[Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

imrehg · 2025-10-20 02:56:01

I have a Framework 13 with Ryzen AI 9 HX370, that has uses the `amdgpu` kernel module for graphics. I've installed XFCE4 (launched through lightDM).
Now I'm running into freezes in various situations:

If I enable the XFCE4 compositor, after booting there's usually a point where the whole interface freezes up. I have to switch to the TTY and restart lightDM through there (which restarts XFCE) to get things working again. (and thus also losing all my open windows). After this it works well usually for a while, but can happen again in the same boot.

If I disable the XFCE4 compositor (in the window manager tweaks menu), then the whole interface never freezes, but individual applications do. Firefox and Obsidian definitely locks up, and when I try to close them, I get the "this application is not responding" pop-up. The terminal window keeps running just fine this time. So I guess this is affecting the GPU accelerated applications?

The freeze might happen more frequently on battery rather than when it's charging, but it happens both times.
I'm running the latest of everything, as much as I can tell:

Kernel: 6.17.3-arch2-1
Linux firmware: 20251011-1
Mesa: 1:25.2.4-2

I couldn't see anything in the logs that seemd like an error. Obsidian had a line once that a GPU-related process has crashed, but that's all. I've tried adjusting the GPUs power management through setting "/sys/class/drm/card1/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level" directly rather than leaving it "auto", but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

Any suggestions of what can I debug, or what migth be going on?

Last edited by imrehg (2025-11-01 12:37:36)

seth · 2025-10-20 07:31:43

Please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General
Please post your complete system journal for the boot (after such freeze)

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

individual applications do

All at the same time or one by one?
The part where the GPU doesn't die entirely is interesting - doesn't seem hardware/kernel related.
Do you have xf86-video-amdgpu installed and/or does the output support https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variable_refresh_rate (the xorg log will also tell)
Do you get

glxgears

to freeze and if so, do you get

vblank_mode=0 glxgears

to freeze?

XFCE4 compositor … whole interface freezes up. I have to switch to the TTY and restart lightDM … thus also losing all my open windows

Assuming you cannot toggle the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xfwm#Composite_manager for the "frozen" process (can you btw. attach gdb to it and see where it's hanging out?), have you tried to just restart xfwm4 ?

imrehg · 2025-10-28 05:01:45

Hey Seth, cheers for the ideas. It took a while for me to check things out.

I was trying to catch glxgears freezing, but it worked out differently than I've expected.
Turns out, that when I'm running glxgears, nothing freezes. If I stop running glxgears, some short time later things start to hang up. So it starts to seem to be it's some kind of GPU power management related problem?

For your questions:

Here's the systemd journal when the interface froze (while the xfwm was enabled): https://0x0.st/K_za.txt
Here's an extended log from the same session, when I've turned off xfwm and Firefox hung up: https://0x0.st/K_zh.txt; here's the Xorg log from the same time: https://0x0.st/K_zF.txt
All at the same time or one by one? : when the window manager is off, and I'm running e.g. Firefox, Signal, Obsidian, then the hang seem to happen the same time across them.
I do have xf86-video-amdgpu 25.0.0-1 installed; I have "vrr_capable: 1" for the laptop monitor in "xrandr --props" (and I don't have any other monitor plugged in)
Yeah, when the window manager is enabled and everything hangs, I cannot switch it off, hence the restarting of "lightdm" as a whole. I was trying to restart xfwm from the TTY, but I think wasn't doing it well, haven't managed to set the right settings / "DISPLAY" values / etc .... to be able to do that manual restart

I was trying to see the differences in amdgpu runtime parameters (clock frequencies and other stuff) using "amdgpu_top", but so far nothing seems to be fundamentally different in the two case. The GFX_SCLK and GFX_MCLK were higher in the glxgears/nofreeze (779/1289) and lower in the noglxgears/freeze case just after the freeze (674/1084). FCLK was the same in both (1960MHz).

So while this really smells like power management issue (ie. glxgears doesn't let the GPU spin down, so everything works), I did try the wiki's suggestions on (AMD) GPU Lockup during graphical load (system still accessible through ssh), which would affect the performance level (move it from "auto" to manual "high" or "low"), and did try always setting either high or low, but in all cases it didn't seem to make a difference and things hung....

seth · 2025-10-28 14:56:34

single-GPU (xf86-video-amdgpu), single output (eDP) - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variable_refresh_rate capable
No notable amdgpu or drm kernel errors

Ok, also confirmed further down the post - at least we agree

"pkill xfwm4" should™ always work, you'll then be left w/o WM but could see updates again?

However, instead of workarounds (your GL clients would still be frozen):
PM-related stuff would kill all output updates - it smells like *glSwap fails, likely for losing track of the vblank signal.

=> Try to run the output w/ VRR disabled and at 60Hz

If the freezes continue, the next best test would be to drop xf86-video-amdgpu in favor of the modesetting driver on top of the amdgpu kernel module (happens by default - there's seems no config directly referencing the AMD ddx driver)

imrehg · 2025-11-01 12:36:15

Thanks for the extra ideas, Seth!

I've uninstalled xf86-video-amdgpu and now everything seems to be pretty stable for a few days, I don't think I had any single freeze since... So unless there's anything else pops up, this seems to be the solution for theis particular card...

Btw, I believe VRR is disabled by default (looking the Xorg config docs, so probably that wasn't it in the first place

I do wonder still what's the underlying issue, but a more stable system is more of a priority for now Cheers for the thorough support!

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-20 02:56:01

[Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

#2 2025-10-20 07:31:43

Re: [Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

#3 2025-10-28 05:01:45

Re: [Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

#4 2025-10-28 14:56:34

Re: [Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

#5 2025-11-01 12:36:15

Re: [Solved] XFCE + amdgpu window manager and application freezes

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