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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Various distros across different families freezing when doing package manager updates (self.linux)

submitted 3 months ago by dandroid to c/[email protected]

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi All. I'm having an issue that I am hoping I can get some help with.

I have been using linux on this particular laptop for over a year now, and for the past 6 or so months (right around the time I upgraded to Plasma 6, but I think it is just a coincidence) about 50% of the time, when I update all my packages via package manager, the whole system freezes. Like, hard freezes. Waiting any amount of time won't get me out of it. I have to hold the power button to power it down. I can't use ctrl+alt+F3 or whatever to get another TTY. Mouse doesn't move. Nothing works.

It originally happened with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on btrfs. I thought maybe it was btrfs, so I reinstalled with ext4. Same issue. I tried Manjaro. Same issue. I tried EndeavourOS (wasn't really expecting different behavior at this point). Same issue.

Now I am thinking, what could cause an issue like this? Well, a package manager update just is a ton of file I/O operations, right? Could I have bad RAM and that is getting written to disk? Well, I did a memtest today and it came back perfect. So now I'm thinking it might be the SSD, but I'm not even sure how to check that.

Does anyone have any ideas of what might be going on or what I should do to fix it or debug it?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

It definitely sounds like a hardware issue since it has survived multiple disk wipes and distro changes.

Make and verify your backups now if you don't already have them
Are you using the command line package manager or GUI?
What is your current distro?
Are you near capacity on your storage?
Run a S.M.A.R.T. test and review the results

[–] dandroid 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Already done. :)
It started with GUI, but I switched to command line, and even did it in a separate TTY to make sure it wasn't something weird going on with updating plasma from plasma. After switching to Arch-based distros, I have only use CLI.
Currently I'm on EndeavourOS, but after the most recent time this happened, it won't boot, and I can't even mount and chroot to it (I get an I/O error message)
No, I'm at about 1% capacity.
I ran this from a live USB, and it came back with no errors detected, but returned instantaneously, so I'm not sure if it ran the right thing. Doing more research on it now. Edit: I did it wrong. The test is running now. Edit 2: Smart says it passed. :/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If you're now getting I/O errors that won't even get you booted, it sounds to me like drive failure is imminent.

[–] dandroid 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I just ordered a new SSD. I'll give that a try when it arrives tomorrow. Smart says it passed, but suspect my SSD enough that I think it's worth it to just try another SSD.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Make sure smart is enabled in the bios. Too often I see it flipped off by default.