Unrecoverable random freezes; Ubuntu 20.04; HP Spectre X360

[Farshad Nia]

The system freezes at apparently random times with no warning and no possibility to recover. The system becomes completely unresponsive and has to be hard reset. The mouse cursor does not move and no keyboard input works. In particular, Alt+SysRq+REISUB does not work (confirmed that it is activated and works in normal conditions). Neither does Ctrl+Alt+F2,F3,etc. If a youtube music is playing in the background I hear the audio get stuck in a short repeat loop (stutter) then stop after a while. The freezes have been happening for the past month or so at intervals of about 1-3 days, not long after I installed Ubuntu 20.04 as the first linux distro on this machine. Not sure if it all started after an update.

No program seems to crash before the freeze happens, and I have not found any pattern of activity that can reliably trigger the freeze. It has happened while surfing the internet or just viewing files. The kernel logs nothing unusual before the freeze (please see the attached kern.log file; it contains multiple instances of the freeze: look for where the system boots without proper shut down beforehand).

I have tried switching between the open-source and the proprietary video drivers. It didn't help. Also uninstalled xserver-xorg-video-intel with no result, so installed it back.
Not sure what to try next. Very frustrating as the hard resets can damage important work and data on disks.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: linux-image-5.4.0-54-generic 5.4.0-54.60
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-54.60-generic 5.4.65
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-54-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.12
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: farshad 1494 F.... pulseaudio
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Nov 20 15:11:20 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-10-10 (41 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20201007)
MachineType: HP HP Spectre x360 Convertible 15-df1xxx
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 i915drmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-54-generic root=UUID=0536b924-b1a1-4ba7-bff4-04df7284b913 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-5.4.0-54-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-5.4.0-54-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.187.4
RfKill:
 1: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/01/2020
dmi.bios.vendor: AMI
dmi.bios.version: F.22
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: 863F
dmi.board.vendor: HP
dmi.board.version: 54.23
dmi.chassis.type: 31
dmi.chassis.vendor: HP
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAMI:bvrF.22:bd06/01/2020:svnHP:pnHPSpectrex360Convertible15-df1xxx:pvr:rvnHP:rn863F:rvr54.23:cvnHP:ct31:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.family: 103C_5335KV HP Spectre
dmi.product.name: HP Spectre x360 Convertible 15-df1xxx
dmi.product.sku: 7UT64UA#ABA
dmi.sys.vendor: HP

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

Can you please try kernel parameter "dis_ucode_ldr" to disable microcode loading?

[Farshad Nia (mfarshada)]

I upgraded to Ubuntu 20.10 kernel 5.8.0-29-generic five days ago and have had no freeze issues since. I believe this issue is resolved with kernel update. Not sure if it is relevant but the new kernel does not log messages of the sort:

mce: CPU0: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 300)

which were seen in the old kernel. I did monitor the temperature sensors under both kernels and neither were unusually high. The fan rarely kicked in. Hopefully this will help diagnosis and future development.

Thanks!

[Farshad Nia (mfarshada)]

Over 10 days have passed without any freeze/hang on the new kernel, confirming the problem is resolved. I hope the info in this log will help track down the bug and prevent from recurring in the future releases.

[lapinvb (vivien12)]

Hey everybody. Can you tell me which command line to upgrade the kernel why seem correct this bug. Thanks

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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