Display freezes (possible i915 freeze/hang)

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Xorg suddenly stops updating the display and CTRL+ALT+F1 does not work. The issue happens randomly and does not seem to be related to content being rendered. This time the display hang occurred while I was typing in gnome-terminal.

I can successfully ssh into the system from another computer and run ubuntu-bug xorg while the display is frozen.

Disconnecting the display port cable and reconnecting does not successfully restore the image. However, after disconnecting the cable and reconnecting, the monitor never resumed from DPMS suspend so the signal emitted did in fact change when I disconnected the cable.

The problem occurs both with official lowlatency Ubuntu kernel and custom kernel built from vanilla kernel sources. I haven't found a way to deduce if this is in reality caused by kernel, xorg or the hardware. However, considering that this happens with many different kernel versions, I'd assume this is caused by xorg, instead.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: xorg 1:7.7+13ubuntu3.1
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-memalloc-watchdog+ x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.18
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,regex,mousepoll,move,resize,imgpng,wall,animation,grid,fade,place,vpswitch,gnomecompat,session,workarounds,expo,scale,ezoom]
Date: Wed Nov 14 15:23:50 2018
DistUpgraded: 2016-06-10 11:06:21,514 WARNING no activity on terminal for 300 seconds (Applying changes)
DistroCodename: xenial
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0162] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. P8 series motherboard [1043:84ca]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-02-23 (1360 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20150218.1)
MachineType: System manufacturer System Product Name
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-memalloc-watchdog+ root=UUID=254cacdb-f61b-45a6-9885-37afd2b598ce ro libata.noacpi=1 quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xorg
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-06-10 (887 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 02/04/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1101
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: P8H77-M PRO
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev X.0x
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr1101:bd02/04/2013:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKCOMPUTERINC.:rnP8H77-MPRO:rvrRevX.0x:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.family: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.sku: SKU
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.12.3+16.04.20180221-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2~16.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~16.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~16.04.1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core N/A
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau N/A
xserver.bootTime: Thu Sep 6 15:40:48 2018
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:
 product id 41047
 vendor DEL
xserver.version: 2:1.19.5-0ubuntu2~16.04.1

[Mikko Rantalainen (mira)]

Extra information: sudo kill -9 <pid-of-xorg-process> via ssh connection did restore the display in working order without restarting the system so I'm pretty sure this is caused by some kind of hang caused by xorg process. Plain kill without -9 did not do anything, though.

Perhaps this is caused by some race conditition while xorg is keeping some locks which cause keyboard not to work (e.g. Alt+Ctrl+F1) and the display does not update.

After saying that, the system seems to be in some weird state where pretty much all my old X client processess are still running (e.g. Chrome, Opera, Thunderbird) even though the original xorg process does not exists anymore. Thunderbird seems to be eating 100% of a single core.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It looks like the kernel is running out of memory so freezes are expected. Please try running without all those chrome and opera tabs open and see if the problem reoccurs.

If you can't add more physical RAM then consider adding a swapfile to the system: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq You may also want to consider reinstalling the OS with a large swap partition enabled.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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