Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

ToZ · 2023-10-05 23:54:32

This is a really strange problem. What do the following return:

env | grep -i dbus
dpkg -l | grep portal
cat /etc/fstab

Do you have any additional drives or network shares being mounted on startup?

And can you create a second test account on your computer and see if the problem replicates there?

jef_31 · 2023-10-07 15:58:44

Thanks ToZ,

Strange, yes..... I've asked for help on Linux Mint forum, with no luck so far wink

here are the results :

jf@jf-MS-7A70 ~ $ env | grep -i dbus
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus

jf@jf-MS-7A70 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep portal
ii  xdg-desktop-portal                                          1.14.4-1ubuntu2~22.04.1                         amd64        desktop integration portal for Flatpak and Snap
ii  xdg-desktop-portal-gtk                                      1.14.0-1build1                                  amd64        GTK+/GNOME portal backend for xdg-desktop-portal
ii  xdg-desktop-portal-xapp                                     1.0.3+victoria                                  amd64        Xapp's Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE backends for xdg-desktop-portal.

and

jf@jf-MS-7A70 ~ $ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/nvme0n1p2 during installation
UUID=89317d99-be53-4dbe-8ff7-400455e8b4e1 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/nvme0n1p3 during installation
UUID=d326210e-e5d3-4c97-b463-65c8d3710eb9 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=2dee7da0-eb82-4796-aeb5-a5e4a1b0e9d5 none            swap    sw              0       0

No, no other drive or network share mounted at start

Yep, I tried a new "test" user and get same delay for 'him'

mint4all · 2023-10-07 17:34:51

Greetings to y'all! Since everybody seems to be at a loss, i'll give it a try (not being nearly as experienced in this as most of you). I suspect that your problem has to do with the gvs-daemon. In post #24 I see this repeated pattern of

oct. 03 08:39:57 jf-MS-7A70 systemd[4025]: Started Sound Service.
oct. 03 08:39:57 jf-MS-7A70 systemd[4025]: Reached target Main User Target.
oct. 03 08:39:57 jf-MS-7A70 systemd[4025]: Startup finished in 676ms.       
oct. 03 08:42:06 jf-MS-7A70 dbus-daemon[4042]: [session uid=1000 pid=4042] Activating via systemd: service name='org.gtk.vfs.Daemon' unit='gvfs-daemon.service' requested by ':1.11' (uid=1000 pid=4044 comm="xfce4-session " label="unconfined")
oct. 03 08:42:06 jf-MS-7A70 systemd[4025]: Starting Virtual filesystem service...
oct. 03 08:42:06 jf-MS-7A70 dbus-daemon[4042]: [session uid=1000 pid=4042] Successfully activated service 'org.gtk.vfs.Daemon'

showing up that 2mn delay over and over. At https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … -my-system I found a good summary what this service does:

GVFS (GNOME Virtual file system) provides a layer just below the user applications you use like firefox. This layer is called a virtual filesystem and basically presents to firefox, thunderbird and pidgin a common layer that allows them to see local file resource and remote file resource as a single set of resources. Meaning your access to the resource whether on your local machine or the remote machine would be transparent to the user.

Although this layer is mostly there to make it easier for application developers to code to a single set of interfaces and not have to distinguish between local and remote file system and their low-level code.

For the user this could mean that the same file manager you use to browse your local files, could also be used to browse files on a remote server. As a simplified contrast, on Windows I can browse my local files with Explorer, but to browse files on an NFS or SFTP server I would need a separate application.

That leads me to believe that the 2mn delay is attributable to some mount problem(s) with one or more of your volumes. In the past the only mount problems I ran into were either (a) corruptions (typically a `dirty` shutdown), or (b) a failing drive (various issues) the mount tries to recover from, or both ie cached data not being written back to the drive during shutdown. Fwiw, its worth to look into those issues; personally, i'd try to sleuth (b) first.

Cheers, m4a

herbie643 · 2023-10-07 19:05:43

Boot up with usb installer and go to terminal
sudo su

fsck the volumes.

jef_31 · 2023-10-07 21:09:53

herbie643 wrote:

Boot up with usb installer and go to terminal
sudo su
fsck the volumes.

nothing wrong wink

jef_31 · 2023-10-07 21:30:45

@mint4all,
I've had problems with the previous M2 disk (nvme), but when it happened, linux wouldn't even start - A fsck from another booted system (actually Mint 20.3 on anothr disk) always succeeded to repair the system, and it was OK - Anyway, I've changed the M2 disk since then, and everything seems OK now - To be sure, I've run fsck to check, no problem !
I'll try to find a way to prevent gvs--daemon to start at startup, but to launch it easily if needed ....

herbie643 · 2023-10-07 22:12:02

Good to see you have it sorted out.

jef_31 · 2023-10-07 22:47:29

herbie643 wrote:

Good to see you have it sorted out.

oups, misunderstanding here wink
the problem is still there, I'll try to find a way about gvfs -
My answer to mint4all explained that before, I had problems with nvme disk, but not this kind of problem, and that fsck shows no problem now about it

herbie643 · 2023-10-07 23:50:05

mea culpa on me.

mint4all · 2023-10-08 00:31:23

Hmmm, an `nvme` problem? Dr. google found this workaround @ https://tekbyte.net/fixing-nvme-ssd-problems-on-linux/ ... worth a try -- what else have you got to lose? Got backup, yes? The problem with all those SSDs is that they differ in the extreme in how they implement their write-back cache, so when the power goes off (ie during shutdown or reboot) you just don't know if the cache gets flushed to disk. Observed this problem with some high-capacity hard drives, and even high-cap usb sticks or sd-chips etc especially when they had an ntfs volume on it.

Cheers, m4a

jef_31 · 2023-10-08 06:25:07

mint4all wrote:

Hmmm, an `nvme` problem? Dr. google found this workaround @ https://tekbyte.net/fixing-nvme-ssd-problems-on-linux/ ... worth a try
Cheers, m4a

well, I tried this when I first had nvme problems, without much success - But my problems usually happened just after a firefox crash : firefox crashed (which still happen sometimes wink ) , then either everything freezed, or nothing visible happened, and next boot failed - An 'fsck' on nvme volumes fixed it .... until next crash occured wink

mint4all · 2023-10-08 15:58:29

Good information -- thanks!

Fwiw: among all the apps i deal with an all the system's i've refurbed, firefox is #1 and libreoffice #2 re. app craches and system freezes. In all cases, when rebooting, fsck does its job (1-4 mn pause) before i get to the systemd startup sequence. So it is highly likely that FF on nvme is your baddy. To confirm this, simply run FF from a live but persistent USB stick for a while (3-4 hours would be great), then shutdown. Since Mint's live .iso runs & shuts down very clean, you can confirm that your CPU, GPU, PSU, mobo, RAM & PCIe controller are behaving. Then reboot that stick, and it should come up clean again. If so, your OS is good & ready. Then use your own OS for a while but without FF, reboot, and it should come up clean. If it does not, your nvme is no good imho. If it does, your nvme seems ok which means that FF has to `find` a new place.

Imho, your nvme drive is likely the culprit --> https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/ … huts_down/ because it can't recover from FF's use of nvme-storage.

My preferred workaround would be to move FF to another drive, then symlink it to your /home volume, or to use FF's built-in cache redirection ability --> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/768867

Either way, your nvme drive will be giving you more headaches over time, imho.
Cheers, m4a

PS: ime, xfce is at risk too since it constantly updates in /home/.config/xfce4

jef_31 · 2023-10-12 17:04:53

well, I'll see, but I don't think it is a material pb, it happened as soon as upgrade was done, and happens at every login

mint4all · 2023-10-13 15:26:25

jef_31 wrote:

well, I'll see, but I don't think it is a material pb, it happened as soon as upgrade was done, and happens at every login

Understood ... Imho, your `upgrade` mapped into memory locations your nvme drive is quirky with. Have you looked into diag tools, like smartctl (i use it often esp. on laptops)? Here's a good read re. using it to diag nvme drives: https://www.percona.com/blog/using-nvme … sh-health/

Cheers, m4a

jef_31 · 2023-10-18 10:40:14

mint4all wrote:

Have you looked into diag tools, like smartctl (i use it often esp. on laptops)? Here's a good read re. using it to diag nvme drives: https://www.percona.com/blog/using-nvme … sh-health/
Cheers, m4a

Thanks for still trying smile - I'm not very often at home these times, which explains the delay....
I'll try that and let you know.
Anyway, I'll change motherboard and proc very soon (not the drives though), we'll see what happens then

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#26 2023-10-05 23:54:32

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#27 2023-10-07 15:58:44

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#28 2023-10-07 17:34:51

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#29 2023-10-07 19:05:43

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#30 2023-10-07 21:09:53

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#31 2023-10-07 21:30:45

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#32 2023-10-07 22:12:02

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#33 2023-10-07 22:47:29

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#34 2023-10-07 23:50:05

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#35 2023-10-08 00:31:23

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#36 2023-10-08 06:25:07

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#37 2023-10-08 15:58:29

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#38 2023-10-12 17:04:53

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#39 2023-10-13 15:26:25

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

#40 2023-10-18 10:40:14

Re: Xfce4 desktop takes long time before display (more than 2mn)

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