Occasionally, disk goes crazy, system freezes

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in linux-source-2.6.22.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description doesn't yet have enough information.
Please include as attachments the following additional information, if you have not already done so (please pay attention to lspci's additional options), as required by the Ubuntu Kernel Team:
1. Please include the output of the command 'uname -a' in your next response. It should be one, long line of text which includes the exact kernel version you're running, as well as the CPU architecture.
2. Please run the command 'dmesg > dmesg.log' and attach the resulting file 'dmesg.log' to this bug report.
3. Please run the command 'sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log' and attach the resulting file 'lspci-vvnn.log' to this bug report.
For your reference, the full description of procedures for kernel-related bug reports is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Thanks in advance!

$ uname -a
Linux yang-xps410 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 21:45:15 GMT 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The Hardy Heron Alpha series was recently released. Alpha2 and subsequent releases contain an updated version of the kernel. You can download and try the new Hardy Heron Alpha release from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/ . Please note that Alpha3 will be released within the next day or two so you may want to wait. You should be able to then test the new kernel via the LiveCD. If you can, please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your results. General information regarding the release can also be found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ .

I've opened a new task against the actively developed kernel and am closing the task against linux-source-2.6.22. Thanks!

I have the same problem: the system freezes occationally, most at night. And the hdd went crazy, every thing freezes, I can move the mouse a little, but just a little. This happend every other day, some time I wait for 40-60 mins, and it went away, but some time 2 hrs didn't make any difference. But since I upgrade my mem from 1G to 2.5G, it seems getting better.

IBM X60 intel1.8 Core 2 Duo 1G RAM 160G sata WD Ubuntu 7.10

I'll post more information soon

thank you

This has happened a few more times to me since I posted. I would like to stress the severity of this issue - one of system stability - and to ask you to reconsider (or explain) the status of "Won't Fix" and the importance of "Medium."

Unfortunately, I do not have the resources or time to set up, switch over to, and use Alpha 3.

Thank you.

Hi Yang,

Hopefully the following links can help explain the Importance and Status of bug reports:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Importance
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status

According to the SRU policy, a fix should already be deployed and tested in the current development version before an update to the stable releases will be considered. With 7.10 now released, that policy applies to this bug. See: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

The bug is not being closed as work will continue on fixing it for the next release, Hardy Heron (8.04). If the state of this bug should change such that it qualifies for the SRU process, we will re-evaluate it for consideration. That is why it will be most helpful if you would be able to test the latest Hardy Alpha release and report back your results. Thanks.

The process of acquiring a machine for, installing, setting up applications on, fixing issues with, migrating my data to, and using the Alpha would take me at least several days, which seems to be slightly unrealistic to ask of users to qualify their reported bugs, particularly if that's the metric by which bugs are prioritized.

:)

I can confirm this problem in Hardy. It is an easily visible regression on my laptop somewhere between kernels 2.6.24-7-generic and 2.6.24-11-generic. Fortunately I kept the old -7 kernel so I can compare the results. Today I upgraded to 2.6.24-12-generic and the problem still persists.

I don't know if there's any archive of kernel deb binaries for all the versions between -7 and -11 -- if I had them I could exactly pinpoint the version which caused the regression.

The problem is clearly related to disk I/O. With a large I/O operation, like copying an ISO file, the system becomes very unresponsive, mouse is jerky, I have trouble switching between terminal windows or from X to the virtual terminal (ctrl-alt-f1). If I start a large enough disk operation, it can starve the system resources so that only a hard reboot can help.

The laptop is HP Compaq nx5000 with Pentium M 1.7 GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB SATA disk, latest Hardy Heron.

Here's a comparison of:
$ time cp -p valhalla-i386-disc1.iso z
(copying a 650M file on the same filesystem -- XFS)

Linux fafik 2.6.24-7-generic #1 SMP Thu Feb 7 01:29:58 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
real 0m35.307s
user 0m0.060s
sys 0m2.556s

Linux fafik 2.6.24-12-generic #1 SMP Wed Mar 12 23:01:54 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
real 5m31.690s
user 0m0.340s
sys 1m11.932s

$ cat /proc/version_signature
Ubuntu 2.6.24-12.22-generic

During the slow I/O operation, top seems to indicate that some kernel daemons like kondemand, kblockd take a significant amount of CPU. Obviously load average skyrockets.

top - 21:57:33 up 6 min, 3 users, load average: 8.87, 6.21, 2.68
Tasks: 117 total, 3 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie
Cpu(s): 3.7%us, 27.4%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 2.0%wa, 5.0%hi, 61.9%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1027128k total, 1012132k used, 14996k free, 100k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 802832k cached

  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 6389 wanted 20 0 3140 772 644 R 42.9 0.1 0:52.41 cp
 1812 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 8.6 0.0 0:02.76 scsi_eh_1
 5347 uml-net 20 0 1708 428 360 S 5.3 0.0 0:03.76 uml_switch
   43 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 4.6 0.0 0:05.78 kblockd/0
 4223 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 4.6 0.0 0:00.84 kcryptd
 5585 root 20 0 3408 1128 976 S 4.6 0.1 0:03.12 hald-addon-stor
 4970 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 4.0 0.0 0:06.80 kondemand/0
 1479 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 3.3 0.0 0:01.50 ata/0
 2994 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 3.3 0.0 0:09.86 ipw2200/0
 5678 root 20 0 210m 10m 6720 S 3.3 1.0 0:08.70 Xorg

Hi wanted,

Care to actually open a new bug report? It seems you may have a slightly different bug. First, it looks like you have different hardware than the original bug reporter. Also, you mention you noticed this regression on Hardy after 2.6.24-7 whereas the original bug reporter mentions this first appeared against Gutsy. We can easily mark bugs as duplicates of each other later if necessary. In your new bug report if you could please include the same information as you did here that will be helpful. Also beginning with the Hardy development cycle the kernel source package naming convention changed from "linux-source-2.6.xx" to just "linux" so if you can be sure to file the new bug against the "linux" package that will be helpful too. Thanks again and sorry for an inconvenience.

Will do, thanks for the clue.

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

Closing this bug for now as there hasn't been no response to the initial problem for a long time. Generally the symptoms could point to an application rapidly eating up memory until swap space is exhausted. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release, Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 - http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download. If the issue remains in Jaunty, please test the latest upstream kernel build - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

Im having the same problem. Theres no real rhyme or reason to it, I haven't waited for 20 mins for it to calm down, but my HD goes crazy and the computer is barely responsive, and by barely, i mean the mouse is even slow to move, forget trying to open a program.

Also, cannot get AVG to work using 9.10. Please don't bring up that i don't need a virus scanner, I use it to scan windows boxes. I can get avast and f-prot to work fine, but no AVG.

I was considering the possibility they are related, perhaps AVG is running a background scan which causes the command line to fail and is eating up CPU.

Also, I upgraded from ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 to 9.10, that may have something to do with it as well. Good luck guys.