Does anyone else face this problem? This is extremely annoying. While copying/pasting large files to/from any USB device or external memory, other applications or programs lag. They become unresponsive. Everything becomes slow.
I love MATE but this problem needs to be checked. A stable MATE is all I need.
BTW, this problem doesn’t happen while working with Xfce, Unity, etc.
Have you tried running top or htop during a transfer to see if an errant processes as consuming too much mermory or disk I/O?
No, I didn’t. But I would try and let you know as it happens.
I’ve seen your bug report in Launchpad but I can’t reproduce what you describe 
I set the environment to reproduce the issue. I started copying some folders totalling 11GB to an USB device, started unzipping two large zipped files totalling 8.9GB, played 1080p movie totalling 4.5GB, opened few other folders, two screenshots, etc. Everything was working fine initially, but with the passage of time, my Laptop started to become unresponsive. At one time, movie on VLC was stopping frequently, applications wasn't responding, or responding after a long while, Main Menu was responding after a while, etc. I started top in terminal beforehand and attached the screenshot herewith. I'm not sure whether it would be of any use. But I can reproduce this issue again, I'm confident about that. 
A couple of things to investigate:
If it’s a laptop, does it have a 5400 RPM platter drive? If you are doing all that on a laptop you might be hitting against the drives transfer or seek limits.
Also (and less likely) it looks like one of the drives might be NTFS… I’m not sure how beefy your laptop is, but on low end hardware, there’s a substantial difference in overheard between transferring files to a NTFS formatted drive, vs one formatted in XFS (as an example).
Neither of these may be your issue, but just something to mull over.
tl;dr It has 5400 rpm hard disk.
This is the output of lshw.
bumblebee
description: Notebook
product: HP ProBook 450 G1 (F4W80PA#UUF)
vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version: A3008CD10003
serial: 8CG42110RH
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.7 dmi-2.7 vsyscall32
configuration: boot=normal chassis=notebook family=103C_5336AN G=N L=BUS B=HP S=PRO sku=F4W80PA#UUF uuid=7F8BE20E-02E5-E311-9673-CE39E75C1B10
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: 1942
vendor: Hewlett-Packard
physical id: 0
version: KBC Version 89.10
serial: PDWTK1BNN6Q1KC
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Hewlett-Packard
physical id: b
version: L74 Ver. 01.09
date: 04/29/2014
size: 64KiB
capacity: 6528KiB
capabilities: pci pcmcia upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect edd int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb smartbattery biosbootspecification netboot uefi
*-cpu
description: CPU
product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4200M CPU @ 2.50GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 0
bus info: cpu@0
version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4200M CPU @ 2.50GHz
serial: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
slot: U3E1
size: 2492MHz
capacity: 2492MHz
width: 64 bits
clock: 100MHz
capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid cpufreq
configuration: cores=2 enabledcores=2 threads=4
*-cache:0
description: L1 cache
physical id: 2
slot: Unknown
size: 32KiB
capacity: 32KiB
capabilities: asynchronous internal write-back instruction
*-cache:1
description: L2 cache
physical id: 3
slot: Unknown
size: 256KiB
capacity: 256KiB
capabilities: asynchronous internal write-back unified
*-cache:2
description: L3 cache
physical id: 4
slot: Unknown
size: 3MiB
capacity: 3MiB
capabilities: asynchronous internal write-back unified
*-cache
description: L1 cache
physical id: 1
slot: Unknown
size: 32KiB
capacity: 32KiB
capabilities: asynchronous internal write-back data
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 6
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 4GiB
*-bank:0
description: DIMM [empty]
physical id: 0
slot: Top - Slot 1 (top)
*-bank:1
description: SODIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz (0.6 ns)
product: HP16D3LS1KFG/4G
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: 1526BBA4
slot: Top - Slot 2 (under)
size: 4GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1600MHz (0.6ns)
*-pci
description: Host bridge
product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 06
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
*-pci:0
description: PCI bridge
product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1
bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0
version: 06
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci pm msi pciexpress normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:40 ioport:4000(size=4096) memory:b0900000-b09fffff ioport:90000000(size=268435456)
*-generic
description: Unassigned class
product: Illegal Vendor ID
vendor: Illegal Vendor ID
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: ff
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: bus_master vga_palette cap_list rom
configuration: driver=radeon latency=255 maxlatency=255 mingnt=255
resources: irq:54 memory:90000000-9fffffff memory:b0900000-b093ffff ioport:4000(size=256) memory:b0940000-b095ffff
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 06
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:51 memory:b0000000-b03fffff memory:a0000000-afffffff ioport:5000(size=64)
*-multimedia:0
description: Audio device
product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 3
bus info: pci@0000:00:03.0
version: 06
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
resources: irq:52 memory:b0a10000-b0a13fff
*-usb:0
description: USB controller
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 14
bus info: pci@0000:00:14.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi xhci bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=xhci_hcd latency=0
resources: irq:45 memory:b0a00000-b0a0ffff
*-communication
description: Communication controller
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 16
bus info: pci@0000:00:16.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=mei_me latency=0
resources: irq:49 memory:b0a19000-b0a1900f
*-usb:1
description: USB controller
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1a
bus info: pci@0000:00:1a.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ehci-pci latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:b0a1e000-b0a1e3ff
*-multimedia:1
description: Audio device
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1b
bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
resources: irq:53 memory:b0a14000-b0a17fff
*-pci:1
description: PCI bridge
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.0
version: d4
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:41 memory:b0800000-b08fffff
*-pci:2
description: PCI bridge
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #6
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.5
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.5
version: d4
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:42 ioport:3000(size=4096) memory:b0700000-b07fffff ioport:b0400000(size=1048576)
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 0c
serial: 28:80:23:06:6b:98
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168g-2_0.0.1 02/06/13 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:48 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:b0700000-b0700fff memory:b0400000-b0403fff
*-pci:3
description: PCI bridge
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #7
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.6
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.6
version: d4
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:43 memory:b0600000-b06fffff
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: Wireless 3160
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 83
serial: a0:88:69:bd:b3:cf
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=3.16.0-29-generic firmware=25.228.9.0 ip=10.42.0.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
resources: irq:50 memory:b0600000-b0601fff
*-pci:4
description: PCI bridge
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #8
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.7
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.7
version: d4
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:44 ioport:2000(size=4096) memory:b0500000-b05fffff ioport:8f300000(size=2097152)
*-generic
description: Unassigned class
product: RTS5227 PCI Express Card Reader
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=rtsx_pci latency=0
resources: irq:46 memory:b0500000-b0500fff
*-usb:2
description: USB controller
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ehci-pci latency=0
resources: irq:17 memory:b0a1d000-b0a1d3ff
*-isa
description: ISA bridge
product: HM87 Express LPC Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: isa bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=lpc_ich latency=0
resources: irq:0
*-storage
description: SATA controller
product: 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: storage msi pm ahci_1.0 bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ahci latency=0
resources: irq:47 ioport:5088(size=8) ioport:5094(size=4) ioport:5080(size=8) ioport:5090(size=4) ioport:5060(size=32) memory:b0a1c000-b0a1c7ff
*-scsi:0
physical id: 2
logical name: scsi4
capabilities: emulated
*-disk
description: ATA Disk
product: ST750LM022 HN-M7
vendor: Seagate
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 0001
serial: S31PJ9FF409878
size: 698GiB (750GB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=5 sectorsize=4096 signature=ec44300b
*-volume:0
description: Windows NTFS volume
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0,1
logical name: /dev/sda1
version: 3.1
serial: 44e7-4005
size: 98MiB
capacity: 100MiB
capabilities: primary bootable ntfs initialized
configuration: clustersize=4096 created=2014-04-22 18:39:29 filesystem=ntfs label=System Reserved state=clean
*-volume:1
description: Windows NTFS volume
physical id: 2
bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0,2
logical name: /dev/sda2
version: 3.1
serial: 300ce734-3009-bb43-9858-800e4a6aebca
size: 65GiB
capacity: 65GiB
capabilities: primary ntfs initialized
configuration: clustersize=4096 created=2014-04-22 18:39:40 filesystem=ntfs state=clean
*-volume:2
description: EXT4 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 3
bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0,3
logical name: /dev/sda3
logical name: /
version: 1.0
serial: 4ab9d50a-bec1-4e66-83c9-a7ff676182ad
size: 35GiB
capacity: 35GiB
capabilities: primary journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover extents ext4 ext2 initialized
configuration: created=2015-01-12 18:02:42 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2015-01-20 21:05:19 mount.fstype=ext4 mount.options=rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered mounted=2015-01-20 21:05:19 state=mounted
*-volume:3
description: Extended partition
physical id: 4
bus info: scsi@4:0.0.0,4
logical name: /dev/sda4
size: 598GiB
capacity: 598GiB
capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended
*-logicalvolume
description: HPFS/NTFS partition
physical id: 5
logical name: /dev/sda5
logical name: /media/tranjeeshan/Serveron
capacity: 598GiB
configuration: mount.fstype=fuseblk mount.options=rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096 state=mounted
*-scsi:1
physical id: 3
logical name: scsi5
capabilities: emulated
*-cdrom
description: DVD-RAM writer
product: DVD A DU8A5SH
vendor: hp
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@5:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
logical name: /dev/cdrw
logical name: /dev/dvd
logical name: /dev/dvdrw
logical name: /dev/sr0
version: NH62
capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
configuration: ansiversion=5 status=nodisc
*-scsi:2
physical id: 4
bus info: usb@3:3
logical name: scsi6
capabilities: emulated scsi-host
configuration: driver=usb-storage
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@6:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sdb
size: 14GiB (16GB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: sectorsize=512 signature=0004b460
*-volume
description: Windows NTFS volume
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@6:0.0.0,1
logical name: /dev/sdb1
logical name: /media/tranjeeshan/HRM_CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5
version: 3.1
serial: 62cc-c9aa
size: 14GiB
capacity: 14GiB
capabilities: primary bootable ntfs initialized
configuration: clustersize=4096 created=2015-01-17 23:26:11 filesystem=ntfs label=HRM_CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5 mount.fstype=fuseblk mount.options=rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096 state=mounted
*-battery
product: FP06047
vendor: 14-54
physical id: 1
slot: Primary
capacity: 47520mWh
configuration: voltage=10.8V
Yeah, I don’t really know what to say about that man. Your CPU is fairly beefy, so no worries there.
I will say you are putting a tremendous load on that hard drive, with unpacking two files (reading and writing from your drive), playing by a HD movie (reading) and trying to transfer data (reading).
That drive is likely only giving you about 40 - 50% of it’s stated transfer speeds as well.
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/434/ST750LM022-HN-M750MBB
I have no idea why you aren’t seeing similar issues on another other desktop or distribution though.
I'm scratching my head too. The only real weak link in your hardware chain is your HDD. I've had 5400 RPM drives in laptops too disk I/O is really terrible on them. Coupled with a fairly limited amount of RAM (so you end up relying on swap) and the system is brought to its knees.
But I don't see this issue with other DEs; especially the lighter ones, like Xfce, LXDE, etc.
And I don't usually put that much pressure. I started these jobs at the same time to make sure I woule be able to reproduce the issue. Usually only transferring large files/folders to/from USB device would make the system unresponsive. And also while unzipping large files. Otherwise, everything works just fine.
What happens if you try another file manager to transfer the files? Thunar or PCManFM for example. SpaceFM is another good one.
1 Like
I used both Thunar and PCManFM in these use-cases, but neither of them in MATE. So I guess, I'll try. I'll let you know.
I installed both Thunar and PCManFM, and found the same problem under MATE. Seems like I'm having this problem with MATE. I tried Xubuntu and couldn't reproduce the issue. I may have to abandon UM for now. Maybe I'll try it again when 15.04 comes out. Any other thoughts on how to solve the prob?
Sorry man, the only thing you can really do is process of elimination. If it’s not the file manager then try transferring files without the video playing or without extracting files. Try different combinations until you notice a difference. Another thing you can do is try a different archiver to extract the files. Also what happens if you extract and move files using the command line?
I usually extract these files using terminal. So that's not a Caja and/or Engrampa specific problem. And I tried copying files/folders using the terminal. The same issue happened. So I guess it's MATE specific. 
Sorry. Apparently I was wrong all along. This problem is not any DE specific. I was able to reproduce this in different DEs: MATE, Unity, Xfce, LXDE, etc. I guess the problem lies with my hard disk drive’s low RPM and thus putting lots of pressure on it.
3 Likes
Can you invalidate the bug at Launchpad.net too please? 
Oops! Forgot that part. I just changed the status to invalid.
1 Like
This is a long standing issue and it is not MATE specific.
It is kernel specific… Process scheduler specific to be more precise.
One could change the default scheduler, as there are different implementations with different goals, however AFAIK non of the FLOSSy ones does not cover DE responsiveness as a main target.
“But, wait, there is no excess CPU usage in the top’s report!” one might say.
Well… Yes and no… There is no excess usage as CPU will do more, but it can’t. There is no data - hdd’s seeking is stalling the whole system… Try running nmon and look how IOWAIT spikes trough the roof (as nmon kindly also visualize IOWAIT along the user and system CPU time).
Network is also accounted in and may add additional IOWAIT time.
1 Like
I’ve long noticed that heavy disc usage can stall the entire system, and seen folks try different schedulers with different degrees of success. It’s interesting stuff.
Even though it’s a bigger issue on the desktop, it’s an issue in other areas as well, and heavy disk utilization tasks are an area where BSD offers better performance than Linux, from what I’ve read over the years.