After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

carlospj · 2024-02-28 17:26:10

Hello to all.

I'll explain a little bit the problem I have, and see if you can help me.

I've been using arch linux for almost 8 months now, using it every day without any problems.

First of all, before explaining the actual problem I have, I will explain the context prior to the strange behaviour, in case it is relevant (probably not, but just in case), because it was also a somewhat strange behaviour.

After I turned on the PC, the screens were black. I didn't really know why, but I wasn't too worried because sometimes it happens when I leave the PC in standby mode (or sleep mode, idk how it is called in english) and start it again when I want to use it. Arch has loaded but it doesn't show me anything. When this happen I know from experience that the login screen is already there, so I just type the pass and log in and that's when the screens stop being black and I can see the desktop. So I thought, "well, maybe I left it in standby mode yesterday and forgot about it". I didn't give it a second thought, so yesterday after seeing the black screens I tried to do the same thing; I typed the pass without being able to see anything and when I hit enter, I could enter the system and I could see the desktop. So far so good.

After logging in, a few minutes later something strange happened, which is the problem I wanted to discuss here in the first place (again, I don't know if it is related to the behaviour explained above).

As I said, after about 5 or 10 minutes of use, everything I had open started to disappear, to close; the browsers, the file manager, the toolbar... everything. Until I was left with just the wallpaper, the mouse cursor and nothing else. I couldn't even open a terminal with the keyboard shortcut.

I had no choice but to press the reset button on my PC and then, when I was supposed to see the Grub with the boot options (I have Arch and Windows 11 in a dual boot) I got a grub message that said "Minimal BASH like line editing is supported".

Now, here I have to stop for a moment, because at first I thought THIS grub message was the problem (maybe it still is, I don't know) but after trying to fix it and see why it might be happening, I think it's not and maybe it was a side effect of the main problem.
Why do I say this? Because when I pressed the key to show me the Bios Boot Options menu when I rebooted the PC, I saw that it had an option called "ubuntu" and that it was the first in the boot order.
Looking around I saw that it had the same partition number and the same number of GB as the partition where I have Windows 11 right now. I don't remember very well how I had it set up, but before installing Arch I had a dual boot with Windows + Ubuntu (probably I had Windows 11 in my current Arch partition and Ubuntu in my current Windows partition), so my conclusion is that the Ubuntu boot option must have stayed there, but as until now the first boot option was always the Grub I created when I installed Arch and I think the second one in order was the Ubuntu one, and whatever the problem I'm having, it switched to the Ubuntu one as the first option, and as it doesn't exist anymore, I got that grub screen with that message.

Apart from all this, the Arch Grub option was still there, and if I chose it, it would boot the grub created when I installed Arch and if I chose the Arch partition, it could enter without any problem in my Arch system.
The issue here is that when I boot it, I have exactly the same problem as before: after 5-10 minutes everything starts to shut down and I can't do anything.

And here comes a funny twist; after I've done a couple of reboots without turning off the PC completely, in the Bios Boot Options, where the Arch Grub option should be, it appears empty. The slot is there, but it is empty.
And if I choose it, it does nothing. When it is this way, and for example I end up booting with a USB with an Arch iso, and in the console I put fdisk -l, the Arch partition does not appear. But when in the Bios Boot Options I do get the Arch option, and I do the fdisk -l, I do get the partition. All very strange.
Only after switching the PC off and on again, it appears again. But in the last position of the boot order. That's why when the Arch Grub disappears, the Ubuntu one switched to the first position and then it gaves me the Miminal Bash message screen.

So, I guess that it is unrelated but my main problem is still happining; first, when I'm able to boot my Arch system, after a few minutes, everything that I have open suddenly starts to close until I can't even do anything at all. And if I reboot the PC, the Arch Grub disappears from the Bios Boot Options menu.

As a side note, when I boot Windows it works just fine, I don't have any issues.

I hope anyone can help me with this.

Thank you and kind regards.

V1del · 2024-02-28 18:24:25

You probably have some script or timer or so that runs a shutdown from somewhere. Boot the system and post a

sudo journalctl -b-1  | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

the link you get from that command.

jonno2002 · 2024-02-28 18:35:24

-well for a start delete the ubuntu entry from your efi partition, should be /EFI/ubuntu or similar.
-secondly make sure you have disabled windows fast startup and reboot windows and arch multiple times after doing this.
-for the black screen and closing program problems we really need to see a full journal output for that boot, after it happens and you have rebooted do this:

sudo journalctl -b -1 | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

and post the link here.

EDIT: beaten by v1del

Last edited by jonno2002 (2024-02-28 18:38:36)

seth · 2024-02-28 19:57:40

I had no choice but to press the reset button on my PC

This is gonna lead to unclean shutdowns which might explain your grub issues. It'll also mean that most likely the journal of the previous boot isn't preserved.

This might also be an OOM situation, so keep an eye on the RAM usage - in doubt, if you add a swapfile instead of things just "disappearing", the system might simply come to a grinding halt (or the perception thereof) with massive swap-outs.

carlospj · 2024-02-28 20:19:06

Hello!

Ok, so I booted Arch and I put that command in the terminal, as indicated. This is the link I got: https://0x0.st/HRVp.txt

About the Ubuntu entry, I think I managed to delete it whit efibootmgr -b.

Thanks for the replies!

PD: The last time I checked the behaviour of the Arch system, it lasted probably an hour before everything went to shit again. Right now I'm writting in my Arch, probably on it for 15-20 minutes. It seems a bit random.

Last edited by carlospj (2024-02-28 20:19:36)

carlospj · 2024-02-28 20:28:06

The Ubuntu entry was not removed. Maybe it was because I had it disabled in the BIOS.

Taking advantage of the fact that I have rebooted and logged in again, I have re-launched the command, just in case after a reboot you can see something different.

Here's the link: https://0x0.st/HRVY.txt

EDIT: I edit to confirm that the Ubuntu entry, although it is deleted at the moment of launching the command, it reappears when rebooting.

Last edited by carlospj (2024-02-28 20:34:17)

carlospj · 2024-03-02 12:31:11

Hello again,

Since I last posted, I was able to use my Arch system as usual; 0 freezes. Until now.
Only thing I did was a sudo pacman -Syu and yay -Syu.

After that, I wanted to watch a Youtube video and it froze when I tried to play the video.

Here's a new log. After the freeze I had to hard-reboot the PC and after that, as the Arch boot entry dissapeared, I have to entry Windows and shutdown completely the PC to be able to have the Arch boot option again.

https://0x0.st/H7iw.txt

I will try to boot with LTS and see if something change.

Hope someone could help with this.

seth · 2024-03-02 16:41:52

Avoid using the power button at all costs, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Keyboa … el_(SysRq)

carlospj · 2024-03-03 17:46:49

seth wrote:

Avoid using the power button at all costs, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Keyboa … el_(SysRq)

I didn't know about this. I will try to do it like this next time. Thanks

carlospj · 2024-03-27 13:01:44

Hello again!

Since I started the post a month ago, the problem keeps reproducing frequently. To refresh the memory, and because in the main post I mixed up some things that were not related, simply happened at the same time and by chance (do I need to edit the main post?), what it's happening is that after a random period of time (could be minutes, hours or even days), everything that I have in the screen starts to disappear (browsers, dolphin, wallpaper, etc) and I can do nothing or interact with nothing, and the only solution is SysRq. After the reboot, the Grub option in the Bios Boot Option disappears, and I need to boot to the Windows partition and to shutdown the PC in order to make the Grub appear again after I starting it again.

Here are some things that I've already tried:
- I updated the BIOS, because it was severly outdated. It didn't change anything.

- I found out that many people were complaining about crashes after the NVIDIA 550 driver release, and my problem started around the date of the release. I tried to downgrade the version to one before the release and it didn't work, and I messed up the system, although I could fix it. Then I tried to remove NVIDIA proprietary drivers and install nvidia-open, but it appears that my GPU is not compatible with nvidia-open, so I just stay with nouveau drivers. It didn't work either.

- As seth suggested, I started to investigate if it was something related with memory. The usage of the RAM seems normal, with practically all the space free. However, I looked into the possibility that it could be a hardware problem, although I thought that if that was the case, specially for RAM and CPU, I would've noticed something in Windows as well. Only thing different was the SSD, because Windows and Arch are in different SSDs. So, I did a stress test for the RAM with memtest86+ (7 hours, 6 passes), for the CPU and RAM with mprime (5 or 6 hours) and some tests for the SSD with smartctl and badblocks. None of them showed any kind of errors. With the mprime and smartctl and badblocks I had to do the tests in a Live USB with root mounted, because within my system it was impossible due to the crashes.

- After ruling out a hardware problem and seeing some errors in the journals, I started to think that maybe it was something related with Plasma 6, Kwin or X11. The last thing I tried was to install the NVIDIA drivers, and switch from X11 to Wayland, and after a few adjustments to make Wayland work with NVIDIA this is my insight: with Wayland the systems seems more stable, but last night I had a crash anyway. But the crash behaved in a different way, it was not the same exactly as before with X11. With X11, once everything starts to happen, everything is more and less quick. If you're watching something in YouTube with your browser, the browser just closes, and the menu bar doesn't respond, and the launcher opens but all the buttons and options are there but buggie (without the names or with squares instead of the icons) and not responsive at all. The dock disappears too. With Wayland it was different: I started to notice something was off when I tried to open the configuration feature that I have in the dock. The dock was responsive, it looked like it was trying to open it, but then nothing happened. Same with the rest of the icons I have in the dock. And the launcher and menu bar were responsive, and graphically normal, but same behaviour as the dock. But I was in the browser, watching something in YouTube and after a weird behaviour where a couple of videos didn't want to load, I continued watching those videos and others for about 10-15 minutes without any problem, and the browser was working normally. Then, it suddenly closed.
As I said, Wayland seems more stable. I have had Wayland for almost a day and it only crashed once. Maybe it is still too soon, but lately when I was on X11, the system was unusable, like crashes after minutes of use, maybe an hour or two... Crashes were more constant, at least. Even the crash was more gentle and stable than in X11. So at the moment I will stay in Wayland for now.

This is the log for last night before the crash: https://0x0.st/Xsyp.txt
Highlights of this log:

akonadi_birthdays_resource[7559]: qt.qpa.wayland: Creating a fake screen in order for Qt not to crash
kactivitymanagerd[4513]: qt.qpa.wayland: Creating a fake screen in order for Qt not to crash
kwalletd6[4327]: qt.qpa.wayland: Creating a fake screen in order for Qt not to crash
dolphin[4758]: qt.qpa.wayland: Creating a fake screen in order for Qt not to crash
.
.
.

I have several like the above ones before the crash. Of course, I don't have these messages before when I was in X11.

plasmashell[4484]: file:///usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.volume/contents/ui/ListItemBase.qml:119: TypeError: Value is undefined and could not be converted to an object

plasmashell[4484]: error creating screencast "No se ha encontrado el identificador de ventana 0"

org_kde_powerdevil[4534]: dh=Display_Handle[i2c-3: fd=37], Keeping adjusted sleep multiplier 2,00 for SE_POST_WRITE or SE_POST_SAVE_SETTINGS
org_kde_powerdevil[4534]: dh=Display_Handle[i2c-4: fd=38], Keeping adjusted sleep multiplier 1,30 for SE_POST_WRITE or SE_POST_SAVE_SETTINGS

The last two ones were like an hour before the crash.

This is the log before the crash when I was trying to run the mprice stress test within my system. This is still with X11: https://0x0.st/XsQn.txt

baloo_file[793929]: MESA: error: ZINK: vkCreateInstance failed (VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER)
baloo_file[793929]: glx: failed to create drisw screen

This log is across that day, just before and at least 2 hours before the crash.

This is a log that I posted here after a crash: https://0x0.st/H7iw.txt

There are also some logs that caught my attention, and I saw them several times across almost all my journals:

systemd[1]: Unmounting EFI System Partition Automount...
systemd[1]: efi.mount: Deactivated successfully.
systemd[1]: Unmounted EFI System Partition Automount.

In some moments I thought maybe it was related with the crashes and the disappearing of the Grub after reboot.

I also run

sudo journalctl -p 3 -xb

And this was the result

mar 27 11:14:36 carlosarch kernel: x86/cpu: SGX disabled by BIOS.
mar 27 11:14:36 carlosarch kernel: 
mar 27 11:14:46 carlosarch kernel: r8169 0000:02:00.0: Unable to load firmware rtl_nic/rtl8168h-2.fw (-2)
mar 27 11:15:01 carlosarch systemd[4294]: Failed to start picom.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit UNIT has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit UNIT has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 110 and the job result is failed.
mar 27 11:15:05 carlosarch akonadiserver[4962]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: Cannot connect to agent instance with identifier 'akonadi_maildir_resource_0', error message: ''

The SGX disabled by BIOS. error I think it started to show up after the update of the BIOS. I think it is just something that BIOS set, so I guess it is not important.

All of these logs above that I highlighted I tried to google them but at least with my knowledge, I didn't find nothing to solve them. I don't even know if they are actually relevant to my problem or maybe they are just a consecuence and not the cause.

Please, can somebody help with this? I honestly don't know what else to do. Thank you.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-02-28 17:26:10

After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#2 2024-02-28 18:24:25

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#3 2024-02-28 18:35:24

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#4 2024-02-28 19:57:40

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#5 2024-02-28 20:19:06

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#6 2024-02-28 20:28:06

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#7 2024-03-02 12:31:11

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#8 2024-03-02 16:41:52

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#9 2024-03-03 17:46:49

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

#10 2024-03-27 13:01:44

Re: After a few minutes of use, everything I have open starts to close

Board footer