9.10 freezes

[naptaker]

Hello,

First of all sorry for the title, but I really don't know how to name this problem/behaviour...

I've installed Ubuntu 9.10 from a CD and cannot really use it. It freezes after logging in (before the desktop shows) or I'm allowed to log in, but doing something more complicated than running a terminal or minesweeper (ie. Firefox or brasero do the trick) freezes the system.

The cursor stops, nothing can be done except turning the computer down "the hard way". I don't even know how to diagnose it. The only thing I've noticed is that it happens only when running Gnome session. If i run xterm or Failsafe Gnome everything is allright (I think).

The whole thing happens on a Dell D600 laptop. Jaunty worked fine. I have only a swap partition and one big ext4.

Anyone knows what could be the cause and/or how to deal with it?

[agniruc]

I had the same problem with 9.04. There was a lot of discussion about what could be causing it, but no solution worked for me (what made me downgrade to intrepid).

The thread about this problem (actually, about many diferent problems which were vaguely called "freezes") in Jaunty is
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1135055
please, report back if you find any solution.

I'll probably test Karmic this weekend.

[naptaker]

Thank for the link, started reading it, but it's gonna take a while - 72 pages ;)

Anyway Jaunty worked perfectly on my machine and - at least so far - problems mentioned in that thread are slightly different. Anyway I'll continue reading and trying to do something.
Perhaps it's connected with the difference between Gnome and Failsafe Gnome? The second one works fine, but in "regular" Gnome the perfect way to make a freeze is to try to run Firefox... I don't even have any idea how to diagnose this case :(

[jfernyhough]

Just had this problem on a Vostro with Intel graphics. It looks like it was down to Compiz and the Intel driver - when running Metacity the problem doesn't appear.

I think I've fixed Compiz by disabling Blur (and texture compression; I disabled both and didn't check which one in particular fixed it) using compiz-config.

(Just as a note nomodeset didn't make any difference).

[Kazur]

I have the same freeze problem, and I am not running Compiz. Also, my mouse lags when pressing keys on the keyboard. Upgraded to 9.10 today.

[naptaker]

I think that compiz might be the solution for my case. Actually I didn't even know, that it was there by default (and apparently it is so), I don't even know how to run or stop it here, but I just runned synaptic in Failsafe Gnome and removed all packages which responded for the "compiz" search, restarted and now I'm running "regular" Gnome and so far it's okay.
Hope that's it ;)
But... on Jaunty I once gave compiz a try and installed it, configured some effects and it worked fine. Of course on my Dell D600 it doesn't work fast, so I resigned, but it did not crash.

[agniruc]

UPDATE ABOUT POST #2

Hello,
I installed 9.10 yesterday and it worked perfectly, without any freeze so far.
Looks like my old problem with Jaunty is unrelated with this one.

[userid]

I'm also experiencing this after fresh install from 8.10 -> 9.10, as described here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1276146) and here (http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8104791)..

It's a bit mysterious and really annoying..

[aeronutt]

I have 9.10 loaded on a separate disk partition, and it freezes irregularly somewhere prior to the log in screen, requiring a hard re-boot. Still using 9.04 most of the time.

[Wiz1005]

Same problem here on D600. 9.1 installs and boots fine and can get wireless connected. All other applications freeze on launch. Only solution i have found is to reboot and downgrade to 9.04.

[yanike]

The graphic effects are causing the freezes for many. Turn them off and Ubuntu won't freeze.

[apirec]

That did in fact stop the freezes on my IBM T41 with a radeon 9000 mobility.
But it still is horribly slow compared to 9.04...

[wasko]

I've had this problem going from a fresh install; it seems that whenever a tooltip begins to pop up, everything freezes and I need to turn off the computer manually.

[Sobhy]

I upgraded my Dell 5100 from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.10 and when I boot up it gets to the main page, but when I try to open any programs from that page, it freezes up and have to do a hard reboot. If I bring it up in Safe Mode, it works great. Any suggestions on a fix. Thanks

[rasa23]

This worked for me:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTartler/X/RevertingIntelDriverTo2.4

I also disabled Compiz entirely: sudo chmod a-x /usr/bin/compiz but went back in after doing the above and reenabled it, and with the 2.4 driver I'm freeze-free.

[tehsi]

I'm getting system freezes on two quite different machines, each running ubuntu 9.10. Ubuntu 9.04 ran without problems on both machines.

Each machine hangs completely, and will not even respond to pings. There is no apparent disk activity. The only solution is to hard reboot.

Machine 1: mythbuntu 9.10, AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 2GB RAM.

Machine 2: ubuntu 9.10 server, Intel Celeron 2GHz, 512MB RAM.

The freezes seem to generally occur after about 20--30 minutes of system uptime.

The totally different specifications and usage patterns of the two machines would appear to suggest that this is an issue of core system instability, rather than an application bug.

I'm reluctantly contemplating downgrading, because these two machines have become completely unusable under Karmic.

[nuncio.bitis]

I've been reading a lot about people's computers freezing up after the upgrade to 9.10
I haave the same problem - the upgrade happened, restarted the computer, then locked up with the Caps Lock flashing just as it was about to show the Ubuntu splash screen on startup.
The fix is to reinstall 9.04 as there is something wrong with 9.10
Wait for 9.11 for the problem to be fixed.

[wknight8111]

I'm having very similar problems (random freezing, needing to hard reboot) since I upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10. I even opened a bug report on Launchpad for the issue and haven't gotten so much as a confirmation that anybody has read it, much less any kind of solution.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/486300

It freezes randomly. Sometimes I am actively using the computer, sometimes it is sitting. Sometimes it freezes during bootup, or during login. Sometimes I can use it for several hours with no problems. I've had it freeze under periods of both heavy and light activity. I've been absolutely unable to pinpoint any kind of particular cause.

With no fix on the horizon, I'm looking at trying a fresh install. However, I don't know what distro I'm going to use for it. Do I roll the dice and hope that a fresh 9.10 install would fix my problems, do I downgrade to 9.04, or do I switch to a different distro entirely? Do I maybe wait out the storm for a few more days, in hopes that some magical and yet-undisclosed fix will find it's way to me?

[Norwal]

I just upgraded from 8.04 to 9.10, through Update Manager, and the freezing began immediately. My computer would lock up after two or three minutes of use and a hard boot was the only solution. After finding this thread, I removed Compiz with Synaptic and have been running stable ever since. Looks like Compiz is the culprit me. I had it turn off with 8.04, so the default is on with 9.10. Recommend making sure it is off by removal with Synaptic.

[Norwal]

I followed the advice of this thread, and uninstalled Compiz. This worked for the rest of the day but this morning it started freezing again. I went back into Synaptic and got rid of Compiz-Plugins, -Wrapper, and -Core as well. I have been stable since then, but I guess tomorrow will be the true judge.



Thanks

[Norwal]

Well it turns out that Compiz was not the culprit after all. I turn off the computer for a couple of hours and now I'm on reboot number 7.

[jtpoole99]

Recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 on an ACER Aspire 5610. The system will work fine for a few minutes and then it'll just freeze up on it's own after launching Evolution. This normally happens when Evolution is running. I thought it was a video driver issue, but the freezes normally happen when Evolution is running and trying to download mail. Is there a bug in Evolution to causes these freezes?

[tehsi]

Given that this issue is afflicting one of my machines running ubuntu 9.10 server, I don't believe that the problem is graphics-related.

[Zlobomir]

Hello,

After having several such freezes as the described, now I had the patience to launch System Monitor. Some g*-metadata process (forgot the exact name) was using 98% CPU. After I killed it, all went back to normal.

Edit: gvfsd-metadata in usr/bin/gvfs So probaly a commonly and GNOMonly instaeed appy?

[tehsi]

Well, a bug in /usr/bin/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata can't be causing my freezes --- GNOME isn't installed on my ubuntu 9.10 server machine.

[manoman67]

I had this problem since I upgraded my old D600 to 9.10.
I changed to xubuntu, that has worked.
After reading this thread I uninstalled compiz - now ubuntu desktop is fine again. Thanks all!

[unpossible]

Not sure if this will address everyone's issue, but this worked for me. Ubuntu was freezing right after login, except using failsafe gnome. Renaming the ~/.gnome2 folder was my fix.

Only Failsafe Gnome Works (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=553442)

[V,E.Day]

I have been reading a lot of stuff on the Internet about Ubuntu Karamel Kaola 9.10 freezing for no apparent reason. Its a real pain for me because it happens regularly and when it happens I have to climb all the way under the desk and pull out the power lead that goes into the back of the machine as the keyboard and mouse both become completely unresponsive and the design of the On Switch on the front of my machine means it won't switch off from the front of the machine. I'm getting old and don't want to keep climbing under the desk.

The problem isn't Compiz causing it as I suspected as such and disabled Compiz in favour of Metacity as my first attempt to cure it. It hasn't made any difference.

Nearly all the stuff I have read is from people saying they are suffering this problem on 9.10 but that it never used to happen on Ubuntu Jaunty Jackanory 9.03
Should I delete Karamel Kaola 9.10 and instead install Jaunty Jackanory 9.03 ?
Will this eleviate the problem?

I don't care if the Jaunty Jackanory is a bit out of date, I would rather have a working reliable stable system than a modern up to date version that doesn't work. So should I scrap Kaola and install Jaunty?

[tehsi]

With regret, I'm going to have to downgrade my ailing server machine to the jaundiced jerboa.

[bingobingo]

Ok, you all, it does not matter what manager you use the freezing happens on the effected computers no matter what.

[limitlessminds]

Hi folks,

This could be the solution for some people:

Actually I had the same problem, but since System>Preferences>Appearance>Visual Effects has been put back to normal (from extra) no freeze happened.

[limitlessminds]

Update:

I was wrong it freezes anyway... :@

It really happens randomly, when you think you solved it, freezing starts again.

I would say it could be firefox, but I'm not sure.

It's very annoying, I could have installed windows 95... :D

[Patrick-Ruff]

yeah this is very annoying. I would really hope this gets solved soon, ubuntu is supposed to be stable, not a randomly freezing operating system . . . that's windows style.

[limitlessminds]

I set Visual Effects to None about 5 days ago, and since that it has not frozen...

Maybe it has got something to do with the graphics...

[BOFslime]

I set Visual Effects to None about 5 days ago, and since that it has not frozen...

Maybe it has got something to do with the graphics...

I was thinking this. I actually had to install the nvidia 190 drivers to get the Visual Effects working, but after some random freezes, I switched it back to none. So far its been stable, so I guess I'll leave them off until I read patch notes that address this.

Edit: Turns out this was not the compiz effects (190 drivers work great!), rather it was the unstable ath9k drivers in 2.6.31 causing kernel panic's. Madwifi drivers were slow and usable for me, all issues resolved in 2.6.32 however.

[VIV0411]

preferences->appearance->

theme-clearlooks
background-plain brown
visual effects-none
i am beginner.but it worked for me

[CharlieBabbit]

I'm another "newbie" and have just completed a clean install of Ubuntu 9.10 on my ThinkPad T41.
I too also experienced the hard freeze/lock-up described by others in this thread whenever I loaded a "Gnome" session. The problem never arose when loading a "Failsafe Gnome" session. However, I noticed on a few occasions that the problem occurred just as or immediately after a notification of my poor battery condition was raised. My solution has thus been to disable/turn-off the following Startup Applications:

1. Login using "Failsafe Gnome" session.
2. Open "System > Preferences > Startup Applications".
3. Select "Startup Programs Tab" and disable the following applications:
- "Bluetooth Manager" (not installed on my Thinkpad T41)
- "Indicator Applet" (I believe that this applet, running in combination with Power Manager, is the cause of my hard freeze/lock-up problem
- "Power Manager" (my battery is in poor condition, max. 28%, and Ubuntu would reguarly lock-up following login, I believe, due to this notification)
- "Remote Desktop" (since I'm running Ubuntu at home, I'm not likely to connect to other machines on a network).
4. Restart and login with "Gnome" mode. Problem solved! :-)

As an aside, I am operating with the default "Visual Effects" set to "None". Has anyone else had issues with the "Indicator Applet" or "Power Manager"?