gnome-settings-daemon and gnome-display-properties slow down xserver when external monitor added

thank you for your bug report, could you run gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon on a command line and see if it prints useful informations when you get the issue? could you get a stacktrace when it's using ressources? do you get a similar issue using xrand --auto on a command line?

using "xrandr --auto" rather

I've attached two files, coldplug.txt where gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon is run while the monitor is plugged in, and hotplug.txt, where I unplugged the monitor, ran g-s-d, plugged in the monitor and used xrandr --output TMSD-1 --mode 1920x1080 to activate the monitor.

xrandr --auto causes the screen to go black momentarily, similar to the initial moments with g-s-d when brief flashes of the screen can be seen in-between blue or black screens.

in which case do you get slowness? can you get similar issues by using xrandr on the command line? does anything is using cpu while you get the issue?

CPU jumps up past 50% on the System Monitor graph with both g-s-d and gnome-display-properties (top claims +60% CPU usage for Xorg). I used glxgears below. I'm not sure how I would test with xrandr. xrandr --auto just takes a second and there's no spike on the cpu history. By running xrandr repeatedly maybe there's a slight increase in activity, but nothing over 50% CPU.

glxgears before and after g-s-d

method@discourse:~$ glxgears
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
302 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.187 FPS
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.119 FPS
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.954 FPS
^C
method@discourse:~$ gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon &
[1] 9295
<snip>
method@discourse:~$ glxgears
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
20 frames in 5.3 seconds = 3.771 FPS
17 frames in 5.3 seconds = 3.196 FPS
20 frames in 5.2 seconds = 3.877 FPS

glxgears after gnome-display-properties

method@discourse:~$ bg 1
[1]+ gnome-display-properties &
method@discourse:~$ glxgears
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
26 frames in 5.2 seconds = 5.017 FPS
34 frames in 5.4 seconds = 6.310 FPS
31 frames in 5.2 seconds = 5.933 FPS

could you try to use gdb or strace to see if it's looping in the code somewhere

When I strace g-s-d it sets up and forks. If I strace the pid there's a lot of stuff like this repeating:

writev(3, [{"\226\t\3\0>\0\0\0[\276\0\0"..., 12}, {NULL, 0}, {""..., 0}], 3) = 12
select(4, [3], [], NULL, NULL) = 1 (in [3])
read(3, "\1|\335\3\4\0\0\0[\276\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\2\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 4096) = 48
read(3, 0x84bf068, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}, {fd=5, events=POLLIN}, {fd=9, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=11, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=12, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=13, events=POLLIN|POLLPRI}, {fd=14, events=POLLIN}], 7, 0) = 0 (Timeout)

The above is actually from the end of an strace on gnome-display-properties where it occurs as well.

thanks for your work there, I've no real clue about the issue right now though, do you think you could open the bug on bugzilla.gnome.org too where the people writting the code will read about it? they know the code better and might have a clue about what to change there

Created a bugzilla bug here: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574931

thank you for sending the bug there

Applying the patch that Peter Clifton suggested here (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libxrandr/+bug/307306/comments/23) to libgnome-desktop-2-11 fixes the problems for me.

Latest updates as of today appear to have fixed this issue here. MacMini, Intel graphics, Jaunty Alpha 6 install with latest updates.

the issue is fixed in jaunty now