Mate 18.04 Complete Freeze

I need some help from the community identifying what is causing my Mate 18.04 to completely freeze on a regular basis. The computer that’s having the issues is my local file and media server.

Here’s what’s happening. My PC is completely freezing consistently in the afternoon. Totally unresponsive to mouse and keyboard. Can’t connect via SSH. The only way to restore to normal functionality is to hit the reset button or do a hard shut down via the power button.

I’ve tired looking at various logs and CHRON jobs and nothing stands out as causing the problem. All updates have been installed.

The hardware is an Asrock X370 Gaming Pro motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 1600X, 16GB RAM @ 3200MHz. It’s an active Samba file and Plex media server.

I have a similar PC with the mini-ITX version of the same mobo, also with the Ryzen 1600X, 32GB RAM @ 3200MHz that serves as an HTPC running Mate 18.04 and I don’t have any issues with it.

I should also note that the HTPC has had zero issues with the systemd-resolv, while the server always requires manual intervention to fix the DNS issues. I don’t know if that has any bearing, but thought I’d mention it.

So, what logs do you want see? Are there motherboard settings I should look to change? Where do you want to start? What questions do you have?

Thank you in advance for any and all help!

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Hello!

My first question, since I’ve seen something similar occurring to other people on the forum: do you have the mate HUD enabled (check in the mate tweak tool)? Also, what window manager are you using (Marco or Compiz)?

Hi Vkareh,

HUD is disabled. Using Compiz.

Ok, that rules out a bunch of things that I’ve seen on the desktop side of things.

I guess the next step would be to check both the system logs and the X11 logs right after a restart. I’m assuming your keyboard dies during the freeze, right? Like, you can’t drop into a TTY?

Also, does it happen at the same time every day?

I am no expert, but the two occasions I experienced Ubuntu freezing both were related to the video card. Ensuring a secure seat and switching to the proprietary (3rd party) drivers resolved the issue.

Yes, the keyboard and mouse are completely unresponsive and cannot open a terminal.

I believe it happens around the same time every day, but I haven’t been able to specify when. It seems to be between noon and 15:00hrs.

Here’s a link to my last X11 log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ks66n5i09zlnls/Xorg.0.log?dl=0

Here’s a link to, what appears to be, an older X11 log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4b0r94r5qaapdk/Xorg.0.log.old?dl=0

@jaybo - I can try the 3rd party driver, but the video card is an AMD HD 7950 (Tahiti). The last version of Ubuntu that AMD provides a driver for this card is 15.04. I don’t think 3rd party driver is an option.

Ubuntu Mate comes whit a great open source drivers for AMD. They are made by great devs and amd/ati team. At this point and time the open source drivers are the way to go. If you want a newer version of drivers you can try padoka stable ppa

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Last week my sever went 4 or 5 days without any issues. It has now completely frozen twice within a 24 hr period with the last freeze happening this morning after installing the latest round of updates.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

What the logs are saying?

I’m just barely familiar enough with Linux to do rudimentary tasks, but not enough to know which log will be most helpful. Which log should I be looking at?

I really don’t have an answer but am wondering if it is happening at the same time as updates?

I don’t believe so. Updates can be applied only so often and the freezes happen much more frequently than the updates. Generally, the freeze seems to happen in the afternoon. Two days ago it happened in the evening, then again the next morning.

It does seem to happen when the computer has been idle for a while, but even this is not definitive. It could have been idle for a few hours and many hours and a freeze could happen.

Look in your BIOS for a setting like “Power Supply Idle Control”. You may have to upgrade your BIOS to get this setting. Recommended - Advanced > AMD CBS > Zen Common Options > Power Supply Idle Control set to “Common current idle” .

“The freeze happens because of insufficient power delivery in some of the C6 states”.

See https://community.amd.com/thread/225795

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Wow, great find. I’ll make the BIOS update a D see what happens.

@Dave_Barnes - that awesome solved the problem, it appears. I haven’t a single freeze over the past 19 days. Thank you!

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