Docky causes too many wakeups per second (powertop)

Bug #500881 reported by Alex Murray
20
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Docky
New
Wishlist
Jason Smith

Bug Description

When running docky (r1002 from ppa) powertop reports docky is causing many (always more than 35) wakeups per second. I am currently running docky with 2 docks:

vertical dock on left with 'Bookmarks' and 'Recent Documents'
horizontal dock on bottom with some launchers, GMail, Weather, Mounter, CPU Monitor, Clock, Trash docklets, as well as having the Rhythmbox, Tomboy and Open Terminal helpers active.

This is under Ubuntu Karmic x86_64, using NVidia proprietary drivers, output when running docky with -d is:

 [Info 09:40:57.265] Docky version: bzr docky r1002
[Info 09:40:57.279] Kernel version: 2.6.31.17
[Info 09:40:57.280] CLR version: 2.0.50727.1433
[Debug 09:40:57.357] [SystemService] Using org.freedesktop.DeviceKit.Power for battery information
[Info 09:40:57.453] [DockServices] Dock services initialized.
[Info 09:40:57.554] Setting theme: HUD
[Info 09:40:57.808] [PluginManager] Loaded "Clock".
[Info 09:40:57.814] [PluginManager] Loaded "Trash".
[Info 09:40:57.827] [PluginManager] Loaded "Weather".
[Info 09:40:57.838] [PluginManager] Loaded "Mounter".
[Info 09:40:57.851] [PluginManager] Loaded "GMail".
[Info 09:40:57.857] [PluginManager] Loaded "Bookmarks".
[Debug 09:40:57.864] [BookmarksItemProvider] Updating bookmarks.
[Info 09:40:57.883] [PluginManager] Loaded "Recent Documents".
[Info 09:40:57.898] [PluginManager] Loaded "CPU Monitor".
[Info 09:40:58.409] [GMailAtom] Fetching Atom feed: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/sensors-applet
[Info 09:40:58.409] [GMailAtom] Fetching Atom feed: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/Inbox
[Info 09:40:58.420] [GMailAtom] Fetching Atom feed: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/tpg
[Info 09:40:58.422] [GMailAtom] Fetching Atom feed: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/pragmatine
[Info 09:40:58.428] [GMailAtom] Fetching Atom feed: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/ebay
[Info 09:40:58.446] [AbstractWeatherSource] iGoogle: Reloading weather data
[Debug 09:40:58.453] [AbstractWeatherSource] iGoogle: Fetching XML file 'http://www.google.com/ig/api?hl=en&weather=Adelaide%2c+South+Australia'
[Debug 09:40:58.769] [AbstractWeatherSource] iGoogle: Fetching XML file 'http://api.wunderground.com/auto/wui/geo/WXCurrentObXML/index.xml?query=Adelaide%2c+South+Australia'
[Debug 09:40:59.259] [AbstractWeatherSource] iGoogle: reload success
[Info 09:40:59.397] [Helper] Starting rhythmbox_control.py
[Info 09:40:59.442] [Helper] Starting tomboy_menus.py
[Info 09:40:59.447] [Helper] Starting open_terminal_here.py
[Info 09:40:59.502] [DrawingService] Could not find 'pidgin', using fallback of 'extension'.

Robert Dyer (psybers)
Changed in docky:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
assignee: nobody → Jason Smith (jassmith)
Revision history for this message
Alex Murray (alexmurray) wrote :

Should probably have mentioned that this is when docky is idle (ie. it causes lots of wakeups even when appearing to be doing nothing)

Revision history for this message
Robert Dyer (psybers) wrote :

Remove CPU monitor and Clock and report back.

Changed in docky:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Alex Murray (alexmurray) wrote :

Yep even with CPU monitor and Clock removed I still get from powertop:

2.0% ( 34.2) docky : hrtimer_start_range_ns (hrtimer_wakeup)

ie. Docky is causing 34.2 wakeups per second

Revision history for this message
giovanni722000 (santgio) wrote :

in my case are the helper that are causing too many wakeups.

Strangely it seem that each helper i enable cause precisely 10 wakeups per second..

here i hae 4 helper enbled: tomboy,gtg,transmission and rhythmbox

Robert Dyer (psybers)
Changed in docky:
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Leandro Simonetti (simonettileandro) wrote :

Hi, just wanted to add a comment here. I have installed docky in my new netbook (ASUS 1215p: Atom 550 2 1.5GHz cores, Intel videocard) under Ubuntu 10.10 32bit and as it uses the processor all the time (about 16 percent of it), it drains my battery faster (the battery status indicator sates that I win about 1:30 to 2 hours if I close Docky). So maybe this should not be a Wishlist bug, but more of a critical to netbook users! Thanks for the great application and cheers!!!

Revision history for this message
Robert Dyer (psybers) wrote :

Docky should not be using a constant CPU. It uses CPU in the following cases:

- animating (basically, zoom animation uses a ton so disable that if you want)
- if you have constantly updating docklets (CPU monitor)
- when windows open/close (thus the dock has to update)

So if youre seeing constant 16% use, something is seriously wrong. What version of Docky?

Revision history for this message
Leandro Simonetti (simonettileandro) wrote :

In "About" it says: 2.0.7 Release.

Ah! Just discovered what the problem was! Thanks for the tips: I had the weather Docklet on and no connection to the internet, so it kept trying to update all the time! Took it off and the CPU stopped being used all the time on idle. Thanks! And sorry for being such a noob...

Again, AWESOME app!!!

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