frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 15, 2024 16:55:31 GMT
Hey, I'm running into issues that when my swap file get full, the whole PC just freezes and I have to force shut it down because it never comes back from that.
My solution to this would be that if possible, have the dump file getting rid of old entries that's not active and haven't been active for awhile? I don't mind if it breaks something like browsers, they're easy to just restart then, but as long as I can access the taskman to manually save it, I don't mind it, but yeah, the moment it hits the limit, I have no chance to close whatever I'm doing to access the taskman before the PC's completely locked up.
So yeah, as long as it's not gets fully locked up, I'm happy.
|
|
enigma9o7
Crew Member
Posts: 1,432 
Likes: 1,338
|
Post by enigma9o7 on Feb 15, 2024 18:23:29 GMT
What is a dump file?
You can setup places module to notify you when you're running low on disk space, but indeed some free space is necessary for things to run right.
|
|
frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 15, 2024 19:01:46 GMT
swap file, sorry. And I'm space constrained,so can't increase the swap file size either  |
|
enigma9o7
Crew Member
Posts: 1,432
Likes: 1,338
|
Post by enigma9o7 on Feb 15, 2024 22:21:41 GMT
The linux OOM (out of memory) handle should automatically kill apps if you don't have enough memory+swap. You shouldn't be freezing up. So that's worth investigating.
How little memory do you have? You could try using zram, that allows you to fit more into your memory before using disk swap (at the expense of cpu, as it compresses memory contents). If you have 1-2GB total, might be worth making 512MB of it zram. Firefox and Chromium both have built in options to swap inactive tabs to disk, but in your situation sounds like you should only be using one or two tabs at a time anyway.
I think the most obvious solution is to add more memory and/or replace your small HD with a cheap SSD.
You can free up some disk space sometimes with `sudo apt clean` and `sudo apt autoremove` and of course removing unused applications.
|
|
frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 16, 2024 9:55:01 GMT
I have 16gb of ram with an 8 or if it was a 16gb swap file and i usually have 100's of tabs, most of which are youtube, anime shows I follow, news and such, so they're pretty heavy to run too,I'd rather have them preloaded because my Alienware m17x r4 is kinda slow for my taste.
Maybe the OOM could get triggered earlier? could be that the CPU can't kill things fast enough to keep up with the killing as more RAM usage comes in?
Could also be that t tries to kill firefox as I'm watching something in full screen and can't kill because of that? since it only seems to happen when I'min full screen and in full screen on youtube, I also know that it's stupidly slow for me to open and close full screen on youtube, so that could be something to look into perhaps?
Also, I'm using an ocz vertex 3 550/500mb /s SSD for Linux, so it should be fast enough, I think?
|
|
enigma9o7
Crew Member
Posts: 1,432
Likes: 1,338
|
Post by enigma9o7 on Feb 16, 2024 15:52:35 GMT
Ah, I was imagining a computer with limited resources. Why do you think the problem is related to your swap file? Can you post your journal around the time your PC froze?
|
|
frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 16, 2024 16:37:46 GMT
i'm kinda new to linux, so have no idea what that is or how to use it.
The reason I think it's the swap file is because I was able to get taskman to open when it happened and both RAM and the swap were both at 100% while the CPU was barely working according to taskman, and it freezes in the same way every time it happens.
The sound loops like it used to back in the CD days when it hit a scratch (just so that you could understand what's happening, I don't use CD's), it then loops loops indefinitely, the cursor freezes, no keys are responding and so on until I force shut down by holding the power button.
|
|
xpistian
Crew Member
Posts: 182
Likes: 129
|
Post by xpistian on Feb 17, 2024 8:12:26 GMT
The linux OOM (out of memory) handle should automatically kill apps if you don't have enough memory+swap. You shouldn't be freezing up. So that's worth investigating. Fully agree here. When I had "only" 16GB on my Gentoo machine, RAM and swap would often fill up to the brim when compiling unfriendly packages (qtwebengine... and a few select others). The computer would never completely freeze up for longer than a few seconds, though.
|
|
frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 17, 2024 10:10:02 GMT
well, my system every time freezes indefinitely, tried once to sleep through it and it was completely locked 6 hours later still having that same CD scratch effect on repeat (and again, not on HDD, so it can't be a scratch on the platter, potentially creating the same effect, it's on a SSD), it was awhile ago it happened and it really didn't bother me too much until now when it's so frequent.
|
|
enigma9o7
Crew Member
Posts: 1,432
Likes: 1,338
|
Post by enigma9o7 on Feb 17, 2024 17:34:09 GMT
journalctl is the command to review the journal. there are lots of additional commands to filter it if you read the man/etc.
|
|
frozdy
Member
Posts: 39
Likes: 18
|
Post by frozdy on Feb 18, 2024 8:08:33 GMT
I'll get to it the next time it happens, which might be awhile.
Something that could cause this issue now that I think about it, the system and the graphics share the RAM, could that be the issue why it freezes?
|
|
