GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 440715
Slow to respond
Last modified: 2009-09-23 23:21:52 UTC
[ Forwarded from http://bugs.debian.org/348905 ] Several Debian users have reported gnome-screensaver 2.18 (and earlier versions) to be slower to respond with the unlock dialog than xscreensaver. This seems to vary between 3-4 seconds up to 15-20 seconds. This is one description of the problem; "Make sure gnome-screensaver isn't in your 'hot' memory, by starting some memory-eating applications. Then press the "lock screen" button. When the screen is black, move your mouse... it just took here 15-20 seconds until the password prompt was displayed. (Intel Core Duo, i945 graphics, 1 GB of RAM, so this isn't a low end laptop...) In subsequent runs, this shortens to ~2 seconds, which I still consider to be way too much." Is this normal for gnome-screensaver (I guess GTK is a little heavier than Xlib used by xscreensaver)? If not, what's the best way to find out what's causing the delay?
There are some profile points in the dialog code. You can enable profiling in the build (I think just enable by ifdefs) and do something like: strace -ttt -f -o /tmp/logfile.strace /usr/libexec/gnome-screensaver-dialog --verbose
How do I run the profiling in a real setup? If I invoke gnome-screensaver-dialog this way, it doesn't display anything at all. IMHO the main issue is that the gnome-dialog isn't in memory yet. So when I move the mouse, it starts loading all the dialog code first (this would also explain why it happens on first run only, and on immedeate subsequent runs is considerably faster). Did you try 'filling' all your memory and then locking, unlocking your screen?
I am using 2.20.0 (on Debian testing) and I am getting this problem.
As others now have reproduced this behaviour, can you clarify how the profiling should be run?
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!
I'm still experiencing this bug in Debian 5.0.3. I'm going to attempt to do what's in comment 1 and report back here. It is disconcerting to see that subsequent comments requesting more information about profiling have been ignored. Also, can I reopen the bug? It's not clear how.
Created attachment 143850 [details] strace output
I see I've spent 3 hours finding out and doing how to do what was suggested in comment 1, and... almost nothing happens. At least to my untrained eyes: $ strace -ttt -f -o /tmp/logfile.strace /usr/lib/gnome-screensaver/gnome-screensaver-dialog --verbose [gs_debug_init] gs-debug.c:106 (00:14:54): Debugging enabled [auth_message_handler] gnome-screensaver-dialog.c:221 (00:14:55): Got message style 1: 'Password: ' WINDOW ID=50331678 [gs_lock_plug_enable_prompt] gs-lock-plug.c:955 (00:14:56): Setting prompt to: Password: RESPONSE=CANCEL [request_response] gnome-screensaver-dialog.c:149 (00:15:58): got response: -3 [auth_message_handler] gnome-screensaver-dialog.c:256 (00:15:58): Got no response The strace logfile is attached above. During this was going on, I locked the workspace, waited, then moved the mouse to make the dialog appear, then unlocked the workspace. I have no idea if this information is useful, but I really want gnome-screensaver to be quicker!