Cinnamon: Cinnamon 2.4.5 LM 17.1 CPU Usage

Same problem, looking for answers as well.

What I've learned so far is:
the offending process is cinnamon --replace
it will get as high as 60% cpu usage then inexplicalbly drop to 3-4%

Same for me. Minimizing all windows make cinnamon disappear from top processes. Restoring them bring up cinnamon again using 60-100% CPU. Occasionally it drops back to nothing. But that's usually not the case. Disabling effects doesn't help.

Running the nvidia driver, NVidia GeForce 9800GT.

are you folks using another DE as well (the cinnamon --replace indicates this)

if so try with the other DE and see if this also happens, if not try only one DE

Sorry for asking no doubt an obvious question: What's a DE ?

In top, when consuming lots of cpu, only the word "cinnamon" is mentioned. But looking to the process details now I see "--replace" indeed.

If have a 17.1 vanilla desktop configuration. No custom configuration yet. I've installed lots of packages though. So maybe it's coming from there ?

@java-artisan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment#Examples_of_desktop_environments

Hello everyone,
unfortunately I can confirm this. If any information is required, I'm more than happy to assist.

Right ! :-)

But no, I can confirm I am running no other desktop. However, maybe it
was installed as part of a dependency of a package ?

On 12/29/2014 07:17 AM, leigh123linux wrote:

@java-artisan https://github.com/java-artisan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment#Examples_of_desktop_environments

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3736#issuecomment-68234737.

I now have a second DE installed. The cinnamon --replace process was hitting high cpu usage before installing MATE. I can further confirm by using a second user account. I had added this user back in '10 for several reasons. When Unity came out this account proved useful for testing.

This time /home/joeblow hadn't been used in at least a couple of years. My process was: add the user joeblow, log out of main user account, so I'm at the mdm login screen, C-A-F2 to get to the second tty, login as joeblow, start midnight commander (mc), mkdir oldstuff, this account hasn't been used since maybe xubuntu 11.10, mv nearly all dot directories and files to oldstuff, I left behind things like .bash*,.ssh., .mozilla, .dmrc *was moved to the oldstuff directory, quit mc, C-A-F7 to get back to mdm, login as joeblow and cinnamon creates all dot files it needs. Bah, when I started typing this cinnamon --replace was hitting 60%, now it's 2-5% so go figure. And that behaviour doesn't help with trouble shooting.

Copied from top:
31227 joeblow 20 0 1870876 195524 38052 S 9.0 5.9 93:57.19 cinnamon
Output of ps aux | grep cinnamon:
joeblow@flounder:~$ ps aux | grep cinnamon
joeblow 8743 0.0 0.0 11744 920 pts/6 S+ 12:41 0:00 grep --color=auto cinnamon
mark 30841 0.1 0.6 419184 22832 ? Sl 07:22 0:22 /usr/bin/cinnamon-screensaver --no-daemon
joeblow 30936 0.0 0.4 704408 16448 ? Ssl 07:22 0:00 cinnamon-session --session cinnamon
joeblow 31166 0.0 0.9 1015612 31428 ? Sl 07:22 0:01 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/cinnamon-settings-daemon
joeblow 31226 0.0 0.4 151112 14972 ? S 07:22 0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/cinnamon-launcher
joeblow 31227 29.5 5.8 1870828 195524 ? Sl 07:22 94:00 cinnamon --replace
joeblow 31230 0.0 0.1 386956 5148 ? Sl 07:22 0:00 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/csd-printer
joeblow 31374 0.0 0.8 421676 27952 ? Sl 07:23 0:10 cinnamon-screensaver

-Mark

Just started digging into the cause of keyboard too hot to bare on non-Mint single DE install on older laptop...
$ lspci | grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
Dual core T4300 2.1 GHz
Running cool and quiet at the moment several minutes after a reboot - haven't tried log out, back in.
I'll be following this issue and doing some digging.

Also having this issue, like another user, minimizing windows makes cinnamon drop from top processes.

With chrome and system monitor, cinnamon averages 20-30%
2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
Macbook Pro

Xorg is also averaging the same amount but doesn't drop with minimization.

Cinnamon CPU usage drops when I minimize Totem in my case as well.

Same problem for me. I tried to use xfce and mate on the same pc and don't have the problem with these DE.

cpu also drop for me if I minimize all windows

The problem first occurs while using firefox, I tried to use chromium but the problem also occurs with chromium

@scesbron

Mate and xfce aren't valid examples as there not 3d accelerated DE's, can you reproduce using compiz, gnome-shell or with kde compositing?

same problem as everyone else.

ibm thinkpad x1

fresh install of linux mint, just changed some settings for switching between windows and workspaces

Same with me, minimizing windows like VLC and Firefox will drop the CPU load from 20% to 2-5%.

Still the same here. It's getting on my nerves really - because the fans kick in after a while. Making loud noise while the thing is literally sitting idle. I really thought Mint was better than that ...

Is there really nothing we can do to help ??? Surely, seeing so many people having this problem. I'm no Linux hacker, but if somebody from Mint can walk me through collecting data, I'd be happy to oblige.

Because this is non-sense ! Running a cpu 100% for doing ... nothing at all.

Same with me, fan spins crazily for a few seconds and then is finished.

Same problem as the original post.......after the computer is lef idle for more than10 minutes, cinnamon goes wild with CPU

Probably nothing import : nobody from Mint bothered to answer. I'm out of Mint.

Also experiencing this issue, however infrequently. The two times I have seen this, my laptop was almost completely unusable (i5 4Gb SSD). Accompanying this cinnamon --replace process was another which seems to just run indefinitely and restarts even after reboots.

/usr/bin/python /usr/sbin/update-apt-xapian-index --quiet

I saw this behaviour on the afternoons of Monday March 30, and Monday May 11. Perhaps it is related to a scheduled task or online service not being available.

After having a look through the open issues, I wonder if this is not related to issue #4072, as Alt-Tab and Menu button were no longer functioning at all, although I could eventually select other windows and activate the menu via clicking.

Reporting the same issue. Up to date Mint.

From top:
3245 poserman 20 0 1854772 365796 17048 S 31,9 4,5 1062:30 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854772 365796 17048 R 28,9 4,5 1062:31 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854772 365800 17048 S 29,3 4,5 1062:32 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854780 365844 17052 S 24,9 4,5 1062:32 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854780 365844 17052 R 15,9 4,5 1062:33 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854780 365844 17052 S 15,9 4,5 1062:33 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1854780 365848 17052 R 21,6 4,5 1062:34 cinnamon
3245 poserman 20 0 1855128 365816 17012 S 52,2 4,5 1062:36 cinnamon

From ps aux
poserman 2747 0.0 0.0 395436 4104 ? Ssl Jul19 0:01 cinnamon-session --session cinnamon
poserman 2972 0.1 0.7 988692 60680 ? Sl Jul19 3:04 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/cinnamon-settings-daemon
poserman 3239 0.0 0.0 151108 7312 ? S Jul19 0:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/cinnamon-launcher
poserman 3245 36.1 4.5 1855936 367756 ? Rl Jul19 1062:51 cinnamon --replace
poserman 3251 0.0 0.0 386960 1380 ? Sl Jul19 0:00 /usr/lib/cinnamon-settings-daemon/csd-printer
poserman 3374 0.0 0.1 420284 14304 ? Sl Jul19 1:40 cinnamon-screensaver
poserman 22136 0.0 0.0 11748 944 pts/3 S+ 20:35 0:00 grep --colour=auto cinnamon

lscpu:
poserman@poserman-Latitude-E6430 ~ $ lscpu
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 58
Stepping: 9
CPU MHz: 2701.000
BogoMIPS: 5382.44
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 256K
L3 cache: 3072K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3

I had this same issue come back up on Sunday August 2, and Monday August 3, 2015. I reiterate that it is really strange that my laptop works fine most of the time, and then all of a sudden for a couple days it is completely unusable due to this 'cinnamon --replace' process hogging the resources. I can barely even click on the menu button and get it to restart, and the problem just resurfaces after a restart.

ALAS... I have new insight to share however. I discovered that the problem disappears if I unplug the power cord (and run on battery). It slowly comes back when I plug back in however. How strange!

In my case, I've noticed that minimizing Foobar2000 running under Wine, made the cinnamon --replace cpu load drop from 60-70% (when foobar is maximized and spectrogram and spectrum visualization are on) or 30-40% (when foobar's window takes around 50% of the screen) to 5-15%.
Turning off the spectrogram reduces the load by ~15%, and spectrum visualization by 30-40%.

I too have experienced this issue. For me, it was running chrome-remote-desktop which itself tries to launch cinnamon on connection. To test, I installed MATE, logged back in using that desktop and still saw cinnamon-settings caning the CPU. Repeated killing of the process didn't help as it seemed to resurrect each time. However, an /etc/init.d/chrome-remote-desktop stop totally stopped it. Although I know it isn't CRDP itself, I'm wondering if there's a clue there for someone more familiar with cinnamon. To my eyes, it _seems_ to be related to multiple launching of cinnamon. Hope that helps. Cheers.

I'm having the same issue on Ubuntu 15.10. I'm seeing cinnamon use 46-53% of all the CPU capacity; that's three cores. My hunch is that's somehow related to GPU acceleration; I'm using some crappy discreet GeForce, so anything that tries to "accelerate" using it will only stir trouble.

Is there a way to stop cinnamon from accelerating using GPU? Is there a log to tell what exactly it's doing? It seems bizarre a process would do computation so heavy it needs three cores for hours straight and not write a single line of log about what it is trying to do.

I have high CPU usage in Cinnamon every time I run a Java application. Closing down all Java processes seems to fix the problem. Unfortunately some of my critical software is in Java.

An update on my strange case-- it is solved... nothing to do with Linux Mint or Cinnamon. I had been given an extra HP power supply... it is supposedly outputting the proper voltages, but is rated as 18.5V vs. their newer 19V ones. It seems that a slightly different line voltage was causing the CPU to behave EXTREMELY slowly, and eventually even stopped charging. Replacing the spare power supply with a new one solved the my issue and I am no longer seeing any major slowdowns from Mint or Cinnamon.

I also have this problem - Also a thinkpad carbon.

Hello, I had the same issue and this solved it:

"Moved ~/.cinnamon to ~/.cinnamon-bak." and then rebooted.

"Was probably an issue with a previous version of ~/.cinnamon, since that folder has been around for quite some time."

Source: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=216432

the issue still here.

System:    Kernel: 4.8.0 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.4.6 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) Distro: Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0416
           Card-2: NVIDIA GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M]
           bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1140
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) FAILED: nouveau
           Resolution: [email protected]
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes

Even if the problem is caused by FAILED NVidia driver, why Cinnamon eats additional 30-40% CPU when Chromium draws difficult graphics (svg animations, css effects, parralax effect and other). It is not a task for Cinnamon

Same issue. Three years. Any developer cares to answer with potential solution?

I think you guys should abandom this sinking ship, at least I did.

Solution proposed by @Dreezert help a lot here. cinnamon --replace is still there at top 2 the whole time, but now with much less CPU usage - barely noticeable and fans don't kick in anymore.

So, not leaving the boat, yet =)

renamed the .cinnamon folder. waiting to see if cpu spikes are gone

solved: removed two bad panel apps. cpu temperature and disk utilization.
cpu spikes are completely gone.

I managed to solve this problem by removing "Window List With App Grouping" applet from my panel

Is this still an issue for those who have had this issue before?

Well, cinnamon --replace still there in top 5 CPU usage, with something like 1-2%, much less noticeable, but still more than for example conky or even idle firefox.
Running Cinnamon 4.4.8 in Mint 19.3.

I did drop using Mint with Cinnamon (situation changed)... but I also found the source of weirdness experienced. It was my power supply (HP EliteBook Folio 9470m)... I guess it was on it's way out and was delivering something the CPU/GPU didn't like. When I was running on battery, CPU usage became normal, when I'd plug in the system ran so slow it was unusable. This Cinnamon replace task I feel was just one symptom of a deeper problem. Changing the power supply resolved the issue.

I have just upgraded to Linux Mint 20 on my Dell XPS 13 7390, so it is a latest software as for today.
Run "top" and do nothing for 1 minute:

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
   6684 user      20   0 4190476 221420 108064 S   6.6   1.4  61:40.19 cinnamon --replace

So, "cinnamon --replace" is never below 5.5% CPU usage. After pressing ALT+TAB for 5 time I have:

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND 
   6684 user      20   0 4190604 222196 108576 R  46.4   1.4  61:16.94 cinnamon --replace

which went down to 5.5% in several seconds. I still believe those number are slightly high.
All tests were made with connected power supply. With 8 CPUs I do not expext a lot of issues with high CPU usage, but nice to have it fixed.

P.S. I like Mint 20, it looks stable and finally has DPI per monitor configuration!!! THANK YOU!!!

I run into this on my Mint 20 (updated from 19.3 without issues). From my observing it happens when coming back from suspend mode (closed laptop lid and opened the next day). Restarting Cinnamon (Alt + F2 -> r) helps - after that cinnamon --replace process stays between 3 and 5% CPU usage.
I have other problems with Cinnamon/Windowmanager after switching Users - in all that cases restarting Cinnamon helps.
Would be great if Cinnamon becomes more stable on all that suspend, hybernate and switch users stuff - this isthere since I use LinuxMint from version 16 on, on several Computers!