gnome-shell lags on wayland

[domak]

see https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/boosting-the-real-time-performance-of-gnome-shell-3-34-in-ubuntu-19-10/13095/24

I’m using ubuntu on wayland for a while (Unity and Gnome since Unity abandon). But with ubuntu 19.10 upgrade, Gnome was so slow and laggy that I had thought to downgrade or a new laptop. I switched back to Xorg and now everything is as smoth as usual.
I have an intel card, don’t know if it can help.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.34.1+git20191024-1ubuntu1~19.10.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-24.26-generic 5.3.10
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Dec 6 18:54:15 2019
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-05-23 (1658 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.34.1+git20191107-1ubuntu1~19.10.1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to eoan on 2019-11-03 (33 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

1. What version did you upgrade from most recently? 19.04?

2. Please run:

   lspci -k > lspcik.txt

   and attach the resulting file 'lspcik.txt' to this bug.

3. Please log into Xorg again, reproduce the problem and then attach the latest:

   $HOME/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log

   to this bug.

4. While logged into Xorg please also run:

   xrandr > xrandr.txt

   and attach 'xrandr.txt' to this bug.

[domak (domakistan)]

Hi,
I was able to reproduce the problem with Xorg.
It seems to be a problem with the 5.3 kernel:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185491/ubuntu-19-10-freezes-and-lags-reguarly?_ga=2.54982253.715083533.1576259634-605647910.1573162641

I'm going to see if I'm able to install a 5.4 kernel (I'm not very confident on that).

[domak (domakistan)]

It seems that swapoff -a is good workaround.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This bug is closed for now because the information requested in comment #2 was not provided.

I'd like to note though, that if you find 'swapoff -a' helps then that's an indication your system was experiencing a memory leak. For some reason Ubuntu is better able to deal with those situations when swapping is disabled. But it doesn't mean the kernel's swapping behaviour is the main issue...

If you would like to continue discussing this bug then please:

 (a) Provide the information requested in comment #2; and

 (b) Reproduce the lag situation again and while it is happening run:

     ps auxw --sort -rss > allprocesses.txt

     and then attach the file 'allproceses.txt' here.

[domak (domakistan)]

Hello,

You're right, the problem is linked with the memory and swapoff was a workaround that worked only if the need of memory was not too high.

I installed a kernel 5.4, and the problem also disapeared. I will stay with this, even if the laptop is not in stand by mode when I close the lid.

Before installing the new kernel it was easy to reproduce, just open an app that need a lot of memory (intellij idea) and a few chromium tabs, but as the system freezed I could not even access to a terminal.

Thanks

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Unless it's gnome-shell that's using the memory then this is not a gnome-shell bug. But I now realize why you thought it was.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

There's probably no need to open a kernel bug for this either, because 5.4 is already in Ubuntu 20.04 :)