[Solved] - Tower's 1st [no, 3rd] Hard-Reset since clean-reinstall.

[leszek]

When you set it in the config yes otherwise if changed on the fly not.

[kdemeoz]

Another morning, another system lock-up, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace failed, REISUB failed. I am exasperated! 6th Hard Reset needed since my 31/12/16 Maui clean reinstallation, & 2nd since changing from NVidia to Nouveau GPU driver.
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Scenario almost identical to my 2/2/17 post:   
1. Suspended the Tower as usual late last night.
2. This morning i Resumed, but instead of the Lock Screen, i was looking at one of my open programs on one of my VDs [= Bad Thing #1] AGAIN, & next i realised that all mouse & k/b inputs were dead [= Bad Thing #2] AGAIN. 
3. Having recently enabled Ctrl+Alt+Backspace per earlier this thread, i now tried it. It did correctly kill the session & give me a standard Login screen, but... k/b & mouse dead, so screen was useless.
4. Toggled over to TTY2, where i logged in & again tried: sudo systemctl restart sddm ... This took me to a normal-looking Plasmashell Login Screen, except all inputs remained dead, so it was useless. This also happened last time. 
5. Hard Reset.

Note that the previous freeze happened with the then-current kernel, but since then another kernel update occurred, so is now 4.4.0-62.

So, is this how it just "has to be" for me? If i want to use Maui/Plasma5, irrespective of kernel, irrespective of Nvidia or Nouveau, irrespective of nice clean reinstall, i simply have to accept that maybe every few days, it will freeze, disobey all standard commands, & mandate a Hard Reset to recover? When it's working, it's a really lovely powerful OS, but this unreliability is very grating. 

[leszek]

It is really a strange thing that the mouse and keyboard input fails but you are able to switch to tty and relogin which tells us that the kernel is not frozen or crashed.
So that means the issue either is in the graphicsdriver or the mouse and keyboard driver.
Is the graphics frozen in any case? Or do you get new notifications and such and only mouse and keyboard is frozen/not working?

[rocky7x]

Hi kdemeoz,

Seems like this is not really an issue of OS, but probably the kernel config itself. Can you please maybe try the following:

Edit /etc/default/grub and change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to have the value "atkdb.reset i8042.nomux quiet splash" and then run sudo update-grub and reboot.

Maybe it's related to the specific touchpad/mouse/keyboard you have. Also, Ubuntu 16.4.2 will be released in 3 days and thus the new lts kernel will come down the update channel (I think 4.8). So please try to install that new kernel and also try those options I mentioned, maybe it will help.

[kdemeoz]

It is really a strange thing that the mouse and keyboard input fails but you are able to switch to tty and relogin which tells us that the kernel is not frozen or crashed.

Agreed, & remember that my REinstallation of Maui was 31/12/16; since then there has been more than only two kernel updates come through, meaning that these problems have occurred across multiple kernels, ie, it logically cannot be a single defective / incompatible kernel.

So that means the issue either is in the graphics driver or the mouse and keyboard driver.

Well, re "graphics driver", if you've followed this thread you'll know that i stayed stubbornly with the NVidia driver for a long time [with a couple of different updates of it], but now i use Nouveau. The freezes have occurred both ways. What else could i do?

Re "mouse and keyboard driver", again, what can i do here? I simply use whatever is provided in the OS. 

Is the graphics frozen in any case? Or do you get new notifications and such and only mouse and keyboard is frozen/not working?

That's a very good question, & i regret that for this morning's incident i cannot answer... unfortunately i tried those above-documented steps, ending in the Hard Reset, before Thunderbird [one of the programs still open at time of last night's Suspend] had time to synch & download new emails. Remember in my older post, Thunderbird & Network Manager etc were still clearly running behind the frozen plasmashell, coz i had heard the new message alert sound. If/ when there is another freeze, i will wait a little while before resetting, listening for TB.

[kdemeoz]

Hi kdemeoz,

Seems like this is not really an issue of OS, but probably the kernel config itself. Can you please maybe try the following:

Edit /etc/default/grub and change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to have the value "atkdb.reset i8042.nomux quiet splash" and then run sudo update-grub and reboot.

Maybe it's related to the specific touchpad/mouse/keyboard you have. Also, Ubuntu 16.4.2 will be released in 3 days and thus the new lts kernel will come down the update channel (I think 4.8). So please try to install that new kernel and also try those options I mentioned, maybe it will help.

Hi rocky, thanks. Later tonight i shall definitely do that edit, update & reboot. Just to stress however, as i did in my reply to leszek, these freezes have not been restricted to any single kernel. 

Once i see kernel 4.8 [or whatever], definitely i shall install it. 

"Maybe it's related to the specific touchpad/mouse/keyboard you have" ... maybe indeed, but they're merely standard Dell keyboards, & standard Dell/Microsoft optical mice [mouses?]. 

OK, i assume you noticed my plural; have you climbed back up off the floor? I have been wondering for a while if i should mention this itsy bitsy little detail to you guys as possibly relevant, or not bother as it was irrelevant. Here's the thing. I use a Standing Desk [http://au.varidesk.com/en-au/search/pro-plus-36]; it sits on my standard conventional flat desk, & is collapsible & extendable, so multiple times during the day i vary my posture by sitting or standing. The S/D itself has a tray for supporting k/b & mouse [& monitor], which is intended to be usable whether sitting [collapsed] or standing [extended]. However even when collapsed & i'm sitting, it's [k/b tray] a bit too high for good ergonomics, so i have a second mouse & k/b sitting on another tray, being the conventional desk's original under-desk sliding tray, which i use when sitting. All 4 are simply plugged into Tower's USB ports, & Maui instantly detected & activated them. I have been using this arrangement for a couple of years before last September's original Maui installation, ie, back with Mint 17.x KDE4. Mint never protested as best i recall, so i just carried on the arrangement with Maui.

Am i a naughty woman? 

[rocky7x]

Hi kdemeoz,

All those kernel updates as you call them are of the same kernel version (4.4), so that wouldn't solve anything - those are in most cases just security updates. On the other side, kernel from 16.04.2 is part of the Hardware Enablement Stack, which aims to resolve HW issues and bring new versions of drivers etc. So you cannot compare them.

As for the multi-keyboard/mouse setup, well it is quite unusual, but of course it should work. Since the freezes continue, it's obvious it has nothing to do with the graphics driver. Maybe just try to pull out and plug in the keyboards and mice when the freeze occurs - maybe they are "reset" and the system re-configures them. I suppose this doesn't happen with your laptop, just tower.

From what I can read by some googling, it seems that there can be various problems with various combinations of input devices, when used in such a multiple-device setup. What I would maybe recommend (though this would require spending some money) is to buy a Logitec wireless keyboard and mouse (or multiple number of them) and use them via the Logitech Unifying dongle. You can pair up to 6 devices per 1 dongle and it all goes in via 1 USB port. Don't really know if it would solve you problems, but it's just a thought. Anyway, I'm pretty much 99% sure that the problems you have come from those multiple devices.

[kdemeoz]

Hi rocky.

Oh, groan, so you feel my itsy bitsy little detail is actually THE root cause? Bugger. Does that mean i should not bother after all with the grub edit?

BTW, sorry to harp on about this, but it still feels important to me... this identical input h/w combo long-predates Maui, & didn't seem to bother Mint. Is there something fundamentally different about Ubuntu 16.04 &/or Plasma5 that means comparison to old Mint KDE is invalid?

[rocky7x]

Well it might be that something changed in the X server and/or kernel that makes your combination unstable. I think you should definitely try the boot options and wait a few days for the new LTS kernel 4.8 - don't throw the towel in yet Maybe someone other from the forum will be more experienced with such setup or know what can be the cause, but from what you have written, I really think that the multi-device setup is the cause of your problems. Try it a few days with just 1 keyboard and 1 mouse and see how it works, or try to pull out and then plug in back the keyboards and mice once it freezes again. Again, it would be REALLY helpful if you could drop here the system log after the freeze (the similar excercise as you did when you had problems before, with syslog etc.)

[kdemeoz]

OK. Well, in honouring the scientific principle [only change one variable per experiment], for now i have not edited grub, but i have unplugged the lower mouse & keyboard, ie, as of now there's only one of each active [ooh, it feels so... conventional  ]. I'll run like this indefinitely if there's no more freezes, but if there are, then i'll do the grub update [& btw, if another freeze does occur anyway, it would contra-indicate the dual h/w conflict hypothesis, in which case i might revert to it for ergonomic preference... but only if another freeze first occurs without them connected]. Depending on relative timing, i'll also do the kernel update, but only once the other variables have had enough time to prove or disprove their role in the freeze hypothesis. Ta muchly.

Tis 01:00 now; am about to Suspend & zzzzz. Wonder what the daylight will bring?