KDE 4.5 freezes with taskbar thumbnails [Solved]

[Antidieu]

After the latest upgrades to KDE and X.org, the KDE desktop freezes for about 30 seconds every time window thumbnails are displayed when hovering over taskbar entries, in the alt+tab window switcher or whenever a desktop effect shows a window thumbnail.

Here are the versions of X.org, Intel drivers and Kwin

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x11-base/xorg-server-1.9.3-r1
x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.14.0
kde-base/kwin-4.5.5

and this is my laptop's (eMachine M-6806m) hardware

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00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)


This issue began when the desktop effects started to look glancy after the upgrades. I've got Sabayon 5.4K amd64 fully updated with Sulfur. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[micia]

Hi,
I experienced the same bad behavior with mplayerthumbs.
It seems to be a bug of that thumbnailer, try removing it and using ffmpegthumbs.

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equo remove mplayerthumbs
equo install ffmpegthumbs


Configure your video previews in:
Settings->Configure Dolphin -> General -> Preview

(I have Italian localizations so the path could be different)

[joost]

Try upgrading to .37 kernel if you didn't do that already.

[mobilehunter]

Upgraded to latest (amd64), using kernel .37, also tried removing mplayerthumbs.
Still experience the problem.

[micia]

After removing mplayerthumbs try to reboot / restart X Server and KDE4 session, if you didn't already, I don't know if the removal of mplayerthumbs takes effect in the current session.
Also ensure that the Dolphin settings in:
Settings->Configure Dolphin->General->Preview
are consistent.

[joost]

Micia I don't think this is an issue with Dolphin is it?
Rather a plasma workspace one.

[micia]

I am referring to a bug I experienced myself and is quite subtle.
When you have mplayerthumbs enabled and hover on certain video files (in my case 100-200MB mkv) with your mouse, mplayerthumbs goes crazy and launches multiple instances of kio_slave (I saw it in the system monitor) that eats up 100% CPU, slowing, or stalling, the entire system down.
Even closing dolphin or killing the processes (which respawned) wouldn't fix it for me. I searched for that issue and found out that was a problem of mplayerthumbs, unfortunately I can't find easily those information now, since it is a problem that I had like 1-2 months ago.
Since there was nothing on the forum I thought it was only a problem of mine and didn't report it as a bug.

It could be very well a different issue, but I think that checking that solution could be worth a try

however, reading more carefully the issue, I could have misunderstood the thumbnail that the OP is referring to... Since my English sucks... Sorry
Which are the settings that you have enabled on "Desktop Effects" and on "Application Appearance->Style Fine Tuning", in the KDE4 System Settings?

You could customize the resource usage of KDE4, I would suggest you to set:
"Application Appearance->Style->Fine Tuning->CPU usage" low resolution and low CPU usage
"Desktop Effects->Advanced->Use Vert. Sync" disable this option

[mobilehunter]

I have one computer at the office using latest Sabayon 5.5 KDE amd64.
My card is ATI HD 5670 using default driver(dual monitor), i don't have the problem like OP.
Maybe something related with intel driver only.

[Antidieu]

Micia I don't think this is an issue with Dolphin is it?
Rather a plasma workspace one.

It's in fact an issue with Plasma/Kwin as Joost stated. Maybe it was related to Intel driver, or maybe not, I couldn't figure it out. After upgrading to KDE 4.6 the issue is gone.

Now with KDE 4.6 it's my system tray who got messed up showing three or four instances of Magnet Entropy Notification applet on every session start and Kmix not displaying volume meter for "play device" and "play stream" on the mixer and failing to create the views for those. So I'm putting "Solved" in this thread and openning a new one.

Thanks to all who replied.