Continuous hard disk IO and system usage

gconf is not creating those ios, it's just responding to client requests, if there is a bug it's in the softwares doing the calls

Why is this marked 'low' importance? Burning out hardware is a critical issue, even if it only happens intermittently.

I came to my laptop this morning to find this happening once again. No intervening reboot occurred for this to have been a startup-specific process. My fans are whirring away at maximum speed just to keep my processor/GPU at 70 C. This is entirely unaccpeptable.

killall metacity has no effect
Only one instance of metacity is running (some similar bugs reported two competing instances)
compiz --replace has no effect
Rebooting has no effect
the .gconfd/saved_state file contains over a thousand lines of this:

CLIENTADD "IOR: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"
CLIENTADD "IOR: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"
CLIENTADD "IOR: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"
CLIENTADD "IOR: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"
ADD 3238003182 "def" "/apps/metacity" "IOR:010000001700000049444c3a436f6e6669674c697374656e65723a312e300000030000000054424f540000000101020005000000554e4958000000000a0000006c6f63616c686f7374000000290000002f746d702f6f726269742d6d63632f6c696e...

This happened again this morning.

Stopped it this time by running compiz --replace & several times, followed by killall -v metacity several times. And by several, I mean twenty or so, in rapid succession. Something is continually spawning metacity processes and a single issuance of killall -v metacity or compiz --replace is not resolving it.

This remains a major issue for me:
A) It puts unnecessary strain on my disk
B) It cranks my processor temperature up, which in turn causes the fan to work overtime to keep the machine from overheating and dying.
C) I have to stop whatever I'm doing and scramble frantically, in the dark, to fix it whenever it happens because of A and B.

This should really not be marked as "Low" importance.

I have this problem in Maverick too, package 0.8.6-0ubuntu9.2 too...

Only with package 0.8.6-0ubuntu9.1 the problem disappeared...

News... I'm testing a fix... the problem could be not compiz but metacity...

I changed this gconf value:

/desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/current=/usr/bin/compiz
/desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/default=/usr/bin/compiz

I've also a startup script launched at startup (executed by custom ~/.config/autostart/compiz.desktop):

#!/bin/bash
compiz --replace &
sleep 5
emerald --replace &
sleep 1
if ! pgrep compiz > /dev/null
then
  compiz --replace &
 sleep 5
 emerald --replace &
fi
sleep 1
if ! pgrep compiz > /dev/null
then
  metacity --replace &
fi

Let me know if it's working for you too...

Thanks for your bug report. Is this still an issue with the latest release of Ubuntu the Natty Narwhal? May you please check and comment back? Thanks in advance!.

[Expired for compiz (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]