"libinput bug: timer offset negative" keeps coming up in syslog

[Wise Melon]

I have just recently looked in my syslog and discovered that the following message shows up a lot daily so I thought I should report it:

/usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1707]: (EE) libinput bug: timer offset negative

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: libinput10 1.2.3-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-22.40-generic 4.4.8
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Wed Jun 1 18:39:08 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-15 (17 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Release amd64 (20151021)
SourcePackage: libinput
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-05-28 (4 days ago)

[Wise Melon (wise-melon-deactivatedaccount)]

I have just recently looked in my syslog and discovered that the following message shows up a lot daily so I thought I should report it:

/usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1707]: (EE) libinput bug: timer offset negative

I am running Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20, more information (logs and other system information etc) can be found in my LaunchPad bug report that I made through apport: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1588009

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

is this reproducible? the most common cause of this is a slow compositor/X server busy with rendering. libinput does timer setups based on event timestamps from the kernel and relies on the caller to keep calling libinput_dispatch() often enough, if that isn't the case then a 150ms timer may be set for an event from 500ms ago - resulting in an offset of -350ms from the current time.

Unless you can reproduce this reliably with a specific interaction there is not much we can do here.

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

any updates here?

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

Closing after almost a month of no updates

[termite (rb6)]

I've been getting a lot of this since switching to using Gnome on Wayland (from X). My system freezes completely, and I need to hard restart. Looking at /var/log/messages, I see a lot of these errors just before the freeze, plus:

org.gnome.Shell.desktop[2961]: libinput error: kernel bug: Touch jump detected and discarded.
debian-x1yoga org.gnome.Shell.desktop[2961]: See https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/1.4.0/touchpad_jumping_cursor.html for details

I'd be happy to help if you let me know how.

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

The jumping touch is unrelated and can be ignored for this bug.

But comment #1 still stands, this is almost always a slow compositor.

[bmansurov (bmansurov)]

I have the same issue and would like to help with consistent steps to reproduce the bug. Please let me know what information I can share.

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

Here's a patch that'll make tracking things down a bit easier: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2017-July/034396.html

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Nils Kaiser (nils-kaiser)]

I can confirm I have this on Arch Kernel 4.15.14-1-ARCH Gnome 3.28 on Wayland on Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2017 model. Libinput version is 1.10.3

Here some sample logs:

libinput error: client bug: timer event17 debounce short: offset negative (-42ms)
libinput error: client bug: timer event15 trackpoint: offset negative (-1720ms)

[knb (knb)]

Here : https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96312 some people said this is caused by a "slow compositor" . In my case, it seems to me, these log entries are probably caused by a Xorg process running with 100% cpu blocking the UI for ~ 1 minute. This happens after animations played (e.g. progressbars), window resizing, scrolling, when I have many GUI apps open. I am still investigating.

My system: nvidia driver, 2 old GPUs, 18.04 with gdm3+Xorg

[Lucas Rizzini da Costa Lima (lucasrizzini)]

Same problem here. I'm using Ubuntu 18.10 LiveCD and from time to time my Ubuntu just freezes and when it happens my pendrive LED blinks like crazy. It's hard to recover from it, but yesterday I did. The log it at the post below.

Here's my post about it: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/483898/my-shell-script-to-periodically-free-some-memory-up-with-ubuntu-18-10-livecd-wit#_=_

[Thommen (thommen)]

Hi,
@Nils Kaiser I have KDE, but I have same problem on Arch Linux (4.19.12-arch1-1-ARCH)

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

Please see https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/faqs.html#what-causes-the-timer-offset-negative-warning, this is almost never a libinput bug.

fwiw, libinput has moved to gitlab, any future issues should be filed at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput

[PocketSam (pocketsam)]

Same problem on Arch
Kernel 4.20.6-arch1-1-ARCH
xorg-server 1.20.3-1
KDE Plasma: 5.14.5
Qt: 5.12.1
KDE Frameworks: 5.54.0
64-bit
Intel® Core™ i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz
with integrated graphics on HP EliteBook 2560p

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Per the documentation [1], this is a bug in mutter/gnome-shell. Not a bug in libinput.

[1] https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/faqs.html#what-causes-the-timer-offset-negative-warning

[jnns (jnns)]

I'm affected by this as well. I can't really interact with my system anymore because input and scrolling is interrupted every few seconds. /var/log/syslog keeps filling up with messages like:

> libinput error: client bug: timer event7 tap: offset negative (-495ms)

htop reports gnome-shell using 100% CPU very often as well. I'm using a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2018 with
- gnome-shell 3.30.2-0ubuntu1.18.10.1
- libinput-bin 1.12.1-1
- mutter 3.30.2-1~ubuntu18.10.4

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 (xenial) reached end-of-life in April 2019.

https://ubuntugnome.org/ubuntu-gnome-16-04-lts-is-here/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuGNOME

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.