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Bug 699285 - Uneven, jerky mouse movement
Uneven, jerky mouse movement
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.6.x
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-04-30 06:26 UTC by James Moe
Modified: 2013-11-26 05:41 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description James Moe 2013-04-30 06:26:23 UTC
openSUSE v12.3
  linux v3.7.10-1.1-desktop x86_64
  gnome 3.6.2
  nouveau video driver
  nVidia gt470 graphics adapter
  AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor

Ever since gnome version 3.2 the mouse movement becomes more uneven as the logon time increases. Initially the movement is smooth and even as expected. As the session time increases the movement shows regular pauses (every 1 - 2 seconds) for some fraction of a second, then "catches up" to where it would have been had it not paused. As the session time increases, so does the jerkiness, i.e., the pauses increase in length.

This is annoying. It is exaggerated in a VirtualBox VM, guest type os/2, where tje issue is quite pronounced. Given enough time, though, even native apps show the jerkiness.

It is related somehow to the build up of CPU usage. Initially the idle time usage is about 4% with a browser, email agent and a VM. As time goes by the idle usage increases to about 15% where the mouse action is so uneven that it is no longer tolerable.

The problem has worsened with later versions since 3.2; the jerkiness increases after only several hours rather than days. It has gotten so bad that I have gone to KDE where there is no such issue.

It occurs for two different mice, a wired unit and a wireless one. I
am currently using a Logitech MX300 mouse. Dis-/re-connecting the mice made no difference.

The only solution so far is to log out and in again, or more recently, use KDE.

Other systems here do not have this problem. The primary difference is that this system has a nVidia graphics adapter; all the other systems have ATI adapters of some sort.
Comment 1 James Moe 2013-09-03 06:07:53 UTC
See the "top" results below. Note that gnome-shell starts at about 7% CPU usage, 11 hours later it has risen to 18%. I really prefer Gnome over KDE. It is sad that this issue has made it unusable.

Here a section of "top" when Gnome first starts after login.

top - 11:55:44 up 11 days, 13:27,  3 users,  load average: 4.14, 4.24, 4.30
Tasks: 240 total,   1 running, 238 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s):  2.4 us,  2.6 sy,  0.0 ni, 95.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:   8192128 total,  7930368 used,   261760 free,   158984 buffers
KiB Swap:  2104476 total,    80392 used,  2024084 free,  5654784 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                                
14487 jmoe      20   0 2916m 1.0g 982m S  8.0 12.8   5:47.24 VirtualBox                                                             
14430 jmoe      20   0 1937m 178m  49m S  7.0  2.2   6:00.63 gnome-shell                                                            
14125 root      20   0  342m  93m  25m S  2.3  1.2   3:20.56 Xorg                                                                   
15310 jmoe      20   0 1878m 248m  45m S  1.7  3.1   6:13.28 thunderbird-bin                                                        
16267 jmoe      20   0  340m  17m  12m S  0.7  0.2   0:28.97 gkrellm                                                                
14445 jmoe      20   0 1099m  30m  19m S  0.3  0.4   0:06.15 nautilus                                                               
18756 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.3  0.0   0:01.58 kworker/2:2                                                            
19684 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.3  0.0   0:01.08 kworker/1:2                                                            
21537 jmoe      20   0 19392 1736 1124 R  0.3  0.0   0:00.25 top                                                                    
    1 root      20   0 48376 6428 1588 S  0.0  0.1   0:04.41 systemd                                                                


Here a section of "top" after Gnome has run for 11 hours.

top - 23:02:54 up 12 days, 33 min,  6 users,  load average: 2.51, 2.56, 2.26
Tasks: 238 total,   1 running, 236 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s):  3.6 us,  9.1 sy,  0.0 ni, 87.0 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.2 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:   8192128 total,  7861724 used,   330404 free,   222484 buffers
KiB Swap:  2104476 total,    84064 used,  2020412 free,  5327096 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND                                                                
14430 jmoe      20   0 1973m 209m  45m S 18.2  2.6  80:11.73 gnome-shell                                                            
22624 jmoe      20   0 2926m 1.0g 1.0g S  8.9 13.1  35:06.52 VirtualBox                                                             
14125 root      20   0  366m 118m  26m S  3.0  1.5  30:18.57 Xorg                                                                   
16393 jmoe      20   0 1245m 248m  51m S  1.7  3.1   9:07.27 firefox                                                                
24200 jmoe      20   0 1879m 307m  47m S  1.7  3.8  12:00.58 thunderbird-bin                                                        
14959 jmoe      20   0  705m  24m  14m S  1.0  0.3   1:15.76 gnome-terminal                                                         
16267 jmoe      20   0  340m  17m  12m S  0.7  0.2   6:16.21 gkrellm                                                                
23162 jmoe      20   0 19392 1732 1124 R  0.7  0.0   0:00.03 top
Comment 2 Jasper St. Pierre (not reading bugmail) 2013-09-03 13:16:58 UTC
Sounds like a bug in nouveau. Have you filed one?
Comment 3 James Moe 2013-09-03 19:28:01 UTC
No, I have not filed one for nouveau.

Since this issue affects only Gnome 3.x (no such problem in KDE Plasma), I am not clear how reporting to the nouveau group would help.
Comment 4 James Moe 2013-11-26 05:41:44 UTC
opensuse v13.1
  linux v3.11.6-4-desktop x86_64
  gnome 3.10.1
  nouveau video driver 1.0.9

After upgrading to opensuse 13.1 the issue is longer a evident.