CPU hog causes KDE System Guard to open too late.

[Anton Rolls]

Andrew Jarrett wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Anton Rolls <anton at wilddsl.net.au> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>>  I have a (minor) situation occurring today where
>>  Thunderbird checks mail and seems to have trouble
>>  communicating with the email server.
>>  (This is an intermittent problem and may be
>>   caused by the server, I don't know yet.)
>>
>>  While it is waiting for a timeout, cpu utilization
>>  goes high.
>>
>>  The first thing I want to do when this happens is
>>  open KDE System Guard with Ctrl+Esc as I usually
>>  do, however, with Thunderbird hogging CPU like that
>>  it takes an unusually long time to open.
>>  By the time it opens, there's a good chance that
>>  the timeout has occurred and cpu use is back to
>>  normal.
>>
>>  That seems like a failure of the user interface
>>  to serve my interests (which include running
>>  software which might have bugs).
>>
>>  Is there a way to raise the priority of the user
>>  interface or of KDE System Guard so that launching
>>  it is not held up by any cpu-hogging app ?
>>
>>  Regards,
>>
>>  Anton.
> 
> I am not sure about a way to give the KDE System Guard higher
> priority, but have you tried Ctrl+Alt+Esc?  This should change your
> cursor to an 'X' and you can click on Thunderbird to instantly kill it
> (BTW, you can hit Esc again to get your normal cursor back if you
> change your mind).  This might bypass the long wait for the System
> Guard and you will get to kill the app (which I assume is the point of
> opening the System Guard).  The problem might be that Thunderbird is
> hogging access to your drive and not letting the System Guard
> interrupt.  Whatever the problem is, you should definitely think about
> opening a bug report with Mozilla.
> 
> Andrew

Thanks for your reply.

I would test Ctrl+Alt+Esc but unfortunately today the connectivity 
problem has evaporated. :) If it happens again, I'll try.

I could also read up on nice and renice, and look into if KDE has a way 
to set priority itself.

I'm probably not running the latest Thunderbird, so I'm not on the
"bleeding edge" of development, and I don't think it's wise for me
to bug anyone with a foolish bug report at this time.

Regards,

Anton.