Bug#670097: gnome-shell: random hang causes data loss

[Teodor MICU]

2012/4/30 Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org>:
>>>From time to time the Gnome shell will just freeze/hang and not accept any input
>
> How often is "from time to time"? Is this related to specific
> actions/circumstances, e.g. running an OpenGL game or something similar.

At least once a week. Usually I run these applications: chromium,
gnome-terminal, geany, retext, evince.

>> (keyboard or mouse) and all I can do is restart gdm3 or the laptop.
>
> So the system does not lock up completely? I.e you can still switch to
> the console or access the system via e.g. SSH?

Yes, the system is responsive but only Gnome is in a deep freeze. Even
if I kill the front app from a tty the Gnome shell still displays it —
all I can do is restart gdm3.

>>  Now I'm in
>>> the same situation and the latest changes made in a document I'm writting are
>>> going to be lost as I have no way to save them.
>
> If you are able to still access the system via the console, you might
> just kill the gnome-shell process, in which case it should be restarted.

I'll do this next time.

>> This is the second most annoying thing for me in Debian 7.0 (wheezy). I cannot
>> tell what causes this, there is nothing in the syslog.
>> I've attached the current process listing - maybe you can spot something.
>
> Unfortunately not.
> Is it possible, that you compile gnome-shell with debug symbols [1] and
> attach gdb when such a freeze occurs (if you are able to still access
> the system).
>
> Which Xorg driver do you use? Do those freezes also occur with the
> gnome-shell version from testing or is this something specific in 3.2.2.1-3?

This is not specific to current version. I postponed this report until
now just to test if Gnome 3.4 has the same problem.

Thanks