Arch Linux

misc

Member

From: Bavaria, Germany

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 115

[SOLVED] Xorg & Firefox lock Gnome desktop, causing massive CPU usage

Hi there,

since I have installed ArchLinux x64 on this laptop (Core 2 Duo, 9600M GT with Nvidia's binary driver 195.36.15-2, Gnome 2.30) Xorg spins out of control every so often - more often repeatedly in an hour, sometimes not for a prolonged time.

This appears to occur (so far only) when Firefox is running (with any site, independent of Flash, but looks as if its main window has to be open) with which it then consumes an entire CPU core, making the mouse pointer and any terminal cursor blink rapidly, as well as windows being selectable, but not e. g. resizable or closable. Any keyboard input to a terminal has to be hammered in repeatedly to be accepted.

It also seems as if it is especially prone to happen if another program (say, gThumb) is ordered to switch to full-screen by F11 with FF's window open in the background, which frequently for whatever reason then also wants to change into full-screen, causing "conflict".

Switching to a console and killing Firefox or starting it via terminal and canceling it there ends each occurrence of the issue. Xorg.0.log does not report any errors.

An upgrade to Xorg 1.8 does not appear to have affected it.

I know this bug (or ones like it) has also occurred to others for years now, but I have so far been unable to find any solutions in reports concerning it.

Any help, please?

My xorg.conf (many options in "Device" have been inserted as attempts to solve the issue):

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder58)  Wed Dec  9 16:34:26 PST 2009

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "ignoreABI" "True"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dri2"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "record"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
   Identifier      "touchpad catchall"
   MatchIsTouchpad "on"
   Driver           "synaptics"
   Option "TapButton1" "1"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName      "Monitor Model"
    Option         "DPMS" "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "G96 [GeForce 9600M GT]"
    Option         "AllowIndirectPixmaps" "True"
    Option         "AllowSHMPixmaps" "0"
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
    Option         "BackingStore" "True"
    Option         "DPI" "96 x 96"
    Option         "DynamicTwinView" "1"
    Option         "NoLogo" "True"
    Option         "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
    Option         "PixmapCacheSize" "2000000"
    Option         "RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x3333; PowerMizerDefault=0x3; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x1"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "True"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "True"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

edit: I cannot say exactly what apparently ended this issue, however (of the changes I explicitly remember) after the following it does no longer occur:

    1. Had to delete the extensions.* (cache, ini, rdf) files as they became corrupted.
    2. Removed the Fox Splitter (aka Split Browser) extension.

Last edited by misc (2010-06-23 12:14:09)

Daemonjax

Member

Registered: 2009-07-02

Posts: 48

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg & Firefox lock Gnome desktop, causing massive CPU usage

Try another browser and see what happens... I like chromium.

misc

Member

From: Bavaria, Germany

Registered: 2010-03-22

Posts: 115

Re: [SOLVED] Xorg & Firefox lock Gnome desktop, causing massive CPU usage

Try another browser and see what happens... I like chromium.

Well yes, I though about this too, but that certainly wouldn't solve the problem (esp. were it to appear with other apps); besides, there are just way too many features (extensions, scripts etc.) that Chrome a) does not have or b) would be a royal pain to properly add.

Last edited by misc (2010-04-16 10:01:31)