[gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[Hervé Guillemet]

Hello,

After a recent system update I get this annoying strange behavior: when 
scrolling in a firefox or thunderbird window with the mouse wheel, the 
full X interface freezes for some seconds, then a system beep is emitted 
and the interface unfreezes, but most of the time the mouse cursor 
becomes invisible. I must restart X to get it back.
Scrolling with scrollbars or arrow keys works.
Scrolling with wheels in others apps like terminals works too.
No useful message in syslog, dmesg or console.

I tried various things, like downgrading firefox and thunderbird to the 
version I used before the upgrade, compiling without the system-libXX 
use flags, downgrading the nvidia drivers, upgrading the kernel, etc... 
without success.

Any idea ?

-- 
Hervé

Re: [gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[Mick]

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On Sunday, 26 August 2018 09:07:23 BST Hervé Guillemet wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> After a recent system update I get this annoying strange behavior: when
> scrolling in a firefox or thunderbird window with the mouse wheel, the
> full X interface freezes for some seconds, then a system beep is emitted
> and the interface unfreezes, but most of the time the mouse cursor
> becomes invisible.

If it is a BIOS beep, rather than a desktop/application sound, then you have 
some hardware problem.  The recent update may have implemented some hardware 
acceleration rendering on the browser and this is putting pressure on your 
GPU, RAM, PSU.  A single beep points to RAM, but I don't know all OEM's BIOS 
codes.

I'd start by opening the cover and reseating your RAM modules.  Oxidisation 
may have increase contact resistance.  Usually pulling them out and pushing 
them back in cleans them enough to restore a good electrical contact.

While you're there try removing all the dust from CPU, GPU, PSU coolers and 
air ducts using a vacuum cleaner (carefully) or a compressed air can.  Keep 
holding the chassis at all times with one hand or use an earthing strap, some 
vacuum cleaners I've tried have a terrible problem with creating static 
electricity and a discharge could blow your MoBo chipset.

Finally, reseat any SATA/IDE cables.  Their contacts can also corrode with 
time and if the browser is caching pages on disk while the freeze occurs it 
might cause a problem, although unlikely to get a BIOS beep from it.  You 
wouldn't be able to boot with a hard disk failure beep code going off, if this 
was your problem.


> I must restart X to get it back.

This sounds like a Xorg drivers problem, but if Xorg has partially crashed due 
to RAM or power problems, then this cursor problem will go away after you 
address the hardware issue.


> Scrolling with scrollbars or arrow keys works.
> Scrolling with wheels in others apps like terminals works too.
> No useful message in syslog, dmesg or console.

What does /var/log/Xorg.0.log reveal?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[Hervé Guillemet]

Thanks Mick for the suggestions.

> > After a recent system update I get this annoying strange behavior:
> > when scrolling in a firefox or thunderbird window with the mouse
> > wheel, the full X interface freezes for some seconds, then a system
> > beep is emitted and the interface unfreezes, but most of the time the
> > mouse cursor becomes invisible.


> If it is a BIOS beep, rather than a desktop/application sound, then
> you have some hardware problem. The recent update may have
> implemented some hardware acceleration rendering on the browser and
> this is putting pressure on your GPU, RAM, PSU. A single beep points
> to RAM, but I don't know all OEM's BIOS codes.

> I'd start by opening the cover and reseating your RAM modules. 
> Oxidisation may have increase contact resistance. Usually pulling
> them out and pushing them back in cleans them enough to restore a
> good electrical contact.

> While you're there try removing all the dust from CPU, GPU, PSU 
> coolers and air ducts using a vacuum cleaner (carefully) or a
> compressed air can. Keep holding the chassis at all times with one
> hand or use an earthing strap, some vacuum cleaners I've tried have a
> terrible problem with creating static electricity and a discharge
> could blow your MoBo chipset

> Finally, reseat any SATA/IDE cables. Their contacts can also corrode 
> with time and if the browser is caching pages on disk while the
> freeze occurs it might cause a problem, although unlikely to get a
> BIOS beep from it. You wouldn't be able to boot with a hard disk
> failure beep code going off, if this was your problem.

Single beep would mean RAM issue indeed if it's a BIOS beep. But the 
fact that it happens only when using the mouse wheel let me think it is 
problably something more specific that a RAM issue.

I did some cleanup, without success. The system is fanless and thus 
quite stable and remains clean.

I reseated the RAM. No change.
I run memtest86+. No errors.


> > I must restart X to get it back.


> This sounds like a Xorg drivers problem, but if Xorg has partially 
> crashed due to RAM or power problems, then this cursor problem will
> go away after you address the hardware issue.


>> Scrolling with scrollbars or arrow keys works. Scrolling with
>> wheels in others apps like terminals works too. No useful message
>> in syslog, dmesg or console.


> What does /var/log/Xorg.0.log reveal?

Nothing either.

In the meantime I found another application triggering the problem (some 
image display software), so this is not specific to Gecko.

-- 
Hervé

Re: [gentoo-user] Mouse wheel makes firefox hang

[Mick]

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On Monday, 27 August 2018 18:35:29 BST Hervé Guillemet wrote:
> Thanks Mick for the suggestions.

> > This sounds like a Xorg drivers problem, but if Xorg has partially
> > crashed due to RAM or power problems, then this cursor problem will
> > go away after you address the hardware issue.
> > 
> >> Scrolling with scrollbars or arrow keys works. Scrolling with
> >> wheels in others apps like terminals works too. No useful message
> >> in syslog, dmesg or console.
> > 
> > What does /var/log/Xorg.0.log reveal?
> 
> Nothing either.
> 
> In the meantime I found another application triggering the problem (some
> image display software), so this is not specific to Gecko.

There are various tests, from glxgears to glmark2 to Unigine Benchmark, which 
will put a graphics card through its paces and of course test the video driver 
with it.

If by running any of these you get the same symptoms I would think the problem 
is specific to your GPU/driver and perhaps how it uses shared memory - hence 
the beep. You can also see if there is a momentary jump in memory usage by 
using vmstat, watch -d ipcs -m, watch -d cat /proc/meminfo, et al.

Glitches like these usually go away after a while, when the application, Xorg 
drivers and occasionally the kernel get updated to a later version.  Other 
than that you could start debugging apps and drivers, which often ends up 
being a ping-pong between video driver devs, app devs and desktop devs.

I'm not I can offer more practical help, but others more knowledgeable in this 
field may be able to contribute.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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