this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Troubleshooting an annoying behavior - Gnome/NixOS (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by pukeko@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

You're going to see some typing errors in this post, and thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is intentioooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonal. It's going to make the post unpleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasant to read, but I assure you it's more unpleasant to type.

The issue: Every 5-10 seconds or so, my laptop has recently started pausing, with one symptom being repetition of any key I happen to be typing at that moment, whether a letter, deletion, or something else. I haven't changed anything, and something very similar seems to be happening on mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy Fedora-based desktop.

I have tried thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhe usual troubleshooting steps, such as watchinggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg my processes, disabling gnome extensions, and I cannot pin down the cause.

(1) Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyone seen anything like this?

(2) Any suggestions for troubleshooting?

The laptop is more than powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrful enough, a Gen 8 X1 Carbon. OS and apps are up to date. I assume an OS, gnome, or applicationnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn update has broken something, but I cannot for the life of me pinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn down where the issue is occurring.

EDIT:

Adding system specs --

Intel® Core™ i7-10610U 16GB Intel® UHD Graphics Gnome/Wayland NixOS 23.11 kernel 6.1.57

EDIT 2:

Well, it appears to be gnome. Switched to KDE and everything is perfectly fine. I don't like KDE (but I fully respect others' preferences, just ... to avoid unpleasantness). I'm going to do some digging around to see if gnome is conflicting with something in NixOS land.

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[–] noride@lemm.ee 70 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I hope I don't get flayed for saying this, but I actually had this problem on Windows once, and it turned out to be thermal throttling of the CPU. I was going from 4+ghz to around 200mhz and then it would shoot back to normal. Just needed a thorough cleaning of the fans and ducting.

Thought it was worth mentioning on the off chance it might help someone.

[–] FQQD@feddit.de 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No idea what the solution is, but this is funny af

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

I have been entertaining myself by reading this post out loud. It sounds like I'm having a stroke over and over.

[–] stepanzak@iusearchlinux.fyi 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have no idea how to fix something like this, but what would I do is try to isolate the problem. Boot live iso with another Linux and see if that happens again. If it does, I would try live windows iso to see if it can be because of Linux kernel or drivers. I it happens even on windows, it's probably a hardware thing.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is your best bet op. You can't figure out the issue if you don't know where the problem is coming from

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I will definitely try another live iso. The ONLY possible lead I have is that in btop there's a .gnome-session entry that pops to the top of the list when the pause happens, but (a) the peak displayed CPU usage is like 10%, and (b) I can't figure out what it is. So I'm going to try both a KDE session and maybe a new user just to see if there might be something config-related. Though, again, I didn't change anything in my nix config.

Part of my issue is that I'm not even sure how to describe what's happening to search to see if it's a known issue in recent kernels, gnome, etc. I keep descending into insane metaphors, like "it's sort of like when the cat is about to throw up a hairball and everything pauses while the horror unfolds in front of you."

[–] 1024_Kibibytes@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I would try in the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3 or F1 or F2 depending on the distro), and then a live iso, then a live version of Windows or the Windows installer.

[–] _cnt0@feddit.de 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't bother, that's normal /sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago

LOL.

Or, rather, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[–] SteveTech@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

I actually might be having a similar issue on one of my servers, every 5 to 10 seconds the hypervisor will just freeze for less than a second, and it doesn't repeat characters but it still makes typing in SSH super annoying. I did find using irqstat that during that time, interrupts from the ahci kernel module would spike into the 50,000s, so I have a feeling it's to do with that, but I haven't really figured it out yet, since it somehow doesn't actually seem to affect my VMs.

Although it probably isn't related considering switching to KDE fixed it for you, and I haven't got display stuff installed.

[–] Furycd001@fosstodon.org 10 points 1 year ago

@pukeko that was a fun read 🫠 strange behaviour.. Was gonna say about a dirty keyboard, but it's clearly more than that. Hope you get sorted friend 🙃

[–] rotopenguin@infosec.pub 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anything interesting happening in the kernel logs? Sudo dmesg.

S-tui would give you some idea if there's a thermal issue.

It is very, very odd that you have the same thing going on in your laptop and desktop. Has the thermal conductance of air (or some other related physical property) changed locally? Have you replaced the thermal paste on both devices with asbestos exhaust pipe putty? I keed, I keed.

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

It's a great suggestion (even kidding -- though Doc Brown asking about the strength of gravity in the future crossed my mind), but that's exactly why I don't think it's a hardware issue. It's going to end up being some weird kernel/gnome conflict triggered by one specific flatpak.

[–] yote_zip@pawb.social 7 points 1 year ago

My only guess is that maybe your input device is disconnecting, then reconnecting.

[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the least you can do is provide the basics - AMD/Intel, GPU, wayland/x11, os and kernel version, I'm not looking up what an 8th gen x1 runs on.

as to your question, seen similar with ryzens freezing for seconds intermittently on older kernels.

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

You're right, but it's pretty horrendous typing in this environment so it slipped my mind.

Intel® Core™ i7-10610U 16GB Intel® UHD Graphics Gnome/Wayland NixOS 23.11 kernel 6.1.57

[–] silveste@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is your keyboard connected using USB or Bluetooth? I had similar problem in the past and it turned out that was an issue with my Bluetooth dongle

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Integrated laptop keyboard (so I assume USB under the hood?)

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I never sorted out what the answer was but I'm almost certain it was a gnome issue, possibly a conflict. I did manage to completely hose my system through troubleshooting, but, hey, I just grabbed an earlier version of my nix config, typed one command, and was back up and running in an earlier state. NixOS is weird and troublesome to learn but goodness it's useful.

[–] Psynthesis@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you tried turning off the repeat keys function? https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-repeat-keys.html.en

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

The repeating is a symptom, and the system pause/stutter/whatever is still happening regardless. I thought about it just as a sanity play, but I'd rather fix the underlying issue.

[–] BitSound@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you boot into an old generation and see if that fixes the issue? If it doesn't maybe check if you've updated firmware recently

[–] pukeko@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I haven't updated firmware. And because I'm just going to be That Guy this week, I had done a garbage collection cleanup the day before this nonsense started.

[–] Lober@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Hehe

[–] Pantrygheist@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Had something similar happen to me a couple of days ago setting up a new desktop, micro freeze and an input being repeated. Turned out the ram was a little bit over the stable clock. Reverted the typo on memory clock and all's fine now. Don't know if you control that in you laptop tho