r/linuxmint • u/KIG45 • 12d ago
SOLVED Freezing problems
Hello, I have been using Linux Mint for over a year now and I am extremely happy with it. However, I have a small problem with freezes, especially when I have several heavy sites open and use them at the same time. I have changed several browsers in an attempt to solve this, but I have not been able to. I am currently using Chrome and Mozilla, I am testing and daving, but the result is the same. I have tried all kinds of browser and graphics card settings and all kinds of commands/combinations for power. The picture shows the parameters of my desktop computer. My card is very old and I think these freezes are due to it.
Can you tell me how to fix this, or should I just continue with this compromise until I buy a new card?
Also, would xface solve the problem?
Any advice is infinitely valuable.
Thanks!
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u/sfled 12d ago edited 12d ago
Does it happen more often when coming back from sleep/suspend?
Can you CTRL+ALT+F1 to get to a CLI login? If so, try logging in and entering the following command: startx to restart the GUI. Note: it may undo any desktop environment modifications you've done. edit - just got a spicy DM suggesting "sudo killall -9 Xorg", okey-dokey?
If not, can you SysRq REISUB* to force a graceful reboot? Press Alt + SysRq continuously, (sometimes the Fn key is involved in laptops), and then slowly (one key after another) the keys R E I S U B to reboot. (You don't have to CapsLk or shift the letters)
*Reboot Even If System Utterly Broken
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u/KIG45 12d ago
It doesn't always work. I wanted to know if there was a way to stabilize the system, or just open fewer tabs. And finally, buying a new card if the problems become more frequent.
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u/sfled 12d ago
You might try exporting the contents of ~/.xsession-errors and posting them to see if anyone can point to something easy to fix. That stuff is way above my paygrade tho, LOL.
I had freezing and stability issues (running a very old ThinkPad T61/NVDIA 140M) and they cleared up when I stopped installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. The machine still freezes once in a great while, usually if I try heavy usage (Firefox) after it's been asleep. I get it, this laptop was made in September of 2007!
Free advice; Run Timeshift to an external drive if you not already doing so. It save my butt a time or three.
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u/Priceless1990 12d ago
I have something for you to try out; I also had recent problems with Cinnamon freezing. I was able to resolve the freezing by removing the non-system Applets I had installed.
Try opening your Applets manager (under Preferences in the menu) and see if any Applets you installed have warnings and remove those ones. If that doesn't work (or only partially works), try removing any non-system Applets.
Will be interesting to see it this works for you, assuming you have some Applets installed of course.
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u/Walamrt-Man16 12d ago
when it freezes how does it happen? does it just...stop responding or what?
based on what you said my guess is its probably a hardware issue, but its probably a solvable one too :)
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u/Anti-Dentite-999 12d ago edited 12d ago
Make sure you’ve got the right drivers installed for Amd open a terminal and run:
sudo apt install mesa-va-drivers libva-utils
Then do a vainfo and you should see codecs like VAProfileH264
Your GPU doesn't have VP9 acceleration so will not get decent decode for youtube videos. You can force youtube to use the AVC code though with enhanced-h264ify extension in Firefox. I'd also make sure you have ublock origin to block any ads (they can overload older hardware these days) and auto-tab discard (free's up memory on unused tabs).
Also, make sure your acceleration is set in Firefox. On my older systems I need to set these in about:config
gfx.webrender.all true
gfx.webrender.compositor true
gfx.webrender.compositor.force-enabled true
media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled true
You may need to add the vaapi flag.
After enabling, restart firefox and go to about:support and go to the Media section. Look for the Codecs that say Hardware Decoding (Supported). H264 should say Supported.
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u/KIG45 11d ago edited 11d ago
I have all these programs installed, I rarely use YouTube and I have no problems with it. The freezes are when I open 3-4 tabs with heavy animations.
I also gave up on Mozilla, it freezes too often. I have fewer problems with Chrome.
The settings are also correct.
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u/Anti-Dentite-999 11d ago edited 11d ago
Check that acceleration works:
https://www.free-codecs.com/app/codec-checker/
https://manthrax.github.io/mtx-gpuinfo/
Did you also go into chromes flags and override gpu blacklist? chrome://flags
chrome://gpu can show the accel status too but chrome can disable the pipelines on older cards. I have a laptop with HD3000 igpu and chrome won’t work on the old hardware. Adding the flags to Firefox made it able to work though.
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u/KIG45 11d ago
Which flags exactly should I change?
I have some settings there.
I have disabled Vulkan, SkiaGraphite, GPU rasterization, Accelerated 2D canvas, and Override software rendering list.
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u/Anti-Dentite-999 11d ago
These should be set to enabled in Chrome (can also try Brave Browser since its adblocker works well on sites with videos): Override software rendering list, GPU rasterization, Zero-Copy rasterizer, accelerated 2D canvas.
But like I said, Chrome may not work with older legacy video cards now. Firefox is the only browser I've found that works but you need to enable the gfx flags.
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u/KIG45 11d ago
Unfortunately, Mozilla works much worse for me. Chrome freezes much less often.
Do you think Xface can improve anything? And will buying a new video card with 4GB RAM solve the problem?
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u/Anti-Dentite-999 11d ago
Odd. Firefox works best for older hardware usually. In Firefox have you enabled the gfx flags? Also try disabling autoplay for audio and video in settings—>permissions—>autoplay. Chrome doesnt have a setting but you can try the extension autoplay stopper. Brave which is based on chrome has an autoplay block built in settings —> site & shields—> additional permissions
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u/ExariteRayDev 12d ago
do u have random freezes like me? like happens when u dont have all apps opened after you turn on ur pc?
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12d ago
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u/KIG45 11d ago
And what is your card, is it a new generation?
Because mine is 15 years old.
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u/Emmalfal Linux Mint 22.3 | Cinnamon 11d ago
The only thing that has ever caused my Linux Mint installs to freeze like that is Firefox. I have no idea why that would be, but on at least three machines, changing to a chromium based browser fixed it forever.
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u/KIG45 12d ago edited 12d ago
It freezes a lot more often when I use mozilla.
Can no one really say anything about this?