Arch Linux

eparis

Member

From: NC, USA

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 9

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

I have been experiencing screen freeze/hangs for a while now. I cannot say when the problem started but it definitely was not always like that. I use GDM and think the screen freeze/hangs have occurred after coming back from suspend (I cannot say for sure because this is my kids' laptop so I am not a user of that machine). What I see when the screen is "hung" is just a black screen with a mouse pointer (arrow). Moving the mouse doesn't move the pointer, and the keyboard seems dead (pressing the CapsLock key doesn't toggle the CapsLock LED). Control-Alt-Fx does not take me to a text console.

To recover I have to log in remotely using SSH and then kill the top gnome-session process (owned by user 'gdm') or the gnome-shell process (also owned by user "gdm"). Killing either seems to reset everything and I then get a working GDM login screen. Note that doing "systemctl restart gdm" (or the equivalent systemctl stop followed by systemctl start does not recover).

The solution that seems to be working for me was to configure gdm to *not* use Wayland. For that, I edited /etc/gdm/custom.conf and uncommented the existing line "WaylandEnable=false" under the "[daemon]" section. I then restarted gdm using systemctl. To make sure GDM is not using Wayland you can run "ps aux | grep -i way" -- you should not see an "Xwayland" process running.

I have not seen more screen freezes/hangs since I made the change so GDM does not use Wayland.

This issue has been hard to troubleshoot. In fact, I don't recall how I ended up thinking that Wayland might have had something to do with the problem. I think I just considered that there were no users logged in at the time of the screen freezes except the "gdm" user, which caused Xwayland to run, and that the screen + keyboard freeze had to be a low-level problem, and that led me to suspect Xwayland might be the culprit. Then, shooting in the dark, I configured GDM to not use Wayland and that seems to have fixed the issue.

Curious to know if configuring GDM so it doesn't use Xwayland fixes the problem for others experiencing the same (or similar)problem.

Cheers,

Eloy Paris.-

paulo_cv

Member

Registered: 2016-02-18

Posts: 3

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

So I had to do a full reinstall of the distro and the issue is not present, quite a mistery

velle_frak

Member

Registered: 2014-01-02

Posts: 2

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

I upgraded to Gnome 3.20, and so far the problem seems to be solved.

shiznix

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 24

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

Yes I have exactly the same issue when the display has slept for a period of time.

When screen is awoken after powering off for some time, am presented with a black screen and pointer.
Only way around is to hard kill the X session in console.
Sometimes the screen awakes with no problem, mostly it doesn't.

Some more findings:
* The kernel version does not matter, this happens in all vanilla kernels (only tested 4.2 up to 4.4.6)
* It is not caused by GDM (happens using gdm, lightdm and plain old startx)
* The culprit seems to be gnome-session and/or systemd
* Putting gnome-session in debug mode, here is a healthy screen wakeup:

gnome-session: DEBUG(+): GsmPresence: setting idle: 0
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): Updating systemd idle status: 0
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): GsmPresence: setting non-idle status 0

* Again gnome-session in debug mode, here is an  unhealthy screen wakeup:

gnome-session: DEBUG(+): GsmPresence: setting idle: 1
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): Updating systemd idle status: 1
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): GsmPresence: setting idle: 1
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): GsmPresence: already idle, ignoring
gnome-session: DEBUG(+): emitting SessionIsActive

So instead of setting the GsmPresence: idle state to '0', it incorrectly sets it to '1' and then ignores itself because it's already idle (in state '1').
It would seem the 'SessionIsActive' emission merely makes the mouse pointer show.

Anyone know how to use Gnome-3.18 without systemd? (just kidding )

shiznix

Member

Registered: 2012-10-04

Posts: 24

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

Update: Was able to eliminate the problem by disabling 'dri3' for my gfx driver (Intel i915).

leslau

Member

Registered: 2016-05-31

Posts: 1

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

Same issue here, after long period of inactivity it freeze after type right password.

Linux localhost 4.5.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 11 22:21:28 CEST 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux
GNOME Shell 3.20.2
GDM 3.20.1

EDIT: Freezes with GDM using Xorg and Wayland.

Last edited by leslau (2016-05-31 14:19:16)

max.bra

Member

From: Bologna - Italy

Registered: 2008-06-02

Posts: 93

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

...
* The culprit seems to be gnome-session and/or systemd
...

It is only a few days that I suffer this problem and downgrade
systemd to 229-3 seems to solve for me

hpstg

Member

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 46

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

I get it sometimes, but I still haven't figured out what might be causing it. Sometimes when I try to login using GDM in an X session, I enter my password, press enter, and then the whole computer seems to freeze. I can't move the cursor or anything else. CTRL-ALT-Fx doesn't seem to do anything, and I don't have an SSH server to check if the system is indeed frozen, or just GDM. Are there any updates on this? Is there anything I can provide to help?

faebut

Member

Registered: 2016-12-15

Posts: 1

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

Having the same problem with freezes in gdm after suspend.

Kernel 4.8.13-1 Arch
GDM: 3.22.1-1
gnome-session: 3.22.2-1

I'm using a laptop. The only solution I've found is to disable c-states in the bios. With that the freezes are gone but I definitely get less battery time.

hpstg

Member

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 46

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

For me it was the version of the ck kernel I was using. It seems to be ok with the latest ones, but it still hangs if I use wayland for GDM itself (which is the default).

thebisht

Member

Registered: 2015-02-22

Posts: 2

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

I'm also having this problem. For me it happens occasionally when coming back to my desk and attempting to unlock my machine. One thing I noticed is that the "Unlock" button sometimes turns into a "Next" button on the GDM login screen when the issue happens.

Killing gnome-shell sometimes helps, but most the time just wedges my session (I can see outlines of windows, but it's totally unresponsive).

I tried a disabling wayland in GDM and even replaced my video card. Neither seemed to resolve the issue.

I keep my system up to date, but have seen this issue occur randomly over several months of usage.

I've got an Intel CPU with an NVidia video card, running propriety nvidia driver (I've seen the issue on a GTX650 and GTX760) driving three monitors.

Paulo_CV mentioned the issue went away with a full reinstall. Kinda makes me wonder if this is the result a stale config file or something. Is anyone seeing this on recent installs? Mine install is a little over three years old.

ryanvade

Member

Registered: 2013-01-23

Posts: 73

Re: GDM freeze in lockscreen

I'm also having this problem. For me it happens occasionally when coming back to my desk and attempting to unlock my machine. One thing I noticed is that the "Unlock" button sometimes turns into a "Next" button on the GDM login screen when the issue happens.

Killing gnome-shell sometimes helps, but most the time just wedges my session (I can see outlines of windows, but it's totally unresponsive).

I tried a disabling wayland in GDM and even replaced my video card. Neither seemed to resolve the issue.

I keep my system up to date, but have seen this issue occur randomly over several months of usage.

I've got an Intel CPU with an NVidia video card, running propriety nvidia driver (I've seen the issue on a GTX650 and GTX760) driving three monitors.

Paulo_CV mentioned the issue went away with a full reinstall. Kinda makes me wonder if this is the result a stale config file or something. Is anyone seeing this on recent installs? Mine install is a little over three years old.

I also have this issue.  Install date is about a year ago.

i5-4690K
GTX 970 STRIX Nvidia 375.26 driver
16GB ram
EDIT: 4.8.13 kernel. However, nvidia driver has a different opinion.

Linux ryan-desktop-linux 4.8.13-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Dec 9 07:24:34 CET 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux
...
vermagic:       4.8.14-1-ARCH SMP preempt mod_unload modversions

GDM itself seems to be fine.  I think it is GNOME-Shell that is failing.

Last edited by ryanvade (2017-01-14 04:14:18)