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Bug 651296 - Gnome-shell uses 100% of CPU
Gnome-shell uses 100% of CPU
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.2.x
Other Linux
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2011-05-27 22:27 UTC by Ali
Modified: 2012-12-27 07:52 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
perf data from gnome-shell (74.11 KB, application/x-compressed-tar)
2011-06-24 00:56 UTC, LB
Details
Perf data (68.21 KB, application/octet-stream)
2011-06-24 14:39 UTC, Alexey
Details
Perf.data of gnome-shell 3.2 (100% cpu usage on attaching second monitor) (435.71 KB, application/octet-stream)
2011-12-29 12:12 UTC, bugzillagnome
Details

Description Ali 2011-05-27 22:27:36 UTC
Hi Everyone,

  I don't if this is the place to present my problem.

  I had upgrade Fedora 14 to Fedora 15 and the daemon gnome-shell used nearly 100% of my CPU the percents are between 75% to 98% and obviously all the operation that i am doing becomes very very slow.  I think that is a problem with gnome 3.

  The specifications of my PC is:

   AMD 3000+ (Plattform 64)
   Video Card integrated Nvidida GForce 6100 with 256 MB
   Memory RAM 1Gb
   Hard Disk 80 160 Gb

  In Fedora Forum's i have read about other people with the same problem and much better configurations of computer with 3 Gb of RAM and GForce video card of 512 MB or better.  So i don't believe that my computer have any trouble because i'm not the one.

  Thanks for your attention.

Best regards,

Ali Loyo
Comment 1 Duy Truong 2011-06-01 14:51:33 UTC
This bug affects me also. I'm having a ThinkPad T400 with Arch. The problem does not always happen: sometimes several times a day, sometimes I have a week without issue. Please tell me what to do to get log or debug info.

Thanks,
Duy Truong
Comment 2 Alexey 2011-06-21 16:01:28 UTC
Confirm this bug.
NVidia drivers. GeForce 8400M.
Fedora 15 x86_64.
Comment 3 Piero Steinger 2011-06-21 21:36:23 UTC
Confirm. But I'm on Ubuntu...

Ubuntu 11.04 x86_64
Kernel: 2.6.38-8-generic
GNOME: 2.32.1

Intel Q8200 2.33GHz
RAM 4GB
nVidia GeForce 9500 GT
Comment 4 Jasper St. Pierre (not reading bugmail) 2011-06-21 21:52:39 UTC
Not much we can do here.

I'm unsure how up-to-date Owen's shell-perf work is, so can you get a trace with the Linux perf stuff?

See https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Debugging#Performance_metrics for details.
Comment 5 LB 2011-06-24 00:56:42 UTC
Created attachment 190551 [details]
perf data from gnome-shell
Comment 6 LB 2011-06-24 13:53:07 UTC
It's acting up for me as well as you can see in the attachment. This is under Ubuntu 11.04 with the gnome3 ppa installed. Cpu usage for gnome-shell is constantly about 100%, basically rendering one of my cpu cores useless.
Comment 7 Rui Matos 2011-06-24 14:00:33 UTC
It seems several of you here have nvidia hardware. What driver and which version do you use?

On my own laptop I've noticed that the nvidia blob makes the X server use a lot of CPU but not the gnome-shell process itself. The nouveau driver, on the other hand, works much better.
Comment 8 Alexey 2011-06-24 14:39:55 UTC
Created attachment 190592 [details]
Perf data

My perf.data in attachment. It wasn't very high CPU load that time, but gnome-shell is always in top and has up to 40% peak.

There were two terminal tabs opened. No more active program.

All my actions were: pressed activities button few times and adjust sound volume few times.
Comment 9 LB 2011-06-24 16:51:03 UTC
Using a GTX 460 here with nVidia Linux x86_64 version 270.41.06 drivers using a Twinview dual screen set-up. I see no difference in cpu usage when running zero or plenty of applications, it's always between 80 and 100% with about 125MB memory usage.
Comment 10 Rui Matos 2011-06-24 17:00:50 UTC
My guess is that the nvidia driver is falling back too much on software rendering. Can you try with nouveau?
Comment 11 Alexey 2011-06-27 06:17:16 UTC
My laptop Sony VAIO VGN-SZ7RMN/B is working unstable with nouveau. 
It crashed on loading from LiveCD few times.
If the problem in nvidia drivers, what could you recommend?
Comment 12 Rui Matos 2011-06-27 11:40:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> My laptop Sony VAIO VGN-SZ7RMN/B is working unstable with nouveau. 
> It crashed on loading from LiveCD few times.

Please report those bugs. You can do it at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Fedora , component should be xorg-x11-drv-nouveau .

> If the problem in nvidia drivers, what could you recommend?

You can try reporting at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=14 . Nvidia developers usually read that forum.
Comment 13 Rui Matos 2011-06-27 12:22:33 UTC
Going back to the original report...

(In reply to comment #0)
>    Video Card integrated Nvidida GForce 6100 with 256 MB

Are you using the latest Nvidia drivers? Nouveau? Are you still seeing the issue? Can you describe better what is slow? (i.e. is it going to the overview? moving windows around? resizing windows? scrolling inside windows?)
Comment 14 LB 2011-06-29 22:54:20 UTC
In my case the issue was resolved after a system reinstall (due to another unrelated issue) and update to the latest version of xorg-server. I'm aware that this won't be much help for those still stuck but perhaps it'll provide some hope that a solution might be out there.
Comment 15 Ilan Pegoraro 2011-07-16 18:34:00 UTC
Hi everyone,

Seems that this issue affects ATI graphic cards too, my system is a:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
ATI HD 5770 1 GiB GDDR5
5 GiB of Ram
Running Fedora 15, kernel 2.6.38.8-35.fc15.x86_64 and the Gallium3D 0.4 driver and the xorg version is 1.10.2

The problem lies with the gnome-shell process (actually I have not do any work to narrow it down) but the process starts to use 70% to 100% of the CPU and the whole system starts to slow down.

It's very weird since I use Gnome3 on my laptop and this issue is not present
OS: ArchLinux
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T2250 @ 1.73 Ghz
with a Intel 945GM/GMS with 128 MiB of shared memory
2 GiB of Ram

is there any workaround for this problem?

Thanks in advance
Comment 16 Daniel Hadrian 2011-08-06 10:38:18 UTC
Hi Bugzillas, 

I'm new to gnome3 (and the whole linux world btw) as I installed Fedora15 that comes with gnome3 as the default shell. 

After using JDownloader for less than 30 minutes my CPU was very busy with gnome-shell process as it took 30-80% of its capacities. 

Ending Jdownloader did free the CPU load, but the whole UI was buggy and not fluid at all. After a reboot it went well again. 

My config is: 
Zotac H55 mini ITX WiFi board
Core i5 650 @ 3.2 Ghz
4Gb DDR3 1333
Asus USB3.0 PCI-E 1x card
Fedora 15 temporary installed on a 2.5'' Hitashi HDD
Kernel: 2.6.40-4fc15.x86_64
Gnom 3.0.1
Comment 17 Dimitri Papadopoulos 2011-09-03 14:28:53 UTC
Same problem as Daniel Hadrian here.

Generally speaking gnome-shell uses lots of memory. Using the nouveau driver with the following hadware:

# lspci
[...]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G84 [Quadro FX 1700] (rev a1)
[...]
#
Comment 18 Clint Redwood 2011-09-23 18:57:12 UTC
I have the same issue with Fedora 15 ... gnome-shell takes up almost a whole core all the time in my Core2 quad 2.5ghz.
Comment 19 André Klapper 2011-10-28 07:44:33 UTC
I'm resetting NEEDINFO as comment 13 was answered.

Do you still face this issue in GNOME 3.2?
Comment 20 Dimitri Papadopoulos 2011-10-29 10:24:49 UTC
As far as I'm concerned, Fedora 15 still ships GNOME 3.0.2. Will have to wait for Fedora 16 (2011-11-08).
Comment 21 Dimitri Papadopoulos 2011-11-17 07:54:15 UTC
I'm now running Fedora 16 with GNOME 3.2.1.

Situation has improved a lot for me by upgrading to GNOME 3.2, gnome-shell doesn't eat all the CPU anymore. I've been running JDownloader and VLC side by side without noticing any slowdown in the video - the slowdown was visually obvious on Fedora 15.

Case closed as far as my computer is concerned :)
Comment 22 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2011-11-17 10:08:51 UTC
OK, marking as NEEDINFO: is somebody able to reproduce the problem with GNOME 3.2?
Comment 23 bugzillagnome 2011-11-20 10:44:00 UTC
I have an Asus EEE PC 1008P

When I connect a second monitor (while loggedin) then gnome-shell wil hit 100% CPU usage and the system becomes unusable slow.

This problem is with both Fedora 15 (gnome-shell 3.0) and with Fedora 16 (gnome-shell 3.2)
Comment 24 mfohler 2011-11-28 18:10:21 UTC
Hi,
after upgrade from Fedora 15 to 16 I get now sometimes full CPU usage of one core of my Intel Core 2 Duo by gnome-shell, but this is enough to slow my computer down a lot! But I can't provoke this issue, it just happens from time to time.
When this happens I can replace the gnome-shell by 'gnome-shell --replace' in users terminal, the new gnome-shell process acts normal then.
I have a MacBook with Nvidia Geforce 9400 Go, nvidia drivers are used.
Please let me know if you need some logs or more infos. 
Thanks!
Comment 25 bugzillagnome 2011-12-29 12:12:55 UTC
Created attachment 204312 [details]
Perf.data of gnome-shell 3.2 (100% cpu usage on attaching second monitor)

gnome-shell-3.2.1-2.fc16.x86_64
On a asus EEE 1008P Fedora 16 fresh install.
<10% cpu usage on normal operation 
100% cpu usage while second monitor attached.
<10% cpu usage after detached second monitor
Comment 26 bugzillagnome 2011-12-29 12:13:58 UTC
Added perf data.

gnome-shell-3.2.1-2.fc16.x86_64
On a asus EEE 1008P Fedora 16 fresh install.
<10% cpu usage on normal operation 
100% cpu usage while second monitor attached.
<10% cpu usage after detached second monitor.
Comment 27 soprano 2012-01-02 16:38:10 UTC
Happens the same to me. Opensuse 12.1.

After a night where the laptop was running uniquely the Transmission BitTorrent client, gnome-shell went up to 100% CPU. I also noticed that memory consumption increases many times.
Comment 28 Kyle 2012-01-10 18:01:58 UTC
I can confirm that the same issue is happening on my end. 

Two monitors.
Nvidia Driver 280.13
Ubuntu 11.10 x64
Gnome 3.2.1-0ubuntu1.1
Comment 29 Tim 2012-01-18 19:43:54 UTC
Same with me.  Generally ok during the day, but when I return in the morning after the machine has been "idle" all night, it is always present.  100% cpu for gnome-shell.

Dual monitor
Nvidia 290.10
Ubuntu 11.10 x64
Gnome-shell v3.2.1-0ubuntu1.1

workaround for me:

sudo service lightdm restart
Comment 30 Simon Lindgren 2012-02-06 20:48:46 UTC
I can confirm this bug on Fedora 16.

$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.2.1
$ sudo yum list "*drv-ati*"
Inlästa insticksmoduler: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Installerade paket
xorg-x11-drv-ati.x86_64       6.14.3-3.20111125git534fb6e41.fc16

Another observation that I believe is new:
For me, xbmc media center seems to trigger this behaviour, specifically, when playback is paused and the window is maximized. If the window is not maximized, the cpu usage is normal. CPU usage is also normal if I start playing a movie again. In this case, I think it is noteworthy that XBMC is designed (software-wise) with game loop for rendering the ui, so it is continously updating itself. Not sure if this actually affects gnome-shell, but just in case it does.
Comment 31 Tim 2012-02-14 14:47:34 UTC
This is interesting:

1)  I Left the ubuntu 11.10 machine idle overnight.
2)  Its shows the password lock screen, I "unlock".
3)  shell is extremely laggy and CPU on one of the cores = 100%
4)  ALT-F2, r and after restarting the shell, everything is fine until the next day.

Now, if I ssh into the machine at step 1a and run top:

top - 09:42:35 up 7 days,  1:13,  1 user,  load average: 0.04, 0.10, 0.13
Tasks: 219 total,   1 running, 216 sleeping,   0 stopped,   2 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.8%us,  0.3%sy,  0.0%ni, 98.9%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:  12323504k total, 11333136k used,   990368k free,  1198288k buffers
Swap:  9933820k total,    20784k used,  9913036k free,  5732384k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                
13036 knaak     20   0 1348m 602m  57m S    3  5.0 412:36.73 gnome-shell                                             
 1369 root      20   0  165m  41m  14m S    2  0.3 214:20.58 Xorg                                                    
30277 knaak     20   0  617m 216m  30m S    2  1.8  20:25.88 firefox                                                 
 2672 knaak     20   0  428m 5400 3084 S    1  0.0 152:43.49 conky                                                   
 2493 knaak     20   0  343m  11m 8768 S    1  0.1  75:31.38 indicator-multi                                         

everything looks normal to me.

After step 2 (I unlock) this is what top shows.

top - 09:45:42 up 7 days,  1:16,  1 user,  load average: 1.01, 0.46, 0.26
Tasks: 217 total,   2 running, 213 sleeping,   0 stopped,   2 zombie
Cpu(s): 12.9%us,  0.3%sy,  0.0%ni, 86.7%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.1%si,  0.0%st
Mem:  12323504k total, 11362312k used,   961192k free,  1198372k buffers
Swap:  9933820k total,    20784k used,  9913036k free,  5732916k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                
13036 knaak     20   0 1348m 610m  57m R  100  5.1 414:45.54 gnome-shell                                             
30277 knaak     20   0  625m 218m  30m S    2  1.8  20:29.10 firefox                                                 
 1369 root      20   0  165m  41m  14m S    1  0.3 214:24.34 Xorg                                                    
 2493 knaak     20   0  343m  11m 8768 S    1  0.1  75:32.88 indicator-multi                                         
 2672 knaak     20   0  428m 5400 3084 S    1  0.0 152:46.38 conky                                                   

It will stay that way for "hours"or until I restart gnome-shell.

Can anyone give me a tip for how to peek into what gnome-shell might be doing with 100% indefinitely?
Comment 32 mfohler 2012-02-14 15:28:56 UTC
Since about two month I do not longer experience this problem. I don't know what fixed the problem though, I didn't change anything except of installing updates regularly. Still running Fedora 16 64bit with nvidia drivers from repository.
Comment 33 André Klapper 2012-10-16 11:55:20 UTC
Is this still a problem in 3.6?
Comment 34 Ilan Pegoraro 2012-10-16 16:11:41 UTC
I have not experience this problem since gnome 3.4.
Comment 35 Simon Lindgren 2012-10-16 17:23:46 UTC
Seems to be working fine here too, with 3.4.
Comment 36 Florian Müllner 2012-10-16 17:40:51 UTC
Let's tentatively consider this fixed then ...
Comment 37 bugzillagnome 2012-10-16 18:22:09 UTC
I hate too be a spoilsport but on my machine an asus EEE 1008P I still have this problem with gnome-shel 3.4.  Gnome 3.4 is simply unusable with 2 monitors.
When 3.6 is out for ubuntu I will test it on my netbook.
Comment 38 bugzillagnome 2012-10-16 18:22:31 UTC
I hate too be a spoilsport but on my machine an asus EEE 1008P I still have this problem with gnome-shel 3.4.  Gnome 3.4 is simply unusable with 2 monitors.
When 3.6 is out for ubuntu I will test it on my netbook.
Comment 39 bugzillagnome 2012-12-27 07:52:07 UTC
I've tried it again with gnome-shell 3.6.0-2 and it still happens.
It may be resolved for other systems but for my system this makes gnome-shell unusable when using an external monitor.

So still a bug on asus EEE 1008P with gnome-shell 3.6.0-2