Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
On 14/11/2023 12:05, Ralph Corderoy wrote: I'm surprised a Linux machine is configured to shutdown on persistent high CPU or memory load. Rather, the kernel's out-of-memory killer will kick in and guess a process to kill to free memory. It sometimes nobbles the wrong horse. Perhaps it sent some vital process to the glue factory which initiated an orderly shutdown, but I doubt it. Hmmm. Several times prior to the big crash that trashed the machine, I observed Chromium consuming CPU in all eight cores and all of the available RAM including swap. I can't exactly remember what the process was that was consuming the most resources, because it was a very long-winded name. I've had another look at the output of htop with the browser benign and there are dozens, if not hundreds of tasks listed (3 to 4 screenfuls) What was clear was that as the CPU and RAM was consumed, the desktop became less and less responsive until I was unable to do anything about it. Previously I have hit the power button at this point, but on the day in question the machine shut down on its own. Could it be the graphics driver in the kernel which is running amok? Chromium will be making it work hard by compositing lots of pixel rectangles. https://superuser.com/questions/1716854/disabling-gpu-compositing-for-all-chrome-and-electron-instances-on-a-mac As with the Mac, it seems the only way to invoke the setting mentioned is to launch Chromium in the console with the switch to disable GPU Compositing. If all else fails, I'll try it and see what happens. The biggest problem I've had is that this all happens so fast that I've not been able capture any meaningful data to allow me to raise a bug report on the Chromium bug tracker. You might find some indication of past problems with ‘sudo -i journalctl’. It will place you in less(1). There's the date to go by and you can search with ‘/’, e.g. ‘oom-killer’. There was only one instance of oom-killer: Nov 02 08:46:48 OptiPlex kernel: systemd invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x140cca(GFP_HIGHUSER_MOVABLE|__GFP_COMP), order=0, oom_score_adj=0 That is some time before all this happened. -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
On 14/11/2023 12:49, Terry Coles wrote: Does anyone know how to repopulate the system-connections file? This system has just burst into life after my son discovered that the Router was no longer serving up an Ethernet connection to the Powerline Adaptors that feed our TV. That was one hell of a coincidence since the Ethernet link was working immediately before I broke this PC and not afterwards. I don't quite see how my actions, dumb as they were, would break Ethernet connectivity in the Router. However, although I had network access, I still didn't have the Network Manager icon in the Task Bar or in the System Settings. After some experimentation, I discovered that it worked if I reinstalled the package plasma-nm. So now, all I have to do is work out why Chromium is grabbing all the resources. -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
On 14/11/2023 11:57, Ralph Corderoy wrote: apt(8) for ‘install’ runs apt-get(8) and that wants a package name. To use that file with apt, you'd first have to place it where apt-get expects to find it if it had already been downloaded. And that place is where locate(1) records it used to be. Or, you have bypass APT and install a file with sudo dpkg -i network-manager_1.44.2-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb But it's been so long since I dealt with Debian packages and APT that I forget if this has downsides. If it does work and the network works then you could re-install with APT afterwards. I tried the latter method and it seems to work, except it ended with: WARNING: NetworkManager could not reload connections. I then had a rummage in /etc and found that the file /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections, is empty. In the Network configuration tool in KDE's System Settings dialog is missing. I have discovered a tool called nmcli, but I'm not sure how far it gets me: nmcli device status list lo, eno1 and the WiFi device that starts with wlx. The ethernet connection is eno1 and is shown as connecting (getting IP configuration) nmcli connection status lists the eno1 connections but is otherwise unhelpful. Does anyone know how to repopulate the system-connections file? -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
Hi Terry, > I think that it simply ran out of memory after maxing out the CPU > cores for a minute or two. I'm surprised a Linux machine is configured to shutdown on persistent high CPU or memory load. Rather, the kernel's out-of-memory killer will kick in and guess a process to kill to free memory. It sometimes nobbles the wrong horse. Perhaps it sent some vital process to the glue factory which initiated an orderly shutdown, but I doubt it. Could it be the graphics driver in the kernel which is running amok? Chromium will be making it work hard by compositing lots of pixel rectangles. https://superuser.com/questions/1716854/disabling-gpu-compositing-for-all-chrome-and-electron-instances-on-a-mac You might find some indication of past problems with ‘sudo -i journalctl’. It will place you in less(1). There's the date to go by and you can search with ‘/’, e.g. ‘oom-killer’. -- Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
On 14/11/2023 11:11, Ralph Corderoy wrote: That version appears to be from https://packages.ubuntu.com/mantic-updates/network-manager Thanks for that Ralph, I had actually found that page, but failed to spot the link to the mirrors. However, having obtained the required package, installation failed when I tried to install it. It seems that even when a package file is available locally, apt still tries to access the Internet (presumably to check dependencies). It does attempt to fetch the local file, but flags a 'Permission denied' error. I used: sudo apt install ./network-manager_1.44.2-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb but no joy. -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
On 14/11/2023 11:08, Ralph Corderoy wrote: That's surprising. Did it look like an orderly shutdown or did the power just cut? My only guess at a cause is overheating though I'd normally expect that to just cause the CPU to be throttled in speed. Is this a laptop on a hot lap or something with adequate cooling? I think that it simply ran out of memory after maxing out the CPU cores for a minute or two. It shut down fairly normally, in that the machine stayed alive throughout the process, but presumably was unable to safely close all files owing to lack of resources to do it with. This is my desktop. Is that ‘normally’ because the system has shut itself down before? When I said normally, I meant when I had shut it down by holding the power button in for > 7 seconds. This time it shut down before I got round to doing it. Has the machine booted such that it understands there is a wired network interface, i.e. it has loaded the drivers? ‘ip l’ should like the known network ‘links’, i.e. interfaces. ‘ip a’ will show any addresses assigned to them. Well it did until I stupidly uninstalled the network-manager package ;-( A wired network interface can be configured at the command line but that may be a bit long winded. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration If I can find the repository that contains the network-manager package, I can download it onto a USB stick and install it manually on the broken machine. -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
Hi Terry, > Does anyone know how to get the original .deb file for Network Manager? > I found reference to it at: > > /var/cache/apt/archives/network-manager_1.44.2-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb That version appears to be from https://packages.ubuntu.com/mantic-updates/network-manager -- Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed
Hi Terry, > However, before I could complete that, the system shut itself down. That's surprising. Did it look like an orderly shutdown or did the power just cut? My only guess at a cause is overheating though I'd normally expect that to just cause the CPU to be throttled in speed. Is this a laptop on a hot lap or something with adequate cooling? > Normally, I have found that restarting the system brought it back after > a bit of disc checking within the boot process Is that ‘normally’ because the system has shut itself down before? > my wired connection seems to have lost its configuration. Has the machine booted such that it understands there is a wired network interface, i.e. it has loaded the drivers? ‘ip l’ should like the known network ‘links’, i.e. interfaces. ‘ip a’ will show any addresses assigned to them. A wired network interface can be configured at the command line but that may be a bit long winded. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration -- Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed - was High CPU Usage When a News Pages Opened in Chromium
Writing this from an alternative computer. On 14/11/2023 09:30, Peter Merchant wrote: On 14/11/2023 07:55, Terry Coles wrote: No Ideas about how to find out what broke it, but a week or so ago I Reinstalled kubuntu 22.04 and in the disk formatting I did it manually and kept my /Home partition as it was, and that worked without loss of data (AFAIK). And it also kept the configuration of programs that had configurations in the Home partition, like Thunderbird. I've actually fixed the Plasma Widgets (I remembered that the config for these is on a per user basis, so I restored the .config/ directory from my backup). I still can't get my wired Ethernet connection working; does anyone know where Network-Manager stores its settings, so that I can restore that file? I've tried to configure it using the System Settings/Connections/Wired Connection 1 but nothing seems to work. I then tried Peter's suggestion. | So maybe do that, completely Uninstall suspect programs and go from there? That would have been a good idea Peter, if I hadn't been so dumb. I should have done reinstall network-manager, but instead I did uninstall ;-( Now I have no network connection at all on that machine. Does anyone know how to get the original .deb file for Network Manager? I found reference to it at: /var/cache/apt/archives/network-manager_1.44.2-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb using locate, but it has clearly been removed subsequent to locate indexing it. I can recall downloading .deb packages from somewhere on the Internet, but I can no longer find the place. Does anyone know where the Kubuntu packages are stored? -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed - was High CPU Usage When a News Pages Opened in Chromium
My suspicion would be a failed disk check on startup, and now you’re booted in a read only state… Can you get a full terminal output during boot? Sent from my iPhone On Tue, 14 Nov 2023 at 10:30, Peter Merchant wrote: > On 14/11/2023 07:55, Terry Coles wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I was attempting capture the outputs from htop and dstat -tcdngmy after > Chromium started eating CPU and RAM as detailed in the previous thread. > However, before I could complete that, the system shut itself down. > Normally, I have found that restarting the system brought it back after a > bit of disc checking within the boot process, but this time my system was > trashed. > > > > It boots up, but hardly any of my Activities have any Widgets left. > More seriously, my wired connection seems to have lost its configuration. > According to the Internet this config should be in > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, but I don't have a sysconfig directory so > no network-scripts! I have no idea what else has happened under the > bonnet. > > > > The WiFi connection works when I plug in a USB dongle. > > > > Normally I am able to restore everything using the most recent backup, > (last Thursday), but I don't normally backup the root directory because > that can always be restored with a clean installation. However, a clean > installation necessitates several days reinstalling and reconfiguring my > favourite packages, so before I do that, I'd like to work out exactly what > has been broken. > > > > Any ideas? > > > No Ideas about how to find out what broke it, but a week or so ago I > Reinstalled kubuntu 22.04 and in the disk formatting I did it manually and > kept my /Home partition as it was, and that worked without loss of data > (AFAIK). And it also kept the configuration of programs that had > configurations in the Home partition, like Thunderbird. > > > So maybe do that, completely Uninstall suspect programs and go from there? > > Peter > > > -- > Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 > Check to whom you are replying > Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk > New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk > -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed - was High CPU Usage When a News Pages Opened in Chromium
On 14/11/2023 07:55, Terry Coles wrote: Hi, I was attempting capture the outputs from htop and dstat -tcdngmy after Chromium started eating CPU and RAM as detailed in the previous thread. However, before I could complete that, the system shut itself down. Normally, I have found that restarting the system brought it back after a bit of disc checking within the boot process, but this time my system was trashed. It boots up, but hardly any of my Activities have any Widgets left. More seriously, my wired connection seems to have lost its configuration. According to the Internet this config should be in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, but I don't have a sysconfig directory so no network-scripts! I have no idea what else has happened under the bonnet. The WiFi connection works when I plug in a USB dongle. Normally I am able to restore everything using the most recent backup, (last Thursday), but I don't normally backup the root directory because that can always be restored with a clean installation. However, a clean installation necessitates several days reinstalling and reconfiguring my favourite packages, so before I do that, I'd like to work out exactly what has been broken. Any ideas? No Ideas about how to find out what broke it, but a week or so ago I Reinstalled kubuntu 22.04 and in the disk formatting I did it manually and kept my /Home partition as it was, and that worked without loss of data (AFAIK). And it also kept the configuration of programs that had configurations in the Home partition, like Thunderbird. So maybe do that, completely Uninstall suspect programs and go from there? Peter -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2023-12-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
