Opening new windows or menus (e.g. "File") in programs, switching workspaces becomes slower and slower over time in Gnome

[RK]

During normal use, opening new windows, opening dropdown menus (e.g. "File", "View" in any program) becomes increasingly slow in Gnome. After reboot, all such events occur almost instantaneously, but during normal use over several hours (including suspending the laptop by closing the lid) such events become increasingly slow. After several hours of use, opening a dropdown menu might require several seconds of waiting, during which the UI is completely unresponsive and does not update. Every time an event is called, the syslog (/var/log/syslog) gets filled with messages like:

Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): Clutter-CRITICAL **: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): Clutter-CRITICAL **: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): Clutter-CRITICAL **: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): Clutter-CRITICAL **: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Nov 9 10:02:40 rasmus-UX32VD gnome-session[1745]: (gnome-shell:1800): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

It appears that the system is stalling while these events are being sent to syslog.

I am using the following two extensions in gnome:
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/817/battery-status/
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/584/taskbar/

This bug was present also with the Gnome version in Ubuntu 15.04.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.16.4-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-17.21-generic 4.2.3
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Nov 9 09:56:37 2015
DisplayManager: lightdm
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-10-09 (30 days ago)
InstallationMedia: It
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to wily on 2015-10-30 (9 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Linuxrider (linuxrider)]

I have encountered this problem too. It happened with a freshly installed Ubuntu-GNOME 15.04.
Now with Ubuntu-GNOME 15.10 and gnome-staging ppa it's still there.
It's a real pain. You wait for the menu to appear then you click and wait for the menu to disappear again.
As RK mentioned a reboot helps also restart of gnome-shell helps (Alt+F2, r) at least for a short time.
But in contrast to RK I don't see anything unusual in syslog.
I'm working on several AMD APU desktop systems with open source radeon driver.
I tried Mate 1.12 from ppa and there the problem is not present.
All modal dialogs and context menus (right click) appear fast and disappear the same way.

How can I help to track this issue down?

[Linuxrider (linuxrider)]

Here I upload a short video of one occurrence of the issue
with a freshly started libreoffice writer.
It shows the CPU load of gnome-shell while moving over the
open drop down menu.
25% means that one CPU is at 100%.
You can see that the load increases when I stop and the
file name hint pops up.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 15.10 (wily) reached end-of-life on July 28, 2016.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test.

[RK (shandolad)]

This is still happening to me, now running Ubuntu 17.04 with gnome-shell v 3.24.2.

[RK (shandolad)]

When e.g. opening kupfer, the dash, a drop down menu in a program, the gnome-shell process uses 100% CPU and the system stalls for a number of seconds.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[RK (shandolad)]

For now, an easy workaround is to restart the shell (alt+F2, typing "r"), which fixes the problem for a while.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Dahna (dahna)]

>For now, an easy workaround is to restart the shell (alt+F2, typing "r"), which fixes the problem for a while.

It doesn't work if you use wayland

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 17.04 (zesty) reached end-of-life on January 13, 2018.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.