Arch Linux

TheSunCat

Member

Registered: 2021-12-22

Posts: 23

KDE + Firefox: complete system freeze

Hi! I installed Arch through the ArchWiki guide (and help from the Discord server ) a while back and it's been mostly smooth sailing, save for a few issues.
The biggest issue I've faced by far is my entire system seemingly randomly freezing while using Firefox. This usually happens as I click on a tab or start playing a video. Sometimes my mouse slows down for about five seconds before the lockup, and other times it's instant. Once the system is locked up, nothing seems to get it out of that state. I can't switch to another tty, pressing the power button does nothing, and Ctrl+Alt+Print+R seems to have no response either. Sometimes, the system unfreezes quite fast and carries on as if nothing had happened (Firefox doesn't crash, all my programs are how I left them). Other times, it stays frozen until I pull the plug.
What could be causing this? It's really impacting my ability to use my computer effectively if every Firefox use is a gamble.

My specs (is this the right command?):

~ neofetch --stdout
sunny@apc
---------
OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 5.15.10-arch1-1
Uptime: 13 hours, 14 mins
Packages: 1654 (pacman), 6 (snap)
Shell: zsh 5.8
Resolution: 1920x1080 @ 60.00Hz, 1920x1080 @ 75.00Hz, 2560x1440 @ 74.94Hz
DE: Plasma 5.23.4
WM: KWin
Theme: Breeze Light [Plasma], Breeze [GTK2/3]
Icons: [Plasma], breeze-dark [GTK2/3]
Terminal: kitty
CPU: Intel i5-10400F (12) @ 4.300GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Memory: 6559MiB / 31973MiB

I have also pasted the output of journalctl -b and the contents of Xorg.0.log here: https://gist.github.com/RealTheSunCat/c … 4d9ae8df1c

My system is updated, on the latest nvidia proprietary drivers (with the nvidia and nvidia-utils package).
I did notice journalctl -b makes a mention of the OOM killer killing Firefox, which I find weird because:
- After the system unfroze, Firefox was alive and definitely not killed.
- I have 32GiB of RAM, and my system with the same tabs open uses about 6-7GiB only.

Please let me know if I'm missing any info; this is my first post so I hope I got it right

MrCelticFox

Member

Registered: 2017-08-04

Posts: 6

Re: KDE + Firefox: complete system freeze

I've had almost the same issue for over a year now and I cannot figure out the root cause...

I use Gnome but I also notice the issue when Firefox is running and when I move the mouse at the same time as I get a message on whatsapp, or I scroll just a tiny bit instead of a lot, or I load 5 youtube videos at once, or sometimes no discernible reason.

When I first had the issue it used to freeze for a few seconds, then I upgraded and it always froze, then a few months later it went back to just feezing the mouse for a few seconds after another upgrade, but since then it's always complete system lockup, cpu fan goes nuts, and I have to force poweroff.

Someone did mention to me before they had a similar issue caused by firefox using too much RAM, but like you I have more than enough for what FF uses (5-6Gib/16Gib).

I've been through a lot of forum posts over the months but haven't found anything conclusive so also hoping someone else can help shed some light!

MithicSpirit

Member

Registered: 2022-01-14

Posts: 1

Re: KDE + Firefox: complete system freeze

Line 1975 of the journal suggests that the system is running out of swap, not necessarily RAM itself. Try disabling swap to see if it persists ("sudo swapoff -a" to disable it for current boot and/or edit "/etc/fstab" to disable it on subsequent boots).

Also a few more notes/observations:

• Firefox wasn't itself killed since only one of its processes was killed. Line 2071 of the journal states that pid 2198 was killed. Cross-referencing this with line 2061 shows that it refers to process "Isolated Web Co"(ntent), which seems to have runaway memory usage.

• "Ctrl + Alt + Print + R" only sets your keyboard to raw mode (if it's even enabled in the first place). More info on using the SysRq key (which is what I presume you're trying to do) in the Arch Wiki.

Last edited by MithicSpirit (2022-01-14 22:49:43)

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,911

Re: KDE + Firefox: complete system freeze

There have been several reports of people having problems with the nvidia 495.46 package .

Try running with the previous version , 495.44-6 (you'll have to use the dkms version from archlinux archive )

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2022-01-15 11:15:36)

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

Quardah

Member

Registered: 2014-08-26

Posts: 146

Re: KDE + Firefox: complete system freeze

Hi. Sorry for semi necrobumping, but i also have the same issue running AMD. Actually AMD integrated in Ryzen7 6850U Pro.

More information on the problem can be found here :

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/firefox-pla … e-up/23724

The complete system freeze forces me to hard shutdown the laptop. It happens exclusively when switching tab in the browser. At first Firefox becomes unresponsive, until about 4 seconds later the mouse also get unresponsive. From there the system doesn't respond to any input.

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ThinkPad P16s AMD / KDE