Major problem with Oneiric 11.10 freezing

Tue Feb 14 10:27:07 UTC 2012

On 02/14/2012 01:43 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 14/02/12 17:03, Tom Bell wrote:
>> On 02/13/2012 11:02 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:
>>> /* snip */
>>>> ext4 is more solid than ext3. Stay with ext4 - it's not your problem.
>>>>
>>>> I go back t what I said before: what are those processes which have 
>>>> a (-)20 NI?
>>>>
>>>> Each one has a PID so you can go and see what exactly that process 
>>>> is all about.
>>>>
>>>> In a console/terminal, as root (ie sudo ......) type 'ps aux' which 
>>>> will list all your running processes owned by everyone on the system.
>>>>
>>>> Get the PID from the lists you produced which are on picpaste then 
>>>> find them on this list of ps aux and see what they are.
>>>>
>>>> BC
>>>
>>>
>>> Ummm, a slight correction here :-) .
>>>
>>> You will need to regenerate the list(s) on picpaste to see the 
>>> latest PID numbers for your currently running system - then use ps 
>>> aux and see what they are.
>>>
>>> BC
>>>
>> I see.
>> I did try iotop and did not see a whole lot, but, after looking at 
>> the options for iotop,
>> I tried "iotop -oa" and got a different picture.  See pictures below.
>>
>> http://www.picpaste.com/iotop5-44HwJVlX.png
>> http://www.picpaste.com/iotop6-vdP5qXlK.png
>> http://www.picpaste.com/iotop7-QrgqY92J.png
>>
>> These photos show firefox and jdb2/sda1-8 hogging the cpus big time.
>> It is not just firefox, although firefox was in this particular example.
>> Just about all the programs I have run have suffered the same problem.
>> And it is quite often intermittent.
>> Thank you!
>
> Something totally not right here.....
>
> To begin, how can you have 2 copies of Firefox running by "tommy"?
>
> From my experience, Firefox will not run for a user if it is already 
> running for that user - in this case "tommy".
>
I was a little stunned to see those start up when I clicked once on 
FIREFOX!!!
> A question: if you had already mentioned it I have forgotten already 
> :-( but which version of Kubuntu are you running, which version of 
> KDE, and which version of Firefox?
>
Here is more than you asked for:
DISTRO info
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 11.10
Release:    11.10
Codename:    oneiric

FILESYSTEM info
Filesystem    Type    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1     ext4    681G   13G  634G   2% /
udev      devtmpfs    3.7G  4.0K  3.7G   1% /dev
tmpfs        tmpfs    1.5G  956K  1.5G   1% /run
none         tmpfs    5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none         tmpfs    3.7G  1.5M  3.7G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sdb1     vfat    932G  729G  203G  79% /media/My Book

LINUX info
Linux kubuntu 3.0.0-16-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 27 17:44:39 UTC 
2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

CPU hardware info
26:     *-cpu
27-          description: CPU
28-          product: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+
29-          vendor: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)
30-          physical id: 1
31:          bus info: cpu at 0
32-          version: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+
33-          slot: Socket AM2
34-          size: 3200MHz
35-          capacity: 3700MHz
36-          width: 64 bits
37-          clock: 200MHz
38-          capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae 
mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 
ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp x86-64 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good nopl 
extd_apicid pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy

VIDEO
194:             description: VGA compatible controller
195-             product: G92 [GeForce 9800 GT]

WIRELESS, MODEM, HD, WEBCAM
5:Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 
Wireless Adapter
6-Bus 001 Device 007: ID 047e:2892 Agere Systems, Inc. (Lucent) Systems 
Soft Modem
12:Bus 001 Device 011: ID 1058:1102 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
13-Bus 001 Device 012: ID 046d:0809 Logitech, Inc. Webcam Pro 9000

WIRELESS and ETHERNET
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr /* snip */
           inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
           inet6 addr: /* snip */ Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:537 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:456 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:234420 (234.4 KB)  TX bytes:247018 (247.0 KB)
           Interrupt:42 Base address:0x4000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr /* snip */
           UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
           Interrupt:43

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
           inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
           inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
           UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
           RX packets:68 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:68 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
           RX bytes:4840 (4.8 KB)  TX bytes:4840 (4.8 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr /* snip */
           UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

RESULTS of MOUNT command:
mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc 
(rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/My Book type vfat 
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,uhelper=udisks)

> And what is that PID, called jdb2/sda1-8, which is taking up most of 
> the cpu? It is owned by root. So what is root doing with this 
> jdb2-thingie?
>
> BC
>
See Alvin's following response.  I already looked it up myself and it 
seems to be something to do
with JFS (Journaling File System), in this case ext4, which you will see 
in the equipment list above.
It has me pretty well stumped.
The fact that multiple FIREFOXes ran is also confusing, but shows when 
using the 'iotop -oa' command.
I had to run iotop with sudo, just to let you know.
Please keep in mind that this problem is not just with FIREFOX, but just 
about every program
that I attempt to run and it happens at different times.
Sometimes I can start a program right away, but have slow downs later on.
Sometimes I click on the program and it never starts
Sometimes I can click on a program, then click on the konsole to open 
and the konsole
opens before the program, but it may take awhile to start, or, it could 
start right away.
Meanwhile the first program may or may not even show up and sometimes 
not for 5-10 minutes.

This problem is v-e-r-y frustrating!!!!!!
Thank you!

Tom