Right. I've had this issue for quite a long while and it's starting to hurt. Bad.

Basically when doing certain things, (one example would be to resize a window quickly, another example would be to...let's say click File -> Save so that the file browse dialog pops up in an app like The GIMP) suddenly it would cause my X to go unresponsive. Mouse won't move. Doesn't respond to keyboard. Screen doesn't update itself. This means I can't kill it via ctrl-alt-backspace. The only thing I can do now (unless I had access to another TTY which I could ssh in and kill X - which I don't) is hold my power button until my computer does a force shut down.

If I disable KWin compositing, it removes these problems. However I really want to keep them on. (I've tried disabling things like transparency, wobbly windows, but they still occur).

I am using NVIDIA GeForce 9100M G with nvidia-drivers 180.27.

Any ideas?

Usually when this happens a gentle press of the power button will shut the system down, even if X has total frozen the Keyboard / Mouse. Otherwise it is a hardlock, probably in the graphics drivers.

A frozen X itself is the only thing that can cause the mouse to not move, this means it's either a driver or other internal system that's causing it.

Right, somebody on IRC said something about KWin compositing causing memory leaks to X and something about NVIDIA having to sort it out.

Anyways, since the only thing that registered was "wait for NVIDIA to sort it out" what I'm doing now is running Compiz-Fusion instead of KWin effects. Since the current compiz-fusion doesn't support KDE 4 window borders (next version coming to portage will) I've also switched from KWin to Emerald. Sorry KDE. But this has been a real showstopper.

Ha, I get the same with a Radeon X1550 card - after a couple of mins X is in charge of my computer if desktop effects are enabled and it takes at least five mins to turn them off again - and I've got my computer back

Compiz and kde4-win-decorator work together on Arch but I do not appear to be able to resize windows so that goes out of the window as well. It is quite refreshing not to have all this gizmo stuff around (read: always look on the bright side of life).

Moult wrote:Right, somebody on IRC said something about KWin compositing causing memory leaks to X and something about NVIDIA having to sort it out.

I believe the memory leak thing only affected Intel cards and it has since been fixed. I am not aware of any nVidia issues relating to this.

Ok, for the sake of wanting to improve KWin because to be honest I do prefer KWin, I would like to resolve these issues.

One major cause of the X lockup is resizing windows. To solve this I have made it so that it doesn't show window contents when resizing. So far that has solved the problem.

The second cause is save file dialogs in GTK applications. I haven't come up with a workaround yet.

The final cause I'm not exactly sure what it is, but certain applications/windows just cause a crash. One is the KAlarm window. (Removed KAlarm) Another is the window that pops up when you execute "kcmshell4 fonts". I don't know how to solve/debug this yet.

Any ideas?

(Oh, I've upgraded to 180.29 now)

The thread got me going again as well. I turned on desktop effects, but made sure Shadows and Various animations were turned off.

Now things work sort of as advertised, X behaves but no flip switch or cube, instead Present windows and no effect for changing desktops.

So for me no resizing windows or GTK issues.

My 2 cts

toad: didn't make any progress this morning except for finding out two things:
1) Do not upgrade to nvidia-drivers 180.35, it's even more buggy and will screw up your system. Stick to 180.29.
2) This little fellow is my new best friend. Especially the bit with the elephants.

Moult wrote:Right. I've had this issue for quite a long while and it's starting to hurt. Bad.

Basically when doing certain things, (one example would be to resize a window quickly, another example would be to...let's say click File -> Save so that the file browse dialog pops up in an app like The GIMP) suddenly it would cause my X to go unresponsive. Mouse won't move. Doesn't respond to keyboard. Screen doesn't update itself. This means I can't kill it via ctrl-alt-backspace. The only thing I can do now (unless I had access to another TTY which I could ssh in and kill X - which I don't) is hold my power button until my computer does a force shut down.

If I disable KWin compositing, it removes these problems. However I really want to keep them on. (I've tried disabling things like transparency, wobbly windows, but they still occur).

I am using NVIDIA GeForce 9100M G with nvidia-drivers 180.27.

Any ideas?

First, Try Alt-Backspace-E. If that doesn't work, update X. And if both of those don't work; try doing an update install of whatever ditro you have -- update because that will save all of your data, look and feel, ect. Hopefully This Helps:-)