excessive swap (kswapd) usage on resume - caused by fglrx?

[Greg Michalec]

This bug still persists with me using most recent 11.04 beta. I've noted that the problem only seems to occur when some amount of swap is in use when I resume - i.e. if I sleep soon after a reboot, when the memory usage is low, then my resumes are nice and snappy. However, after a few days of firefox-ing, where swap usage gets up to around 1 gig, then resumes are excruciating. I find it quickest to drop to a console and sudo swapoff -a - It seems to be faster to wait for the swap to de-allocate rather than wait for whatever is causing it to thrash to complete. I've checked my syslog, and I see a similar Call Trace to what others have posted. I'll attach the changelog, where you can see 3 successful resumes, and the 4th one (at Apr 14th 22:45:30) having the call trace. Interestingly, the syslog trace reports that I was only using ~ 31 megs of my 4 GB swap, but I'm certain when I disabled it, it was using at least 1.5 GB. Please let me know if there's anything else that I can report - this is definitely my #1 annoying Ubuntu bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic 2.6.38-8.42
Regression: No
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]
   Subdevices: 2/2
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: dameat 1658 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf0b00000 irq 49'
   Mixer name : 'IDT 92HD73C1X5'
   Components : 'HDA:111d7675,10280413,00100103'
   Controls : 21
   Simple ctrls : 14
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'Generic'/'HD-Audio Generic at 0xcfedc000 irq 50'
   Mixer name : 'ATI R6xx HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:1002aa01,00aa0100,00100200'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card1.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Date: Thu Apr 14 23:35:06 2011
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=1d9eb584-bbda-4961-944e-b67291e0503f
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0c45:6416 Microdia
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Dell Inc. Studio 1558
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic root=UUID=588539cc-9e20-4c08-afc7-4ba5ab77753d ro quiet splash acpi_backlight=vendor nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=800x600-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.38-8-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.50
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-12 (3 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/12/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A11
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A11
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: A11
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd10/12/2010:svnDellInc.:pnStudio1558:pvrA11:rvnDellInc.:rn:rvrA11:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvrA11:
dmi.product.name: Studio 1558
dmi.product.version: A11
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Greg Michalec, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. Natty reached EOL on October 2012.
Please see this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We were wondering if this is still an issue in a supported release? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, could you please test the latest upstream kernel available following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds ? It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Please do not test the kernel in the daily folder, but the one all the way at the bottom. Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please comment on which kernel version specifically you tested and remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the text:
needs-upstream-testing

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tags:
kernel-fixed-upstream
kernel-fixed-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the following tags:
kernel-bug-exists-upstream
kernel-bug-exists-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested.

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, please comment as to why specifically you were unable to test it and add the following tags:
kernel-unable-to-test-upstream
kernel-unable-to-test-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested.

Please let us know your results. Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful Bug Reporting Tips:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

[David Ordenes D. (radioboy-2)]

This bug is affecting me in Ubuntu 12.04, with kernel 3.2.0-32-generic, in a Dell notebook with 4 Gb of ram, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 graphics. I'm using fglrx 2:8.960-0ubuntu1.1.

I have 5.8 GB of allocated space for /swap in a dedicated partition. I experience the same problem as described by Greg. If something has been written to swap (which I've monitored with htop), I can most certainly have intensive swapping issues when resuming after suspending.
Not only kswapd0 gets 99.99% of disk usage (according to iotop), but often many other processes already running, like empathy, dropbox, etc, get high disk usages.
Once swapping has stopped, the system sometimes has poor response and feels sluggish for a while, as there can be sporadic bursts of high disk activity following, for instance, a workspace switch, or invoking the dash.
I'm attaching some logs (kern.log, dmesg.0, pm-powersave.log, pm-suspend.log, Xorg.0.log) in case they can be useful.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

David Ordenes D., if you have a bug in Ubuntu, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please see the Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad article:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue

and Ubuntu Community article:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report may delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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