Xorg freeze without reason in Ubuntu 10.10

ubuntu-bug report after problem appeared.

I tried the system with:
Appearance Preferences > Visual Effects > None
and it's working fine for now.
When I try to change it to:
Appearance Preferences > Visual Effects > Normal
It freeze exactly as I described in the first post.
another ubuntu-bug report attached.

Update: I turned off all Compiz effects and switched from no visual effects to:
Appearance Preferences > Visual Effects > Normal.
For now everything works fine.

After installing the NVIDIA propietary driver, the problem disappeared.
Video chip: GeForce GT230.

Are all of you people upgrades from Lucid? I have a machine that is affected by this badly that was upgraded from Lucid. However, I had absolutely no problems on the Beta and Release Candidate of Maverick - Well past the xorg freeze time.

To clarify, I had no problem on the fresh install of Beta and Release Candidate. I wonder if this is the result of a bad upgrade.

I used 10.10 RC for week or so, without any problem. The problem appeared only after upgrade to 10.10 final version, so I suppose it could be an upgrade issue. It would be nice if someone with this problem install 10.10 from scratch to check for sure.
However it could be a graphics's drivers related issue as Sean suggested. I have ATI x1250 graphic card and I can't install Catalyst(not latest version and not 9.3 version), so maybe it's the root of all evil...

Yes!

Alex I commend you for recommending visual effects(none.)
I have been plagued for almost a month with this bug. My X sessions would hang sometimes immediately after logon. No error messages can be found in /var/logs
I believe the bug is particularly brutal to installations using Intel I3 cores (Dell 1548.)
The bug was so severe it was necessary to lower self to that ugly commercial OS.

With your fix I have returned to Ubuntu.

I trust a permanent fix will arrive.
In the meantime I will try editing some photos with Gimp.

Best,
Joe

I'm not convinced that this is a compiz issue.

I will fresh install on a problematic computer when I get the time. I have used the xorg stable ppa to no use and if the fresh install does not work will use the crack pushers ppa to test and see if it is an xorg problem.

Fresh install, within the hour it froze. Not an upgrade issue.

Using this fresh install and will install xorg crack-pushers. For the regular install on the same computer I will turn compiz off and use metacity just to be sure.

Have been using the crack-pushers xorg ppa and have not had a problem since.

There must have been a regression that was since fixed.

Core-i7 930
GTX 465
clean 10.10 install

I am experiencing similar issues with the latest server kernel, KDE installed over the top, Xorg 1.9.0 from stock repositories. The desktop will lag severely for a few minutes, even switching NumLock/CapsLock takes awhile to register. Have found issues describing similar problems mentioning problems with nVidia drivers, but that is not the case here. Nothing relevant in system or app logs.

On occasion, switching to terminal via Ctrl+Alt+Fx will lag for some 10-15 seconds, then operation through there is as quick as ever. top/htop reports heavy system CPU usage, but almost no processes report using the CPU. Sometimes (but not consistently) when the issue clears up, dialog appears stating desktop effects have been disabled due to unresponsiveness. Will attempt to disable desktop effects and see if that helps.

Should also mention that this started occurring after installing 10.10. Never happened with 10.04, same hardware and latest software loadout from stock repos.

Adam: I know what bug you're talking about (having experienced it myself) I think that it might be a different bug. I think it has to do with the RAM filling up with something and the disk starting to get thrashed with extreme swapping (and responsiveness getting decimated due to bug 131094). I believe this deals with xorg just flat out freezing with no warning (the mouse even works).

If you do file a report let me know and I'll subscribe/me too it.

There is no disk activity, and physical RAM usage tops out around 1.5 GiB (I have 6 GiB total). Most of it is buffered/cached, with ~300 MiB explicitly labeled "free", and I'm fairly certain that's appropriate for "well designed systems" (quoted from somewhere that seemed legit). Swap has zero usage.

To the end of the linked bug report, would file indexing really cause such a problem? I remember I generally disabled it in the past, but haven't done so this time. Generally, top shows the file I/O processes right below the active processes, but with no active CPU listed.

Adam: Your description matches better my bug 665796 (same Maverick, CPU and video card). In that bug, I verified that the timer interrupt freezes for 3-5 minutes at random. Like you said, switching terminals lags heavily, heavy system CPU usage on all cores (this is certainly due to lack of timer interrupts to wake the process scheduler).

I keep my system up to date, but the bug is still out there...
Chauncellor, which version of Xorg supposed not to have this bug, and when it should be released(if at all)?
What can be done for now, except praying?
Maybe there is a way to debug it myself? I am familiar with C, C++, Java and Scheme :-)

alexds9: Here is a link to the ppa's package contents:

https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

Be advised that this ppa is dangerous and should not be used for production systems.

Unfortunately, I don't see this getting fixed unless the cause is found and an SRU is applied. I'm afraid this is all I can help for now (as the machines I've seen affected are actually not my own and I have limited access and time).

I think that I found solution for this problem.
In that site: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Xorg/Debugging

"Some issues may be worked around by disabling kernel mode setting. To do this, add
nomodeset
as a kernel parameter."

I did so, and was able to change appearance preferences visual effects to normal and extra. Compiz effects working fine too. Someone with this problem, please confirm my solution.

Hey alexds9,

Hi, have you had a chance to test if this bug is still present in natty?

If it does (and if you're the original reporter), please boot into natty
and run the command:

  apport-collect <bug-number>

which will update the bug with fresh logs and tag the bug as affecting
natty. (It is best to run this right after reproducing the problem.)

hey bugbot,

Just installed Ubuntu 11.04, everything working fine, can't reproduce the bug for now.

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

Meant to comment on this. I have had no issues whatsoever in a few weeks' usage of 11.04 on the same system. All is well.