KDE Stutters on second user.
Posts: 32
When multiple users are logged in, the first users desktop will work fine, but the second users will lock up (for a short 1-2 second period) persistantly. During the 'lock up' the mouse will move but the K menu, all taskbar buttons, the desktop, the windows, the fish applet, etc..., all stop.
Its easy to reproduce this, I just log in two users, goto the second one, click on the K menu, and move the mouse up and down the list rapidly and after a couple seconds it just stops responding, as does the rest of the desktop.
This is a pure, fresh install of Mepis 6.0 with nothing other than the default apps loaded. I tried removing many of them, the fish, the battery monitor, etc..., and none of it seemed to make a difference.
The second user is 100% unuseable because you cant move the mouse arround the taskbar for more than 5 seconds before it locks up again.
The first user logged in is completely unaffected by this behavior, but any user after the fact, including root, is affected.
Any ideas?
(Note that the screensaver is turned off on all accounts, so it is not active in the background)
Update: It seems that when watching the proccesses, its the Kicker (Taskbar) that jumps up to a large % when the lockup occurs, and I havent been able to reproduce it in any other application (I.E. it doesnt do it in Konqueror or Firefox, or any other app I tried, JUST kicker menus, applets, etc...)
It usually locks about 2 or 3 times before I can manage to navigate to whatever game or app I want to run.
Not a hardware issue
Posts: 32
Looking into it more, its not multiple users, its every user EXCEPT 'me'. (The inital, non root, user created during install).
I have an AMD 3000+ with 1 GB DDR and an nVidia 6800, I dont think its a hardware issue, I can run Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc... with many multiple users and have never encountered this problem. I have Kubuntu installed next to this and had to go back to it because its not possible to use the other logins in Mepis without that painful stutter.
And as I said, I just tried with JUST the non-me user logged in, on a fresh boot, and the stutter is there, I then log myself in, and I have no stutter.
This is with NO APPLICATIONS RUNNING. Just a fresh boot, I click on the K menu, move my mouse up and down the list for a couple seconds, and then it stalls. Does it 100% of the time.
The applications do not show this behavior, I can open Knoqueror and scroll its menus for ever without a stall, same for Firefox and all the other apps I have tried so far, its ONLY THE KICKER that seems to have this issue.
So far this is the only issue preventing me from migrating to this distro, I like to try new distros occasionally, but I am not the only one that uses this PC, so any distro I choose cannot be victim to such problems.
Note also that its the whole kicker, not just the menu that suffers from this, if I mouse over the taskbar icons and go back and forth a couple times, the system again stops responding.
Type of Mouse
Posts: 5513
Grr!
OK, I'm going to be stepping out of my league soon, but let me ask. What are you using for a "mouse". Is it a real mouse or something like a synaptics touchpad? Also, is this a desktop unit or laptop? The reason I ask is that there have been considerable changes to Mepis and other Linux distros when they changed from the xfree86 window manager stuff to xorg. There are special drivers for synaptics (not "synaptic") touchpads. The good thing is that they allow "tap-and-drag" and other nice things, but it can be a bit "touchy" to set up. I played with it on my laptop and eventually turned off the "touchpad" features. I can use it as a plain mouse, but have to use the left and right buttons rather than using various "tap" features.
Other than that, I don't currently have any more ideas. But your isolating it to everyone-but-you is a good symptom! That means it could be a permissions and/or group thing. I don't know yet. Perhaps others will chime in soon 
JOn
I may have found the problem
Posts: 32
I may have found the problem! I will need to play with it a little longer to be sure, but I think its the apt notify program, I removed it from root and my other user and they seem to, at first glance, be free of stutter. I dont know why or how this would be the problem, especially on root, because root has full apt permissions, but it seems to be.
[Update] After playing with it for a few minutes, I have yet to get it to stutter on the other accounts with the apt notify removed.
Does Mepis have a Bugzilla?
Interesting!
Posts: 5513
Hey kismet, it sounds like you might be on to something!
I don't think Mepis as a bugzilla, but you can send info to and see what happens
Jon
PS, you're sure it wasn't "the fish"?
lol no it wasnt the fish, I
Posts: 32
lol no it wasnt the fish, I removed the fish as the first thing I tried. I will email the info to that addy.
The real question is...
Posts: 188
lol no it wasnt the fish, I removed the fish as the first thing I tried. I will email the info to that addy.
Did you put them back? Be kind to the fish!!!
Michael
=====================================================
"Reality? Oh, yeah. That has nothing to do with me."
Yes Kismet
Posts: 5513
Your computer is not stu-stu-stuttering, it's de-fra-fra-fra-fragm-m-m-MENTing
Jon
Thanks Jon.....
Posts: 188
Great....
Now we've got two threads we're gonna have to tie together kinda like KWeather and KAquarium....
Michael
=====================================================
"Reality? Oh, yeah. That has nothing to do with me."
May I Suggest...
Posts: 5513
Great....Now we've got two threads we're gonna have to tie together kinda like KWeather and KAquarium....
Michael
Michael, may I suggest ducKtape
Jon
Oh, no no no.....
Posts: 188
Michael, may I suggest ducKtape
I tried that stuff once before. My duck HATED it...
Michael
=====================================================
"Reality? Oh, yeah. That has nothing to do with me."
No room
Posts: 32
Did you put them back? Be kind to the fish!!!
My taskbar space is precious, so although the fish are...interesting, I have a better use for that space then watching fish.
Exactly the same on my
Posts: 42
Exactly the same on my conputer I do get!
I threw out the weather, but the fish stay because they are the way I can tell when a program has stalled while hogging the resource allocation.
Stutter and apt notify.
Posts: 42
Please be real clear on the exact program yoou called "apt notify" All the ones I can see installed with any name or description containing the keyword "apt" seem kind of essential (apt-get).
Thanks
Apt-Notify
Posts: 188
Please be real clear on the exact program you called "apt notify"
The APT-NOTIFY app we are talking about lives on the Kicker and tells you how many available upgrades you have waiting.
Michael
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"Reality? Oh, yeah. That has nothing to do with me."
Hardware Info
Posts: 5513
Kismet, I regularly run multiple "users" (they's all me) on my old Dell laptop. It has 384 MB RAM which is not great by today's standards, but I can even run VMware even though it's a tad slow.
Can you please give us some info on your hardware? How fast is your CPU, how much RAM do you have and what type of video card? The most likely suspect is too-little RAM. The delay is X Window gathering the session info and starting up another screen on ctl+alt+f8 (or f9...). Also, what types of applications are you running?
Like I say, I can run 4 or 5 simultaneous users or 4 or 5 virtual machines, but if the "users" were different people, and not just me wearing different hats, I'm sure there would be complaints about response time
Jon