Screen freeze and high CPU for xfwm4

User Support
1

Info:

  • Certified Nova Custom V56 laptop
  • Qubes 4.2.4

Expected Behavior*: No screen freeze

Actual Behavior:
About every (second) day, my screen freezes. Only the pointer of the mouse can move on the screen.
Difficult to predict when it will happen… Among others, it happened when I was watching a film or when I was using Qubes Update.

Workaround:

  1. CTRL + ALT + F2
  2. login
  3. top
  4. Notice that the process xfwm4 has a high CPU
  5. pkill xfwm4 and exit
  6. CTRL + ALT + F1

Consequences after CTRL + ALT + F1:

  • Most of the time: in the system tray, the Network Manager icon from disp-sys-net and the VPN icons from my VPN VMs have disappeared, even if I am successfully able to go on the internet. Killing & restarting those VMs bring back their icons.
  • Sometimes: The system remains frozen and rebooting the laptop seems the only option.

Any idea to fix the problem? Thanks!

1 Like
2

Are you using modesetting display driver and iris dri module?
If yes, then check in BIOS if dynamic turbo frequency (or equivalent) cpu option is enabled and disable it.

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3

Never heard about that, so I guess the answer is: no.

Should we care about such things on a Qubes certified laptop to make it work?

Thanks for your help.

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4

I don’t have certified laptop.
I have Thinkpad T14 Gen3 i5 1245U with iGPU.
When I installed QubesOS, for some reason, installer didn’t recognized my Intel Xe gfx and chose to use for Xorg i915 driver. Some other users of T14 reported that they have modesetting by default so I dunno why I had not.

After changing driver from i915 to modesetting I’ve had strange hard crashes.
It happened once a day.
I’ve figured out it was with DRI=iris MESA module (when changed DRI module for i915 driver), which is default and unchangeable with modesetting driver on Intel Xe iGPU.

I’ve lived with it for months and then, last month, I’ve checked something else in BIOS and stumbled upon Dynamic Turbo Frequency settings (typing from memory). It’s windows settings which make turbo dynamic, not fixed at max frequency.
I disabled it, turbo in linux is still dynamic but I have no more hard crashes.

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5

Please report this as an issue on github.

Hopefully, one day buggy xfce would be replaced back to KDE.

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6

TL;DR:

  1. How can I solve the problem described on this post?
  2. What is the purpose of buying a Qubes certified Nova Custom V56 laptop if I have more trouble to make it “Qubes bug free” than on my previous laptop (not Qubes certified)? (true question)
  3. Are NovaCustom the ones I should go to, since they sell a “Qubes certified laptop” that actually (kind of) crashes?

What I did since balko’s last post:

First, thank you to KitsuneNoBaka and Balko for their help.

I did what balko suggested and opened an issue on Github: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/10394
You can’t see it? A friend of mine neither. And me neither!
I need first to log in. Only then am I able to see my issue.
So, obviously, my issue is not public (not public in https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/ anyway) and has consequently never been taken into account.

Detailed list of all actions I took following balko’s recommendation to open an issue on Github:

  1. Tried to open a Github account with Mullvad Browser with an alias to my true email address ==> passed some captcha then got a message saying my account could not be created
  2. Tried to open a Github account with Brave Browser with an alias to my true email address==> passed some captcha then got a message saying my account could not be created
  3. Tried to open a Github account with Firefox with an alias to my true email address ==> passed some captcha then got a message saying my account could not be created
  4. Tried to open a Github account with Firefox on a friend’s Ipad with an alias to my true email address ==> passed some captcha then got a message saying my account could not be created
  5. Tried to open a Github account with Firefox on a friend’s Ipad with a 10minutemail.com address ==> I got an account! Hurrah!!! And then replaced that temporary address with an alias to my true email address
  6. Tried to open my issue and got one (https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/10394) ==> I am the only one able to see it and only if I am logged in
  7. Tried to configure 2FA to give more confidence to Github I am not a bot of some sort ==> My issue is still hidden to the public
  8. Tried to configure SSH keys to give more confidence to Github I am not a bot of some sort ==> My issue is still hidden to the public
  9. Tried to commit on a “hello-world” freshly-created repository to give more confidence to Github I am not a bot of some sort ==> My issue is still hidden to the public

I have bought a Qubes certified laptop hoping to be able to hit the ground running and I have spent hours trying (unsuccessfully) to use Qubes ticketing system.

During a professional conference call, it is particularly awkward to ask for a 2 minutes pause to bring back my system. My laptop “hanged” at three different occasions so far.

So, again the TL;DR:

  1. How can I solve the problem described on this post?
  2. What is the purpose of buying a Qubes certified Nova Custom V56 laptop if I have more trouble to make it “Qubes bug free” than on my previous laptop (not Qubes certified)? (true question)
  3. Are NovaCustom the ones I should go to, since they sell a “Qubes certified laptop” that (kind of) crashes?

Thank you very much for your help!

2 Likes
7

Today, I had an important professional conf call with all of the higher management.

My computer crashed (again!). I missed 15 minutes of that very important call.

I’m a Qubes lover. Been on Qubes for more than 5 years now.

But being in that same situation twice won’t be allowed if you see what I mean… And rightly so, IMHO. How could they allow a guy knowingly using a computer that crashes repeatedly during important processes?

So, @novacustom, are you the ones I should ping?
Or “Certified Qubes laptop” means no guarantee of Qubes stability? (which is fine, but I’d like it to be clear because that’s not how I had understood “Qubes certified” in the first place.)

Thank you!

1 Like
8

I am not affiliated with novacustom nor with qubesos developers, but I
got the same laptop, and your issue report’s making me curious about a
few things:

  1. what is the teleconference program you were using during the business
    call that got frozen?
  2. what are the vCPU you’ve assigned to the qube that’s running that
    teleconference program and what’s the RAM you’ve given it? Is it the
    default 4 vCPU 4 GM RAM, max?
  3. was the qube in-use a debian-12 qube, or a fedora one?
1 Like
9
  • This time: Zoom (app installed in a dispVM).
  • Other times: The issue happened with Teams (used in a web browser) as well (without a full crash of the PC, though)
  • NB: The problem can happen when when I’m not in a teleconference as well

Zoom said it could be laggy because of lack of CPU. (I don’t remember the exact message). I gave the teleconference dispVM 6 vCPUs (2 is the default on my machine)

NB: The PC also crashes without any change in the vCPUs in the VMs.

I have 2 vCPUs as default for every VMs.

The default max RAM is indeed 4000MB on my PC (except for HVM VM like sys-usb, but that’s another topic).
I did never change that 4000 MB value for any VM.

The dispVM I installed zoom on for the teleconference was based on debian-12

1 Like
10

I managed to create the issue on github: Screen freeze and high CPU for xfwm4 (Qubes certified laptop) · Issue #10415 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub

The trick was to create and use a burner outlook.com address.

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11

I have 2 vCPUs as default for every VMs.

Yeah, correct. My bad, the default vCPU setting is indeed 2.

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12
  • We are here to help you, sure :smiley: .
  • This is definitely not what you should expect from a NovaCustom Qubes-certified model.

Even though I’m not 100% sure, it looks like the issue is software related.

Does your laptop have a Qubes-certified configuration?

In case you reinstalled Qubes OS, are the certification disclaimers respected regarding sys-net and kernel-latest?

These questions are important to check since those combinations of hardware and settings are tested by @marmarek, who is maintaining the certification.

Hopefully, he has some suggestions.

1 Like
13

Good to hear that, thanks!

Thanks for the clarification.

Both of your links point to the same target (the disclaimers). Yes, my configuration satisfies both fist disclaimers. The 3rd one is off-topic (the bottom-right USB-C port is currently limited to USB 2.0 speeds).

I’d be happy to read them here or in the Github issue (Screen freeze and high CPU for xfwm4 (Qubes certified laptop) · Issue #10415 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub).

Thanks for stepping in!

2 Likes
14

Any news on this, @novacustom ?
Thank you for your help.

15

It looks like Marek pushed a fix, but probably needs a release? @marmarek ? Maybe @marmarek has a workaround for now?

16

I saw Marek’s fix two weeks ago but it seems to me that that fix:

  • was in response to a user’s comment
  • was not a solution to the issue

Could you please check, @novacustom and:

  • if Marek’s fix indeed solved the issue #10415, is it possible to get a list of steps I should perform to fix the problem on my computer?
  • if Marek’s fix did not solve the issue #10415, could you precise how and when we can move forward?

I’d be happy to answer any question if something was not clear.

Thanks again for your help!

17

@novacustom, 23 days have passed since both of your messages:

Therefore, may I ask you:

  • when support will be provided?
  • if there is any kind of SLA with NovaCustom Qubes-certified models?

Any answer is welcome.

Thank you.

18

Hello, thank you for your message.

I would kindly ask you to contact us or submit a service request so we can assist you further.

Thank you in advance.

19

Dear @novacustom

  1. So far, I wish to remain anonymous, which might be difficult/impossible when opening a ticket on your system
  2. I have already spent a lot of time reporting & detailing the issue here and on github
  3. I do not see how reporting now the problem on a 3rd place would help bringing a technical resolution to this issue.
  4. It looks like I am not alone facing the same issue and opening yet another ticket on yet another (private) system would not help the community

For those reasons, may I ask you to create a ticket in your system to satisfy your internal policies and needs if you deem it necessary?

Thank you very much for your support.

Dear all who face the same issue,

On github,

  • I have just posted a new workaround that works better for me than my initial one.

    TL;DR: kill -SIGUSR1 $(pidof xfce4-session)

  • Marmarek has just posted a workaround I am happy to try soon.

    TL;DR: xfwm4 --replace &

1 Like
20

Hi,

I’m sorry to say, but I still don’t know if this is a software or hardware issue. It’s also unclear to me if you would like to proceed with a warranty request.

If you believe it’s a hardware issue and you would like to submit your warranty request anonymously, please send us an encrypted email. Our email address and encryption details can be found here: https://novacustom.com

Preferably, please write the email in the same form as the service form, so we have all necessary information: Service centre - NovaCustom

Kind regards,

Wessel - NovaCustom