Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

diogobaeder · 2020-10-11 22:03:48

Hi guys,

Since last Monday, Oct. 5th, when I upgraded my local Arch Linux installation, I started to get some weird temporary freezes in my Terminator sessions. If I open it up and start following logs, for example, sometimes it freezes up for about 1 minute or so, and then releases the output as if it was being buffered; However, it also releases the output if I move the focus from the currently active pane to another one - say, on the left or bottom, for example. Kinda like if it needs a "kick" to spit out the output. Any ideas what this might be?

Here's what I'm running it at:

 $ uname -a
Linux diogobaeder-desktop 5.8.14-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 07 Oct 2020 23:59:46 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

 $ pacman -Qi gnome-shell nvidia terminator | grep -E '(Nome|Ver)'
Nome                 : gnome-shell
Versão               : 1:3.38.1-1
Nome                 : nvidia
Versão               : 455.28-4
Nome                 : terminator
Versão               : 1.92-2

seth · 2020-10-12 06:42:50

gnome + nvidia + VTE3 fits https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=259742
If you can please try openbox & openbox+picom to see whether it's in VTE3 or the combo of VTE3 & Mutter.

rafsie · 2020-10-12 11:47:30

Hi,

Since last upgrade on 7th I have freezes every several seconds... Can't work on my laptop anymore.

uname -a
Linux nexus 5.8.14-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed, 07 Oct 2020 23:59:46 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

pacman -Qi gnome-shell nvidia | grep -E '(Name|Ver)'
Name            : gnome-shell
Version         : 1:3.38.1-1
Name            : nvidia
Version         : 455.28-4

I was barely able to write this post... Every several seconds there is a GPU peak up to 100%, fans go crazy and computer freezes for few seconds...

ThinkPad P52
CPU: Intel i7-8850H (12) @ 4.300GHz
GPU: NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Mobile

After few hours my theory is that new NVidia drivers can't handle external monitor attached to docking station (Thunderbolt 3). Although it was working fine until last week, now when I connect external monitor to docking station X hangs or Gnome starts to freeze.
When the same monitor is connected directly to the laptop everything works great as it was before.

Thank you NVidia

Last edited by rafsie (2020-10-12 13:26:42)

diogobaeder · 2020-10-13 21:05:43

I have an update on this: it seems that the graphical interface as a whole is being impacted, not just the terminal. It happens more often on the terminal, but Evolution (mail client) also freezes for a few seconds, same for some IDEs I use.

I haven't tried openbox yet, though. Will do, later this week.

teisho · 2020-10-14 08:21:06

I think I have the same or a similar problem.
The problem is most noticeable with nm-applet and Thunderbird. The applications sometimes just freeze and do not respond for a while.

ThinkPad T470s
Intel i7-7600U (4) @ 3.900GHz
Intel HD Graphics 620
Kernel: 5.8.14-arch1-1
Memory: 23798MiB
WM: i3-wm

diogobaeder · 2020-10-14 13:37:14

@teisho has that started happening only recently? Like, since Monday last week or so?

teisho · 2020-10-14 13:39:42

diogobaeder wrote:

@teisho has that started happening only recently? Like, since Monday last week or so?

Yes, since Monday after I made updates.

seth · 2020-10-14 13:49:39

Do yu also use a compositor (picom etc)?

teisho · 2020-10-14 13:52:33

No, just i3-wm. I start it using xinit.

diogobaeder · 2020-10-22 03:38:06

@rafsie are you still on kernel 5.8? If so, would you mind trying downgrading nvidia (and nvidia-utils if you have it installed) to 450?

I already upgraded my kernel here to 5.9, and older drivers don't seem to be compatible with it at all. Since I don't want to downgrade my kernel (it's primarily a work computer and I don't want to screw anything up), I'm stuck with linux 5.9+ and nvidia 455+.

@teisho would you mind trying the above, too?

Last edited by diogobaeder (2020-10-22 03:39:28)

Everdras · 2020-11-14 02:45:21

I seem to have this issue as well, though without the accompanying spike in GPU usage, I'm not using nvidia graphics hardware, and it's *only* terminator. I'm using gnome 3 for the record, standard stuff, it's a very newly installed OS.

Reproduction steps:
1. launch terminator
2. double-click the title to get it to maximize the window
3. create a vertical split (using the keybind)
4. mouse-click the left pane to focus it and create a horizontal split (using the keybind)
5. mouse-click the top-left pane, type e
6. mouse-click the bottom-left pane, type e
7. mouse-click the right-side pane, type e
8. repeat 5-7 until you type e and it doesn't appear.

Now you're in the "stuck" state. Type e a bunch more, hit enter, etc. Nothing will cause the screen to update except clicking on the pane you were trying to type into.

I played around with it and I found these interesting data points:

* it doesn't happen with any other programs (e.g. chromium or intelliJ)
* if you run htop in one of the panes and reproduce the bug, the htop screen will get stuck too.
* it doesn't matter what other programs are open EXCEPT other terminal emulators
* if you open regular Gnome Terminal window and run htop in it in the background, then reproduce the bug, it'll only remain stuck until the next tick that the htop in the gnome terminal refreshes. This is a weirdly effective mitigation of the issue. Though obviously suboptimal.

I really can't wrap my noggin around the last bullet point. It indicates, to me, that there's some bug with how terminal emulators render (i assume gnome terminal and terminator share code at some level underneath) but I really don't see how they could affect each other like this.

Does anyone else know what to make of this?

seth · 2020-11-14 07:21:32

Insufficient damage events?
Are you running gnome (on X11 or wayland)?

Can you reproduce this w/ terminator in eg. an openbox session? (notably NO compositor must be running)

jchillerup · 2020-11-24 09:13:57

I think it's been confirmed to be a VTE bug. Affects Terminator and Sublime Text at least.

A workaround is to always have a glxgears window on top, then nothing blocks...

jaskij · 2021-03-07 12:22:16

Has there been any updates with this?

I've tried looking through VTE issue tracker and haven't been able to find the upstream issue (searching for "freeze" yielded no issues either).

-> % pacman -Qi gnome-shell nvidia-lts terminator vte3 vte-common | grep -E '(Name|Ver)'
Name            : gnome-shell
Version         : 1:3.38.3-1
Name            : nvidia-lts
Version         : 1:460.56-3
Name            : terminator
Version         : 2.1.0-2
Name            : vte3
Version         : 0.62.3-1
Name            : vte-common
Version         : 0.62.3-1

Arch Linux

#1 2020-10-11 22:03:48

Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#2 2020-10-12 06:42:50

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#3 2020-10-12 11:47:30

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#4 2020-10-13 21:05:43

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#5 2020-10-14 08:21:06

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#6 2020-10-14 13:37:14

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#7 2020-10-14 13:39:42

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#8 2020-10-14 13:49:39

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#9 2020-10-14 13:52:33

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#10 2020-10-22 03:38:06

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#11 2020-11-14 02:45:21

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#12 2020-11-14 07:21:32

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#13 2020-11-24 09:13:57

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

#14 2021-03-07 12:22:16

Re: Terminator freezing until move to another pane/tab/window

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