see it as the real solution here. It will deal with the problem before the system freezes.

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#1 2022-02-04 15:17:47

[SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#2 2022-02-04 15:54:09

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#3 2022-02-04 16:12:09

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#4 2022-02-04 18:11:39

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#5 2022-02-04 18:34:31

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#6 2022-02-04 21:11:22

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#7 2022-02-04 21:25:23

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#8 2022-02-05 02:00:49

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#9 2022-02-05 02:48:22

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#10 2022-02-05 05:54:05

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#11 2022-02-05 06:12:37

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#12 2022-02-05 07:58:56

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#13 2022-02-05 17:08:35

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

#14 2022-02-05 17:35:27

Re: [SOLVED] Desktop locked up .. how to solve??

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