Hi all,
Fresh installation of MX 19.2 (Debian 10) and TDE 14.0.9. There's a process called "kworker/0:3-events" that continually uses 30% CPU. Maybe 3 times a minute it changes to "kworker/0:3+events_freezable" for several seconds. It isn't there in XFCE; but if you start TDE, then logout and login to XFCE, it is there and continues. Any ideas what this is and how I can make it stop?
On Monday 09 November 2020 01:05:13 pm Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
Hi all,
Fresh installation of MX 19.2 (Debian 10) and TDE 14.0.9. There's a process called "kworker/0:3-events" that continually uses 30% CPU. Maybe 3 times a minute it changes to "kworker/0:3+events_freezable" for several seconds. It isn't there in XFCE; but if you start TDE, then logout and login to XFCE, it is there and continues. Any ideas what this is and how I can make it stop?
Hi Dan,
I'm running the same setup (MX 19.2/TDE 14.0.9) and while I have 38 kworker/event_xyz processes runing, all but one are at 0.0 %CPU. That one is at 0.3 %CPU. A different one has 12s TIME.
My uptime is 6 days with ~420 total processes and I have only been in TDE.
So, yeah, 30% CPU seems really odd. Assuming you're not on a Pentium II or something ;)
One of the dev's will have to answer further (as I don't myself know what kworkers truly do other than ‘system stuff’).
Hope the data point helps, Michael
On 11/09/2020 11:43 AM, Michael via tde-users wrote:
So, yeah, 30% CPU seems really odd. Assuming you're not on a Pentium II or something ;)
LOL well it's a 2GHz Core Duo, so a bit slow by today's standards. But it's run TDE on Ubuntu for several years without this issue. It has to go back to its user very soon, though, so if I can't find a solution fast, it'll have to go back with XFCE rather than TDE.
I've tried several different 4.x & 5.x kernels, and switched from tdm back to lightdm, all with no change.
The problem task has a PID in the low 3-digits, so it's something that starts pretty early.
On Monday 09 of November 2020 21:04:16 Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
On 11/09/2020 11:43 AM, Michael via tde-users wrote:
So, yeah, 30% CPU seems really odd. Assuming you're not on a Pentium II or something ;)
LOL well it's a 2GHz Core Duo, so a bit slow by today's standards. But it's run TDE on Ubuntu for several years without this issue. It has to go back to its user very soon, though, so if I can't find a solution fast, it'll have to go back with XFCE rather than TDE.
I've tried several different 4.x & 5.x kernels, and switched from tdm back to lightdm, all with no change.
The problem task has a PID in the low 3-digits, so it's something that starts pretty early.
Hi Dan,
kworker, although due to the 'k' at the beginning may give the impression that it is related to TDE, it is a thread in the kernel. That's why it runs there, even if you login into XFCE.
The only thing where TDE could be directly related to the kernel is if you have SAK turned on. In this case, a special 'event' device for capturing the keyboard is created there.
Cheers
On 11/09/2020 12:23 PM, Slávek Banko via tde-users wrote:
kworker, although due to the 'k' at the beginning may give the impression that it is related to TDE, it is a thread in the kernel. That's why it runs there, even if you login into XFCE.
Just to clarify, it does not start if the system boots into XFCE. It's seen with XFCE only if TDE was running before XFCE. It starts with TDE, whether booted directly to TDE, or booted to XFCE and then switched to TDE. So it's something that TDE is starting.
The only thing where TDE could be directly related to the kernel is if you have SAK turned on. In this case, a special 'event' device for capturing the keyboard is created there.
I did have SAK enabled. I disabled it, rebooted, and the problem remains.
On Mon November 9 2020 12:48:07 Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
I did have SAK enabled. I disabled it, rebooted, and the problem remains.
"ps ax | grep pid" should give a clue as to what that PID is doing. From there you can use your favorite engine to search for further clues.
For example on this box the busiest kworker is 297:
# ps ax | grep 297 297 ? I< 0:40 [kworker/u25:0-rb_allocator] 9478 pts/4 S+ 0:00 grep 297 #
--Mike
On 11/09/2020 02:12 PM, Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:
"ps ax | grep pid" should give a clue as to what that PID is doing. From there you can use your favorite engine to search for further clues.
It doesn't tell me anything new, just gives the same task name that's in top's Command column.
On Mon November 9 2020 16:19:46 Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
On 11/09/2020 02:12 PM, Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:
"ps ax | grep pid" should give a clue as to what that PID is doing. From there you can use your favorite engine to search for further clues.
It doesn't tell me anything new, just gives the same task name that's in top's Command column.
Almost anything can cause this. I recall seeing reports of USB, graphics, and filesystems. However it's mostly in older kernels.
(1) Let's verify that you're running the correct kernel and not an older kernel where this was common:
# cat /proc/version
Should be a 4.19 kernel.
(2) See if the kworker's stack gives you any clues as to what it's up to:
# cat /proc/(pid)/stack
(3) See if any interrupts are going wild:
# grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/ | sort -n -k2 | tail
# sort -n -k2 /proc/interrupts | tail -5
Best to compare to another machine with similar uptime as some of those numbers do get high very quickly.
(4) Try a kernel mailing list. We're not kernel experts here at TDE.
Good luck,
--Mike
Guys,
Thanks for the replies, and the ideas. The machine went back to its owner this evening running XFCE. I'll see it again at some point, probably on the weekend, and will try these most recent ideas then. Or maybe I'll see if Antix works better in this case, although I prefer MX.
On Monday 09 November 2020 09:20:11 pm Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
Guys,
Thanks for the replies, and the ideas. The machine went back to its owner this evening running XFCE. I'll see it again at some point, probably on the weekend, and will try these most recent ideas then. Or maybe I'll see if Antix works better in this case, although I prefer MX.
I have a core2 duo (10yo dell laptop) that I did the tde.pm testing on last weekend. I'll fire it up tomorrow and see if I can recreate the issue.
Best, Michael
On Monday 09 November 2020 09:46:44 pm Michael via tde-users wrote:
On Monday 09 November 2020 09:20:11 pm Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
Guys,
Thanks for the replies, and the ideas. The machine went back to its owner this evening running XFCE. I'll see it again at some point, probably on the weekend, and will try these most recent ideas then. Or maybe I'll see if Antix works better in this case, although I prefer MX.
I have a core2 duo (10yo dell laptop) that I did the tde.pm testing on last weekend. I'll fire it up tomorrow and see if I can recreate the issue.
Hi Dan,
Are you sure you're getting 30% CPU usage and not 0.3% CPU usage? Top’s output is %CPU not an integer value.
You said you had a stock install of MX/TDE, what was Conky showing for total CPU usage?
My core2 duo has:
14 - kworker processes 165 - total process 0.7% max cpu for a kworker (most that weren't 0% were 0.3%) 4% - Max CPU usage per Conky (mostly ~2%) 4.19 - Kernel version
Another data point, Michael
PS: As a tip for making old hardware work better, see this wiki post: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Tips_And_Tricks#Un-Bogging_down_an_Older_sys...
On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Michael via tde-users wrote:
PS: As a tip for making old hardware work better, see this wiki post: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Tips_And_Tricks#Un-Bogging_down_an_Older_sys...
... where you'll see:
TDE Menu >> Office >> LibreOffice >> {left click} >> Edit Item ^^^^^^^^^^ That should be ........................right click !!!
Neat trick I never knew about!
Jonesy
On Wednesday 11 November 2020 05:04:25 pm Marvin Jones via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Michael via tde-users wrote:
PS: As a tip for making old hardware work better, see this wiki post: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Tips_And_Tricks#Un-Bogging_down_an_Older_s ystem
... where you'll see:
TDE Menu >> Office >> LibreOffice >> {left click} >> Edit Item ^^^^^^^^^^ That should be ........................right click !!!
Neat trick I never knew about!
Hi Jonesy,
Ah, no, left click is correct. You want to edit the item, not launch it.
And, yeah, nice sure helps old hardware live well past its prime :)
Best, Michael
On Wednesday 11 November 2020 05:40:06 pm Michael via tde-users wrote:
On Wednesday 11 November 2020 05:04:25 pm Marvin Jones via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Michael via tde-users wrote:
PS: As a tip for making old hardware work better, see this wiki post: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/Tips_And_Tricks#Un-Bogging_down_an_Older _s ystem
... where you'll see:
TDE Menu >> Office >> LibreOffice >> {left click} >> Edit Item ^^^^^^^^^^ That should be ........................right click !!!
Neat trick I never knew about!
Hi Jonesy,
Ah, no, left click is correct. You want to edit the item, not launch it.
I was in the Army... When I got out they took the “right” and “left” patches off my sleeves...
Seriously, I screwed that up twice, lol!
Best all, Michael
On 11/11/2020 02:51 PM, Michael via tde-users wrote:
Are you sure you're getting 30% CPU usage and not 0.3% CPU usage? Top’s output is %CPU not an integer value.
Well it would actually be 15% of the total CPU since it's a dual core. But, yes, top consistently shows it at about 30% +/- 1 or so.
It's a Core Duo, not a Core 2 Duo. Related, but only 32-bit.
You said you had a stock install of MX/TDE, what was Conky showing for total CPU usage?
Almost stock -- I usually turn Conky off because a monitor you can only see when you can see the desktop doesn't seem very practical, and it takes a lot more CPU and memory than top running in a console.
At this point the plan is, when I next get a chance at that machine, I'll try a couple of the things Mike Bird suggested. If I can't find a fix pretty fast, I'm thinking I may switch it to Antix. But I'll set up Antix with TDE on another machine and make a live ISO first so I can try it out before installing it.
On Mon, 9 Nov 2020 12:48:07 -0800 Dan Youngquist via tde-users users@trinitydesktop.org wrote:
On 11/09/2020 12:23 PM, Slávek Banko via tde-users wrote:
kworker, although due to the 'k' at the beginning may give the impression that it is related to TDE, it is a thread in the kernel. That's why it runs there, even if you login into XFCE.
Just to clarify, it does not start if the system boots into XFCE. It's seen with XFCE only if TDE was running before XFCE. It starts with TDE, whether booted directly to TDE, or booted to XFCE and then switched to TDE. So it's something that TDE is starting.
The only thing where TDE could be directly related to the kernel is if you have SAK turned on. In this case, a special 'event' device for capturing the keyboard is created there.
I did have SAK enabled. I disabled it, rebooted, and the problem remains.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/33640/kworker-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-hoggi... suggests that the perf tool ( https://perf.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page ) may be able to help you diagnose this. Possibly TDE is starting some kind of timer or the like that isn't canceled when you leave, or something's being simulated in software that newer CPUs can do in hardware.
E. Liddell
On Monday 09 November 2020 02:04:16 pm Dan Youngquist via tde-users wrote:
On 11/09/2020 11:43 AM, Michael via tde-users wrote:
So, yeah, 30% CPU seems really odd. Assuming you're not on a Pentium II or something ;)
LOL well it's a 2GHz Core Duo, so a bit slow by today's standards. But it's run TDE on Ubuntu for several years without this issue. It has to go back to its user very soon, though, so if I can't find a solution fast, it'll have to go back with XFCE rather than TDE.
I've tried several different 4.x & 5.x kernels, and switched from tdm back to lightdm, all with no change.
The problem task has a PID in the low 3-digits, so it's something that starts pretty early.
If you used the tde.pm I put on the TDE wiki [1], then re-run with this latest tde.pm from:
https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?p=606699&sid=34435dae1d1d3796b18... tde.pm_04.11.2020.xml
It helps with GUI running MX Tools. I tested it yesterday, but haven't done the doc updates yet.
Not that I think it'll help with the kworker though :(
For that try a full update (see next post from link above) and then reboot. (Not sure why but MX required two update cycles to get fully updated.)
Best, Michael
[1] https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/MX_Linux_Trinity_Repository_Installation_Ins...
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Dan Youngquist -
E. Liddell -
Marvin Jones -
Michael -
Mike Bird -
Slávek Banko