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Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Cairo Doc Freezes Randomly [Bug #307]
Page : 1 2
Guest 25 fabounet [Read]
03 December 2012 à 17:15

Guest, Saturday 27 October 2012 à 16:15

Sometimes Cairo freezes randomly.
What can be done then ?
Is it needed to kill the X server, or is there another way to continue using the desktop ?

fabounet, Sunday 28 October 2012 à 02:28


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
Do you use Metacity ?
There is a bug in Metacity, and an option in the dock to work around it:
cairo-dock -W

Guest, Monday 29 October 2012 à 09:32

I use a fresh install of standard Ubuntu 12.10, with disabled Unity.

fabounet, Monday 29 October 2012 à 17:29


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
ok, so I guess you use either Compiz if the 3D is enabled on your PC, or Metacity.
which one is it ? (you can do 'ps -ef | grep compiz' in a terminal for instance)

Is it needed to kill the X server

no, except if everything is frozen; but then it would be a more general problem. if only the dock is frozen, you can kill it and relaunch it (from a terminal, I personnaly have a terminal launcher on my desktop).
so is it only the dock that freezes, and under which circumstances ?

Guest, Tuesday 30 October 2012 à 08:53

yes it is compiz running.
I'm not sure, when this things happen.
I think it happened with some CPU load and opening a dialog.
E.g. opening the audio settings with by clicking on the upper right dock.

fabounet, Tuesday 30 October 2012 à 17:09


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
Does it happen with any dialog ?
did you try without OpenGL (cairo-dock -c) ?

(even if Unity is disabled, clicking on the Sound Control applet should pop up the Sound-Menu)

Guest, Tuesday 30 October 2012 à 18:24

I think it is the audio dialog, because, when Rhythmbox plays some music,
changing the volume with the mouse wheel works as expected, but
when using the dialog all sliders work very slow with lot of delay.

I did not try "-c" option. Where can this be changed when starting
a cairo-dock session on login ?

Thanks for the support !

fabounet, Thursday 01 November 2012 à 03:35


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
you can just open a terminal, close the dock, and then start it again from the terminal with "cairo-dock -c"

so yo uget a dialog with a slider, and not a menu ? this means the Sound-Menu is not present/activated on your system, which surprises me since you're on Ubuntu.
but perhaps things have changed with the 12.10 and unity is now required ?

anyway, maybe we can get some info with the traces;
you can activate them with "cairo-dock -l debug > log.txt" in a terminal, and then please reproduce the bug, and post the log.txt file here

Guest, Thursday 01 November 2012 à 15:48

currently I can't reproduce the bug.
But the slowdown with opened audio dialog is always there.
For clearness I made a screenshot. Can I upload it somewhere ?

Btw. the Skype icon is missing or does not show the right status,
like the dropbox icon is not updated ?

matttbe, Friday 02 November 2012 à 22:38


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
For clearness I made a screenshot. Can I upload it somewhere ?
Yes, you can drop your image on the Drop to Share applet (or directly on websites like uppix.net, imageshark.us, etc.)

Btw. the Skype icon is missing or does not show the right status,
like the dropbox icon is not updated ?
Strange, do you have this bug if you relaunch the dock from a terminal? (but can you open a new topic for this new bug? )

Guest, Sunday 04 November 2012 à 15:35

Here is the pic of the sound dialog which slow downs everthing when opened.
http://uppix.net/e/a/e/c917a65fa16cfb6d6ffade77e8e7a.png

fabounet, Sunday 11 November 2012 à 03:05


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
oh, this is not a dialog, but the Sound Menu
so maybe the problem is here.

if you don't need it, you can just adjust the sound by scrolling up/down on the icon.

@Matttbe: no problem for you ? in Ubuntu 12.10 we now use the .so from Ubuntu directly, maybe this has some consequences ?

Guest, Sunday 11 November 2012 à 11:36

scroll wheel is working correctly

Thanks.

matttbe, Monday 12 November 2012 à 01:08


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
@Matttbe: no problem for you ? in Ubuntu 12.10 we now use the .so from Ubuntu directly, maybe this has some consequences ?
No problem for me
And we only use the .so directly with Messaging Menu, Printers Menu and Sync Menu (but I guess it should be better to directly use the .so for SoundMenu applet too if we are able to get data about the volume...)

fabounet, Wednesday 14 November 2012 à 17:32


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
indeed, you're right, so the code didn't change for a while

about the Sound menu, did it work with previous version (of the dock and of Ubuntu) ?
does it freeze the PC or only slow it ? is it systematic ?

PS: this is out of topic, but the bug with skype (and dropbox) in the systray should be fixed

Guest, Sunday 18 November 2012 à 10:43

Here's a theory I'm presently working on ...

Being new to Cairo ( v3.1.1, Ubuntu 12.04, using Compiz, w/o Unity, w/ effects), I added the "musicPlayer" applet, not realizing that the sound menu had control over RhythmBox built-in. I think the two may be conflicting, or maybe its just the applet, not sure.

Yesterday: complete freeze of CD, I think ... just bumped out to root and shot my session in the head ... logged back in.
Today: caught an instance of "cairo-dock" running at 96% on one of my cores (luckily I have 8 ).

I poked around a while, but could not get any other info on the process. It continued to use 96% for over 5 minutes, until I got tired of looking at it!
There were two "cairo-dock" processes running. Only one was misbehaving. I killed that wild one, and nothing happened (meaning it died, but Cairo seemed completely unaffected).

So, my theory is that something is "running on" after playing music. Exact cause unknown.
Removing "musicPlayer" from my dock and will see if that corrects the problem.

'fabounet', do you have "musicPlayer" applet in any of your docks/sub-docks?

matttbe, Sunday 18 November 2012 à 10:57


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
Strange... This applet is used by so many people, I use it everyday and it's the first time that someone reports this bug.
Is it possible to get the backtrace of this crash with gdb (=> ddd)? If there is no crash but freezes or infinite loops, simply hit "Ctrl+C" (in the shell window) when you have this bug

Guest, Monday 19 November 2012 à 04:56

matttbe :
Strange... This applet is used by so many people, I use it everyday and it's the first time that someone reports this bug.
Is it possible to get the backtrace of this crash with gdb (=> ddd)? If there is no crash but freezes or infinite loops, simply hit "Ctrl+C" (in the shell window) when you have this bug ;)


Will definitely explore more next time I get a freeze (or a run-away). As to a "crash" ... don't think that ever occurred.
Right now, I'm just concentrating on replicating it!

If you want theories, it could be that Rhytmbox has changed somehow (or always had this bug and multi-core enhances the chances). It could also be that, if its just a loop, many may not notice, especially if they log-off/shutdown when finished playing music. The only reason I even bothered to look was because my CPU fan kicked up a notch when there should not have been a load on it. With multi-core, a run-away doesn't have the impact on performance that it used to.

Maybe I should look for a Rhythmbox zombie when (if) I get a run-away cairo-dock ...

matttbe, Monday 19 November 2012 à 11:33


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
Note that it's possible Rhythmbox is freezing and the dock is just waiting for an answer... But the dock is not waiting with an infinite loop.

fabounet, Thursday 22 November 2012 à 16:29


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
'fabounet', do you have "musicPlayer" applet in any of your docks/sub-docks?

yep, linked to either Audacious or Rhythmbox

what were the 2 cairo-dock commands ? it's maybe the dock that crashed before and respawned.

Note that it's possible Rhythmbox is freezing and the dock is just waiting for an answer

if Rhythmbox uses MPRIS2 (could you please check that ? maybe by running d-feet, or just with the debug traces of the dock when RB is started), then everything should be asynchronous, but that's not impossible, does it occur with another player ?

Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Cairo Doc Freezes Randomly [Bug #307]
Page : 1 2
Guest 25 fabounet [Read]
03 December 2012 à 17:15


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