It's the next morning and it didn't work - TOP shows 64% and CPU load monitor widget shows 2 threads above 25% each...plasma starting to lag slightly. My computer is on 24/7 so I really don't want to be rebooting every day. This is really bad news for Plasma 5...I might have to go back to 4.x for stability. So much for the Neon experiment...

compatico wrote:It's the next morning and it didn't work - TOP shows 64% and CPU load monitor widget shows 2 threads above 25% each...plasma starting to lag slightly. My computer is on 24/7 so I really don't want to be rebooting every day. This is really bad news for Plasma 5...I might have to go back to 4.x for stability. So much for the Neon experiment...

Ok new info here..popped in another SSD and tried out Neon 5.9.2 and added widgets 1 at a time...

...found that none of my widgets were causing an issue...it was Boinc. After adding Boinc, usage shot up quickly and that was it.

So now I found Boinc also had an issue with running tasks incorrectly. The two combined, I believe was causing my issue.

As it stands, been up for 13h 16m and no issues. I'm a happy camper again.

compatico wrote:...found that none of my widgets were causing an issue...it was Boinc. After adding Boinc, usage shot up quickly and that was it.
So now I found Boinc also had an issue with running tasks incorrectly. The two combined, I believe was causing my issue.
As it stands, been up for 13h 16m and no issues. I'm a happy camper again.

Update - been up for a couple days now and everything seems to be fine. Boinc is working as it should, and Plasmashell is not hogging more a couple of percent with 15 browser tabs, 7 plasmoids, and a few other apps running. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Hi Compatico,

It seems that the issue with Boinc was a particular issue for you. Indeed, 90% percent of the cases of high processor load and CPU hogging resources without explanation is because of any additional application.

For those ones still experiencing high CPU usage right after a fresh install (with no additional apps/widgets installed yet) I would suggest to disable desktop effects by deselecting the checkbox "Enable compositor on startup" in System Settings->Display & Monitor->Compositor.

For old versions of KDE 5 use the method described here:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/758250/h ... ermanently

If this does not solve the issue then disable the baloo_file_extracted as explained in previous replies to this post:

viewtopic.php?f=309&t=136964#p368546

Best,
Luke

lukeperry wrote:Hi Compatico,
It seems that the issue with Boinc was a particular issue for you. Indeed, 90% percent of the cases of high processor load and CPU hogging resources without explanation is because of any additional application.

For those ones still experiencing high CPU usage right after a fresh install (with no additional apps/widgets installed yet) I would suggest to disable desktop effects by deselecting the checkbox "Enable compositor on startup" in System Settings->Display & Monitor->Compositor.
For old versions of KDE 5 use the method described here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/758250/h ... ermanently
If this does not solve the issue then disable the baloo_file_extracted as explained in previous replies to this post:
viewtopic.php?f=309&t=136964#p368546
Best,
Luke

Hi Luke,

The problem is we shouldn't have to disable Baloo or Compositor to have normal function in Neon. In fact, we shouldn't have to disable anything. It's like having a performance car that can only run in eco mode...what's the sense of having it then...

While I seemed to experience this issue only when Boinc manager is open on the desktop (it runs in the background all the time), there are lots of others who don't run Boinc at all and experience poor Plasmashell processes. Right now I have Boinc in the background, with Baloo running, Compositor running, everything that is set by a default normal installation, and no issues. Once I open the Boinc manager, Plasmashell and Xorg shoot up by 10-15% instantly and start to grow. Once I close the foreground app and let it run quietly in the background, the processes drop back to normal and no issues again. I can run for days (hopefully weeks and months like before) without having to reboot to clear memory and get back to "normal" useage.

Obviously the Plasmashell bug is elusive as it's been around a long time and different "fixes" solve it for different installations, but do not solve it for others. No matter what the cause, this is a serious stability issue that needs to be addressed. Users wanting to try Neon who get hammered by this bug, will dump Neon and tell all their friends it's a garbage distro...not exactly what the Neon team wants I'm sure.

So let's not focus on fixes, lets focus on solving the bug. It's time to spring forward and get this fixed.

Baloo is not the problem, although high plasmashell utilization can happen with that, or any file activity, or even without file activity, just something trying and failing.

My plasmashell is currently at 135% CPU, Xorg is at 65%. I have a couple of apps open waiting for input. I had a file transfer in progress but paused it. Still, the CPU is at 200% between just those two applications with nothing going on. I looked at lsof to see what plasmashell had open, & it mostly gnu stuff with some file activity in process (del).

This plasmashell overutilization has been occurring seemingly randomly, although often associated with file i/o, but not always. The computer is rendered nearly unusable. An Intel 7700K @ 4.6Ghz, 32GB RAM, M.2 & SATAIII storage, z270 chipset, IGA, dual monitors. Nothing "exotic," but all of it should be fast enough to run Linux.

Desktop is Mint Linux 18.1 with kernel 4.8.0-42. Plasma 5.8.5.

The only way I've found to stop the problem is kill plasmashell & then start it again, and then for some reason it's back to a reasonable usage amount (until it isn't). A fresh plasmashell with low utilization can last anywhere from a few hours to few days, but unless the system is rebooted in between, it'll always get back to being crazy.

Does anybody either 1) Know what to try to diagnose it; 2) Have any suggestions; 3) Know where I can get an updated Plasma. I don't want to reinstall the system, I have too many customizations for that, plus I have to recompile the Intel Kaby Lake Ethernet driver each time I change kernel's because I HAD TO FIX INTEL'S DRIVER CODE and recompile the driver, because it didn't work out of the box (nor did the many thoughtful, but useless suggestions from Asus, from Intel, & around the Web on how to get the adapter running. I had to figure it out).