Unity suffers severe performance drops occasially

[Peter Roos]

Presumably Unity, or in general the user interface of Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid) suffers severe performance drops. To be more precise, when my system happens to be in this state, every animation, like moving windows, opening menus (fading in/out), or opening the dash is very choppy (I would guess 5 FPS, but I didn't perform proper measurements). I could not find the triggering element, although I know that closing some windows will solve the problem, after which I can reopen those windows, and have normal frame rates. In Compiz Config Settings Manager, I already set the refresh rate to the correct value of 60, and disabled refresh rate detection. I believe that from the attached data it's clear that I'm using the latest nvidia drivers provided by Ubuntu.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: unity 7.3.2+15.04.20150420-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-11.11-generic 3.19.3
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-11-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.registry: Binary: ""
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 346.59 Tue Mar 31 14:10:31 PDT 2015
 GCC version: gcc version 4.9.2 (Ubuntu 4.9.2-10ubuntu12)
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Apr 23 13:39:27 2015
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: vivid
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 bbswitch, 0.7, 3.19.0-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia-346, 346.59, 3.19.0-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidiabl, 0.87, 3.19.0-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 virtualbox, 4.3.26, 3.19.0-11-generic, x86_64: installed
GraphicsCard:
 NVIDIA Corporation GF108GLM [Quadro 1000M] [10de:0dfa] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:1631]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-04-02 (20 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Beta amd64 (20150326)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 8560w
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-11-generic root=UUID=3e49aeb5-6b77-43cb-93b1-9176680ee390 ro acpi_backlight=vendor quiet splash
SourcePackage: unity
UdevLog: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/udev'
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 07/15/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68SVD Ver. F.42
dmi.board.name: 1631
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 01.3D
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68SVDVer.F.42:bd07/15/2013:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPEliteBook8560w:pvrA0001D02:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn1631:rvrKBCVersion01.3D:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP EliteBook 8560w
dmi.product.version: A0001D02
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.12.1+15.04.20150410.1-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.60-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.5.2-0ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.5.2-0ubuntu1
version.nvidia-graphics-drivers: nvidia-graphics-drivers N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.17.1-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.5.0-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917-1~exp1ubuntu2build1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.11-1ubuntu2build1
xserver.bootTime: Thu Apr 23 12:24:57 2015
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors: open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:

xserver.version: 2:1.17.1-0ubuntu3

[Peter Roos (roospeteristvan)]

I think there is a chance that this phenomena is related to the native Spotify client that I use regularly.

[Will Cooke (willcooke)]

Could you have a look at top when things are running slowly and see if there is a clear indication of what is causing the slow down?

[Peter Roos (roospeteristvan)]

Well, I think that we can rule out the proprietary Spotify client, as I haven't been able to use it recently because of a missing (deprecated) dependency. My current 15.04 installation is fairly new, as I returned to 14.04.2 for a while, but decided again to use the newest development version. I have to say that I don't see this bug that much often as I used to, I only came across it once throughout two weeks of everyday usage. I only had free software running then, available in the main repositories, namely Firefox, Nautilus, Terminal, qBittorrent. I started to close windows in this order: qBittorrent, Nautilus, Firefox. After closing Firefox, the performance was normal again. Note that I left the terminal window open.

I am using the recommended proprietary Nvidia drivers, and I am affected by an another bug (having thick black borders around GUI elements), which occurs after a sleep/resume cycle. I will do some experiments to find out whether this bug is also connected to suspending the system.

That's all for now. I would like to offer some of my free time for further investigation, I will just need some tips on how to proceed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Unity because there has been no activity for 60 days.]