[opensuse] KDE hangs on rsync
Howdy all, I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync. It usually hangs for about 5 minutes and then anything I have clicked on during that time will pop up and it will function ok for about a minute or so before hanging again. In 4.7.2 I remember my machine going slow when using rsync, but not totally hanging. I just upgraded a week or so ago. Here is my system: Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM I have not tried running my rsync script in a tty instead of Konsole, so I don't know if the issue is with Konsole or with KDE in general. What other information do I need to post here to help communicate the problem? George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:30:12 +0800
George Olson
Howdy all,
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
It usually hangs for about 5 minutes and then anything I have clicked on during that time will pop up and it will function ok for about a minute or so before hanging again.
In 4.7.2 I remember my machine going slow when using rsync, but not totally hanging. I just upgraded a week or so ago.
Here is my system: Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM
I have not tried running my rsync script in a tty instead of Konsole, so I don't know if the issue is with Konsole or with KDE in general.
What other information do I need to post here to help communicate the problem?
George
Hi George, What is the exact command you're running that triggers this behavior? What is the result of (as root): cat /var/log/messages | grep /dev regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/30/2012 10:30 AM, George Olson wrote:
Howdy all,
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
It usually hangs for about 5 minutes and then anything I have clicked on during that time will pop up and it will function ok for about a minute or so before hanging again.
In 4.7.2 I remember my machine going slow when using rsync, but not totally hanging. I just upgraded a week or so ago.
Here is my system: Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM
I have not tried running my rsync script in a tty instead of Konsole, so I don't know if the issue is with Konsole or with KDE in general.
What other information do I need to post here to help communicate the problem?
George
Just more additional info - I did try running the same script in a terminal instead of konsole, and it caused my system to hang up in the same way. So I think it does not have to do with Konsole. Is there a particular log file that would be helpful for me to post here for the troubleshooting? George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/29/2012 11:31 PM, George Olson wrote:
On 04/30/2012 10:30 AM, George Olson wrote:
Howdy all,
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
It usually hangs for about 5 minutes and then anything I have clicked on during that time will pop up and it will function ok for about a minute or so before hanging again.
In 4.7.2 I remember my machine going slow when using rsync, but not totally hanging. I just upgraded a week or so ago.
Here is my system: Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM
I have not tried running my rsync script in a tty instead of Konsole, so I don't know if the issue is with Konsole or with KDE in general.
What other information do I need to post here to help communicate the problem?
George
Just more additional info - I did try running the same script in a terminal instead of konsole, and it caused my system to hang up in the same way. So I think it does not have to do with Konsole.
Is there a particular log file that would be helpful for me to post here for the troubleshooting?
Wow. I was also affected by this problem. It disappeared after a reboot but I noticed it again on my main PC. I am away from my main PC but since I am also affected by this problem I might be able to help with generating logs for troubleshooting. Best Swapnil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Monday 30 April 2012 10:30:12 George Olson wrote:
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
See my conversation with Patrick Shanahan last week on your "KDE Problem" thread - see if kded4 will respond to "qdbus org.kde.kded /kded" during the hang-up period. I would be very interested to know if the hanging is triggered by heavy i/o from eg rsync. Will -- Will Stephenson | openSUSE Board, openSUSE Boosters Team, KDE Developer SUSE LINUX GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 04/30/2012 03:32 PM, Will Stephenson wrote:
On Monday 30 April 2012 10:30:12 George Olson wrote:
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
See my conversation with Patrick Shanahan last week on your "KDE Problem" thread - see if kded4 will respond to "qdbus org.kde.kded /kded" during the hang-up period. I would be very interested to know if the hanging is triggered by heavy i/o from eg rsync.
Ok, I tried that. I was running the rsync script in a tty, then after it starts I switch back to the desktop, and with a konsole open typed "qdbus org.kde.kded /kded" When I type that I do get a list of services, and it does not hang. However, while the rsync is running in a tty, I am still unable to alt-tab between open applications, the open konsole and anything else I have open, and neither am I able to click on the open application in the task manager to bring it to focus when the rsync is running. Another kind of funny thing is that right after I stop the rsync, and then in konsole type in the qdbus command again right away, it hangs for a second before giving the list of services. But after that it if I type it a 3rd or 4th time, it does not hang at all and just gives a list of services. G -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 4/29/2012 10:30 PM, George Olson wrote:
Howdy all,
I run rsync in a console (BASH) from time to time, usually from a script file. I have found that on my KDE 4.8.2 box that KDE hangs up in the following way from time to time. It won't switch desktops when I click or use the Alt-function key key stroke, it won't show the popups from plasmoids, and it won't switch applications using alt-tab or clicking on them. In effect, it makes multi-tasking impossible for the duration of the rsync.
It usually hangs for about 5 minutes and then anything I have clicked on during that time will pop up and it will function ok for about a minute or so before hanging again.
In 4.7.2 I remember my machine going slow when using rsync, but not totally hanging. I just upgraded a week or so ago.
Here is my system: Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM
I have not tried running my rsync script in a tty instead of Konsole, so I don't know if the issue is with Konsole or with KDE in general.
What other information do I need to post here to help communicate the problem?
George
rsync of a large job will flush the disk cache and make all disk i/o very slow. Not just because rsync is consuming as much of the limited disk bandwdth as it can. It IS doing that too, but what makes that even worse is it also ends up flushing the disk cache with data for the rsync job instead of all the random in-use data like say, kde menus and icons and things. Sounds like kde is hanging on disk access. As in, it can't do some normal action because it's trying to reload things like menus and other dynamic interface elements from disk, normally the kernel will look first in the disk cache (ram) and supply the copy from there if it's timestamp indicates it hasn't changed since last time it was read from disk and supply that cached data instead of reading from the real disk, but the rsync blew away all the cache once it started reading more data than the size of the cache, so menus and other kde elements have been flushed from the normal buffer cache so it really needs to re-get them from the real disk, only the disk is super busy doing something else already... etc. Sounds like a few things: * kde is (probably, my guess only) relying on disk access more than is smart, and this is exactly why. * kde should probably mark certain parts of it's disk access as higher priority so that small time-sensitive transactions can go through even when there is a backlog of other traffic. Sort of like how void network traffic is prioritized so that packets for little 64kbps telephone calls don't wait forever for a 5Gig dvd download. * kernel i/o scheduler should not allow any one process to block others this much. You can't easily change any of those things, it's just info. The only thing you can do yourself immediately without making hairy changes to your system or becoming a developer or tester is you can try running the rsync with a lower i/o priority using "ionice". It will still flush the disk cache with rsync data that will still slow down all other disk access, but ionice should at least make it so that the kde proccesses get higher scheduling priority than the rsync process, so when kde tries to load some library or config file or data file, it still has to do it the slow hard way from the real disk, but it jumps to the front of the line and does it now instead of waiting for rsync to finish. I don't think it's a cpu priority problem, so look at "ionice" not regular "nice" -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 05/01/2012 04:59 AM, Brian K. White wrote:
The only thing you can do yourself immediately without making hairy changes to your system or becoming a developer or tester is you can try running the rsync with a lower i/o priority using "ionice". It will still flush the disk cache with rsync data that will still slow down all other disk access, but ionice should at least make it so that the kde proccesses get higher scheduling priority than the rsync process, so when kde tries to load some library or config file or data file, it still has to do it the slow hard way from the real disk, but it jumps to the front of the line and does it now instead of waiting for rsync to finish.
I don't think it's a cpu priority problem, so look at "ionice" not regular "nice"
Ok, here is an example - is this the right syntax? When I open up Bash, before running the rsync command, I will type the following: $ ionice -c 2 -n 7 rsync This will set the class to 2 for "best effort" and the scheduling data to 7 for lowest priority. After that, I can just run rsync? My script has several lines of rsync in it. Do I need to have the ionice before each one? Or is one time sufficient? Thanks again -- George Olson, still learning openSUSE and loving it Box #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | AMD Athlon X3 | 64 | nVidia 8500GT | 4GB RAM Box #2 12.1 | KDE 4.7.2 | Pentium 4 (2core) | 32 | Intel 82915G | 2GB RAM Lap #1: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core2 Duo T8100 | 64 | Intel 965GM | 3GB RAM Lap #2: 12.1 | KDE 4.8.2 | Core Duo T2400 | 32 | NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120 | 2GB RAM -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2012-05-01 14:47, George Olson wrote:
Ok, here is an example - is this the right syntax?
There is a switch that limits the I/O used by rsync. Might work better.
When I open up Bash, before running the rsync command, I will type the following:
$ ionice -c 2 -n 7 rsync
This will set the class to 2 for "best effort" and the scheduling data to 7 for lowest priority.
If not, try "iddle".
After that, I can just run rsync? My script has several lines of rsync in it. Do I need to have the ionice before each one?
You have to *replace* each one. - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 11.4 x86_64 "Celadon" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+f2uIACgkQIvFNjefEBxrUSgCg0krcN+Hbpe9rR3piB3uF1Sit R70AmwSxAMesY55I7nD8aFN62ldUjOE/ =bT85 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (6)
-
Brian K. White -
Carl Hartung -
Carlos E. R. -
George Olson -
Swapnil Bhartiya -
Will Stephenson