Big delay between pressing the applications grid icon in dock and the start of the spring animation

[Nicolás Abel Carbone]

I am sorry if this is already reported elsewhere, I couldn't find it.

Sometimes there is a big delay between clicking in the applications grid icon and the start of the spring animation. In the worst cases, this delay can be close to 2 seconds.
Usually, after this first delay, subsequent clicks on the grid icon show little to no delay.

I am running Ubuntu 20.04 with default extensions on a Dell XPS 13 9360.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.36.1-5ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-29.33-generic 5.4.30
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed May 13 17:56:59 2020
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-02-23 (809 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Alpha amd64 (20180222)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.36.1-3ubuntu3
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please start with uninstalling these extensions:

'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>',
'native-window-placement',
'<email address hidden>',
'<email address hidden>'

then reboot and tell us if the problem still occurs. We need to try without extensions as a first step because so many bugs are caused by extensions.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

I only had gsconnect enabled (sorry, I forgot about that), all other were
disabled and some uninstalled long ago (like pop-shell and cast-to-tv).
I disabled gsconnect and I still have the issue. Do I need to uninstall the
extensions or disabling them is enough?

El jue., 14 de may. de 2020 a la(s) 00:05, Daniel van Vugt (
<email address hidden>) escribió:

> Please start with uninstalling these extensions:
>
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>',
> 'native-window-placement',
> '<email address hidden>',
> '<email address hidden>'
>
> then reboot and tell us if the problem still occurs. We need to try
> without extensions as a first step because so many bugs are caused by
> extensions.
>
>
> ** Bug watch added: gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues #1156
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1156
>
> ** Also affects: gnome-shell via
> https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1156
> Importance: Unknown
> Status: Unknown
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-shell (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1878490
>
> Title:
> Big delay between pressing the applications grid icon in dock and the
> start of the spring animation
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-shell/+bug/1878490/+subscriptions
>

--

Nicolás Abel Carbone

Doctor en Física - Becario Posdoctoral

CIFICEN-CONICET-UNCPBA

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolas_Carbone

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

We have seen some buggy extensions affect systems even while disabled so yes please do uninstall gsconnect and all other non-Ubuntu extensions. Then reboot and run:

  gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.shell > settings.txt

and attach the resulting text file here.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

Done, here is the settings.txt

Oddly, while doing this I noticed that some extensions that I uninstalled long ago (even before upgrading to 20.04) where marked as active by gsettings. Pop-shell and cast-to-tv for example. I had to manually remove their entries using dconf.

I will run in this configuration for a while and see if the bug is still present.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

I am still experiencing the bug. It seems that the delay is smaller, but as it is very random is difficult to be sure.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

You still have three extensions active:

'desktop-icons@csoriano', '<email address hidden>', 'native-window-placement'

Although the first two are standard Ubuntu extensions we would still like to know if removing any or all of them avoids the problem.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

Sorry for the delay.

I disabled all extensions but ubuntu-dock (I need to be able to click on the grid apps icon to trigger the bug). The delay it still there. Also, it seems to happen under X11 and under Wayland.

Just to be clear: the multi-second delay happens very few times, and may be related to another process eating CPU time and/or I/O.
But there is almost always a perceptible delay between pressing the icon and the spring animation, specially if the animation hasn't been triggered for a while. May be around half a second or so. It is not a big deal, but it doesn't feel as smooth as it should be, hence the bug report.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

1. If you still have ubuntu-dock loaded then there's a chance the bug is specific to that. Please try removing ubuntu-dock, then click Activities, then click the app grid icon.

2. Yes this may be "normal" and difficult to fix. GJS in gnome-shell caches things and sometimes the first time it does something is uncached, so is much slower.

3. Can you please use 'ps auxw' or 'top' to tell us the resident set size (RES or RSS) of the gnome-shell process just after it has exhibited slowness?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Closing due to no response for almost a year.