Arch Linux

nicktee

Member

Registered: 2022-10-05

Posts: 11

[SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

I get a whole system freeze when I run zoom and slack at the same time.

Some things I know

- The whole system freezes, I can't switch to another terminal and fix things
- It occurs on Gnome Wayland and XOrg
- It is resolved by starting with linux-lts (5.15.86-1) instead of linux (6.1.4.arch1-1)

This suggests to me it's a kernel bug, but I'm no guru.

It could be related to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=282306 ? but it only happens when I run zoom & slack, which are both electron apps I think.

Happy to do any troubleshooting if anyone has any suggestions, but it does freeze the system as far as I can tell so not sure how easy that will be.

Running the latest versions of both packages (zoom=5.13.4-1, slack-desktop=4.29.149-1)

Regards,
Nick

Last edited by nicktee (2023-03-02 10:16:46)

nicktee

Member

Registered: 2022-10-05

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

So I decided to switch to LTS kernel when this happened, and everything was fine, but now the LTS has bumped to 6.1.12 I'm back experiencing this issue again. Does anyone have any pointers for troubleshooting a system freeze that leaves no trace in the journal? I can reliably reproduce it.

In the meantime I'm just hanging out on the old LTS kernel.

Ketsui

Member

Registered: 2018-04-16

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

Does anyone have any pointers for troubleshooting a system freeze that leaves no trace in the journal?

You can try capturing your kernel log on another computer through SSH, run 'dmesg -w' and see if you get anything when you reproduce the hang.

The Loko

Member

From: Spain

Registered: 2014-07-23

Posts: 100

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

I had a similar issue some time ago on electron apps when I had installed "xf86-video-intel", probably related to hardware acceleration. Uninstalling that package solved that.
What's your GPU?

nicktee

Member

Registered: 2022-10-05

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

Does anyone have any pointers for troubleshooting a system freeze that leaves no trace in the journal?

You can try capturing your kernel log on another computer through SSH, run 'dmesg -w' and see if you get anything when you reproduce the hang.

Hi Ketsui, thanks for the suggestion. I attempted it, being connected from another machine over SSH, but the SSH session freezes up when the freeze happens and I'm unable to reconnect. So I think that confirms my suspicion it's a kernel freeze and a whole system thing, not localised to my session. It's a bit concerning that an electron app can do that to the system.

nicktee

Member

Registered: 2022-10-05

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

I had a similar issue some time ago on electron apps when I had installed "xf86-video-intel", probably related to hardware acceleration. Uninstalling that package solved that.
What's your GPU?

Hi Loko,

I don't have xf86-video-intel installed, my laptop (Dell Precision 5540) has a dedicated Nvidia GPU and intel graphics. I disable the Nvidia GPU using the acpi_call at-boot method, and I only have mesa drivers installed (22.3.5-1) (no nvidia installed and nouveau is blacklisted)

I suspect you're right though, a hardware acceleration error might explain how a userspace app could kill the kernel? It is specific to 6.1.x though, it doesn't occur in 5.15.94

Thanks,
Nick

nicktee

Member

Registered: 2022-10-05

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] System freeze when running zoom and slack at same time 6.1.x

An update on this. I tried re-enabling my nvidia card by removing the acpi_call disablement and it seems to have resolved the issue. I have no idea why, but I've confirmed when it's not in /etc/tmpfiles.d/acpi_call.conf zoom works fine, when it is, it freezes the system when it starts.

I will have to find another way to disable my video card (note that the acpi_call method worked perfectly for a long time in 5.9.x)