whole system freezes frequently

[Piotr K]

version_signature -> Ubuntu 5.3.0-48.41-generic 5.3.18
uname-a -> Linux work 5.3.0-48-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 10 06:59:18 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

dmesg and lspci logs attached.

$> lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 19.10
Release: 19.10

The problem is with the kernel versions 5.3.0-48-generic, 5.3.0-46-generic, and 5.3.0-45-generic.
Kernel version 5.3.0-42-generic is working fine.

Steps to reproduce:
Download some Java project (say, https://github.com/yegor256/cactoos/)
Open this Java project in IntellijIdea community version (https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/)
Type Ctrl+Shift+f (to search for all the files in a project)
This freezes the system for 7-8 seconds.

Similar behavior was seen when browsing firefox and or switching windows (Alt+Tab). But not that easy to reproduce.

The problem does not occur when running heavy memory task (i.e. stress-ng --vm-bytes $(awk '/MemAvailable/{printf "%d\n", $2 * 0.9;}' < /proc/meminfo)k --vm-keep -m 1)

The problem does not occur when running heavy cpu task (i.e. sudo stress-ng --cpu 8 --timeout 60 --metrics-brief)

[d (cbotmk3)]

Hi, I just found this bug by just googling for "kernel 5.3.0-46 problem", funny...

I got a very similar behaviour this week when I updated to kernel 5.3.0-46-generic and IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate:

Just by scrolling the editor by the scrollbar handle a bit up and down, my PC freezes up for a few seconds (I'm only able to move the mouse pointer).

I could pinpoint the problem to Xorg producing higher and higher IOWait when I'm scrolling, up to the point when it freezes. Then I tried several window managers (KDE, XFCE, MATE, GNOME) with and without compositing, all made no difference. The only thing that helped was switching to Wayland in KDE and GNOME (which is not stable nor usable for me).

Can you confirm any of this with kernels >=5.3.0-46?

At the moment I have to switch back to kernel 5.3.0-45-generic, no problem there.

[Bruno Krieg (brukri)]

I have exactly the same issue that scrolling in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate freezes often. The freeze duration is around 6-7s. The Idea log directory is full of thread dumps.

OS: Ubuntu 19.10
Kernel: 5.3.0-46-generic
IntelliJ IDEA: 2019.3.4

With kernel 5.3.0-46-generic the problem seems not to appear.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Stefan-Alexandru Rentea (stefan574)]

I can confirm it is the same for kernel version: 5.3.0-51-generic.

[d (cbotmk3)]

Me too (problem also with kernel 5.3.0-51-generic). Has anyone tried a 5.4 kernel?
If not, I'll install IntelliJ on my second notebook (which has kernel 5.4).

[d (cbotmk3)]

I think it was fixed with 5.3.0-55, at least I could not reproduce it (5.3.0-55.49).
Same for newest version of kernel 5.4.