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Zaxon

Member

Registered: 2019-08-07

Posts: 6

Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Hi,

I have an issue on my laptop with Xorg being busy around 90% for about 3m50sec (or much longer) when user just log in to the Xfce4 desktop. I noticed this because I have the "Workspace Switcher" panel which at the beginning has the "Workspace X" names and after Xorg becomes responsive again the workspace labels are changed to juxt "X" (to save panel space for apps).

When the Xorg is busy it does not accept the keyboard shortcuts which I use to run the apps (like Meta+t to run terminal). However the mouse works correctly.

I tried to analyse the systemd-analyse logs and journalctl logs, but I could not figure out what causing the issue.

What logs should I post in order to get some help with this issue?

Regards,
Zaxon

Last edited by Zaxon (2019-08-07 12:36:56)

dockland

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2015-06-06

Posts: 861

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Xorg logs?

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Zaxon

Member

Registered: 2019-08-07

Posts: 6

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Not much I see related to the delays and unresponsiveness.

Xorg.0.log
Xorg.0.log.old

Grant

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2012-12-15

Posts: 246

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

How do you tell it's actually Xorg taking up that much load and not something e.g. that runs after X, perhaps in the Xfce init (like some buggy widget or service, I don't know)? Is it something happening recently (maybe after some updates) or has it always been that? Is your machine "fast"?

Anyways, install some monitoring utilities (top/htop and for the I/O iotop or similar). You could have them run in the background before X starts up and have them log their output (refer to the -b option of top for instance) and then exit.

Zaxon

Member

Registered: 2019-08-07

Posts: 6

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

@Grant: OK. I did what you suggested and I found the guilty one. It is the xfsettingsd. When it is running the Xorg gets crazy and this process is also around 25% of CPU. When I killed the Xorg process returned to normal. However the side effect is that I cannot run any keyboard shortcuts which run the applications (and also the "Workspace Switcher" is not showing the names I defined). So this xfsettingsd daemon is needed for normal Xfce operation. Now is the question how to find out what causing the daemon to behave like this. Any other suggestions?

At the beginning I did not notice that this was the issue. Now it can stay for few minutes or much longer with the high CPU consumption and I do not remember changing something which would cause this.

Grant

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2012-12-15

Posts: 246

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Zaxon, it's good to hear you found the likely CPU hog. But please do try to answer all the question you get asked. Particularly,

Is it something happening recently (maybe after some updates) or has it always been that?

Moreover, how did you find out it was xfsettingsd, through top (cpu) or iotop (disk)?

When I killed the Xorg process returned to normal

I'm doubtful you may kill the Xorg and still have the DE running. What command do you issue?

Zaxon

Member

Registered: 2019-08-07

Posts: 6

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Is it something happening recently (maybe after some updates) or has it always been that?

Hard to remember exactly when it did happen. I remember that it the past it was much less intense (only few seconds and the CPU usage was back to normal).
Now it is almost all the time when the xfsettingsd is running,

Moreover, how did you find out it was xfsettingsd, through top (cpu) or iotop (disk)?

I used top and I did some web search about the xfsettingsd, so I decided to kill the process and see what will happen.

I'm doubtful you may kill the Xorg and still have the DE running. What command do you issue?

My bad. I meant that I killed xfsettingsd process. I used the kill command with the process number related to xfsettingsd.

So it is a bug in the xfsettingsd?

Grant

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2012-12-15

Posts: 246

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

That'd be hard to say for me; maybe, you might want to have someone in the DE-specific section give you that feedback now the suspect is found. BTW, iotop's output could still give you some further insights on what's going on.

Anyways, you could have pacman revert the latest update of xsettingsd to some older version(s) you have in the cache and see if that does the job.

Zaxon

Member

Registered: 2019-08-07

Posts: 6

Re: Xorg high load after user log in to Xfce4

Thanks for the help. I tried the MATE desktop. It is working well, so I will be using it instead.