This is weird:
Sometimes (like 1 out of 5 times) KDE 4.2 freezes for 20 seconds (maybe not exactly, just used my stopwatch) when I close a window, notably Krusader2 or Pidgin, etc. Is there any means to track down what the issue is? It is pretty annoying.
I'm using Archlinux with the KDEMod repositories.

Do you have 3D Effects enabled? Try to reproduce with them disabled if this is the case.
If you are using NVidia or Ati, please ensure your drivers are the latest version.

The behaviour is the same with or without 3D effects. I'm using nVidia driver ver 180.22.
I'll try to switch to the OSS nv driver for a while.
Are there some logs, to examine the situation? Xorg.0.log does not reveal anything to me around the time the error happens. CPU is idle.

SanskritFritz wrote:The behaviour is the same with or without 3D effects. I'm using nVidia driver ver 180.22.
I'll try to switch to the OSS nv driver for a while.
Are there some logs, to examine the situation? Xorg.0.log does not reveal anything to me around the time the error happens. CPU is idle.

You might find something in ~/.xsession-errors, though it's hard to guess if it'll be any use.

I carefully cheked both Xorg.0.log and .xsession-errors (with tail -f), but there is no difference whatsoever.
I measured the time of the freeze, and it is exactly 25 seconds. Is there a timeout of 25 secs in KDE somewhere? What else could I examine?

Are you using KWin?

bcooksley wrote:Are you using KWin?

Yes, from this repository: http://kdemod.ath.cx/about-kdemod.html

I have the same problem and I must disabled 3D effects. The problem is new to me and going from a few weeks ago. I use the free drivers for ATI.

bump

[size=xx-small](There was an error posting your reply:
The message is too short. Please enter a longer message)[/size]

This seems to only affect those using ATI graphics cards. Try using a standard driver such as Vesa.

I'm using nVidia.

I have experimented a bit, and the only windows that have this problem are those that have window shortcuts defined. In particular, I have Meta-W defined for Krusader and Meta-M for Pidgin. As soon as I removed the shortcuts, the problem disappeared (I opened and closed the Pidgin window at least 50 times). I'm filing a bug report.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185738

Hi, I just found this and am wondering if my problem is the same as yours.

I'm using KDEmod too and when I use kwin with compositing enabled I also get these lockups, though mine can vary from between around 20 seconds to up to a minute. The lock-up is usually released by a flurry of hard drive activity, and the following being printed into dmesg:

ata1.01: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata1.01: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/b0 tag 0
cdb 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
res 40/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/b0 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata1.01: status: { DRDY }
ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
ata1: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
ata1: soft resetting link
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.01: configured for UDMA/33
ata1: EH complete
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 180468192 512-byte hardware sectors: (92.3 GB/86.0 GiB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 180468192 512-byte hardware sectors: (92.3 GB/86.0 GiB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

I think this might be to do with the infamous kernel IO wait bug, though am not sure. It's certainly triggered by kwin though, since if I use compiz (or openbox or anything else) it doesn't happen.

I'm using the 'intel' graphics driver.

Do you think this might be the same thing?

The problem was solved in later versions of KDE. Thank you!