[GNC] GnuCash v2.6.19-1 has started freezing on Ubuntu 18.04 after a recent system update

[Adrien Monteleone]

The time to check the tracefile is after a crash and before restarting GnuCash, it can/will get overwritten on restart.

I *think* a newer (3.x) release was backported to the Ubuntu 18.04 backport repos, but I could be mistaken. Search the list (or repos) for more info.

You might also try the newer .deb packages floating around the list, or the Flatpak.

However, 3.x uses GTK3, so the transition might not be super smooth on OpenBox. (I’ve heard there are some issues with some apps, but mileage will vary)

And, you could always build from source, though the 18.04 base has some issues with the libboost library version.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Oct 16, 2019 w42d289, at 10:42 PM, Parke <parke.nexus at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have used GnuCash since 2003, and have used GnuCash on Ubuntu for at
> least the last 10 years.
> 
> I have used GnuCash v2.6.19 (the version provided by Ubuntu) on Ubuntu
> 18.04 for at least the last year.  I have encountered no stability
> problems until this week.
> 
> Aside:  I guess I should also add that I run GnuCash in the Openbox
> window manager, and I launch X via startx and a custom .xinitrc file.
> So it is possible, perhaps likely, that "standard" parts of Ubuntu's
> desktop infrastructure are not running on my workstation.
> 
> I shut down my Ubuntu workstation prior to California's recent massive
> power outage.  After the power outage, I upgraded the kernel and all
> the Ubuntu provided packages.  (I am uncertain as to whether or not
> GnuCash was updated as part of this upgrade.  I have no reason to
> believe it was.)
> 
> After this software update, GnuCash has started freezing.  Freezes
> seem to happen when I am scrolling up or down through the items in
> some account.  Beyond that, I have not noticed a pattern to when the
> freezes occur.  By "freeze", I mean the X window containing GnuCash
> stops drawing/updating itself.  GnuCash consumes 0% CPU.  No error
> messages are printed to stdout or stderr.  GnuCash does not respond to
> SIGINT, but SIGTERM ends the GnuCash process.
> 
> After the first freeze, I noticed that most of the RAM in my system
> was being used.  The system has 16GB of RAM and no swap.  I quit all
> running programs (including Xorg) , but still 8GB of RAM was being
> used!  This seems strange to me, but I have not measured RAM usage in
> this manner previously, so... maybe it is... normal?
> 
> I experienced three freezes of GnuCash.  The second and third happened
> fairly quickly after the first freeze.  Suspecting a (kernel?) memory
> leak, I rebooted into the previous kernel (4.15.0-46 vs 4.15.0-65).
> 
> However, I just experienced my first GnuCash freeze running on the
> previous (4.15.0-46) kernel.  So it does not seem to be a kernel
> issue.  After this freeze, I quit most programs (especially the
> Chromium browser).  Memory usage is as follows:
> 
> $ free -h
>              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
> Mem:            15G        4.2G        9.5G         35M        1.9G         11G
> Swap:            0B          0B          0B
> 
> "Used" is 4.2G, "buff/cache" is 1.9G.  That leaves 2.4G of memory
> being used somewhere.  But top does not show any programs using any
> significant amounts of memory.
> 
> GnuCash is the only program that has been affected, at least thus far.
> But when GnuCash first froze, my system had only been up for 5 days.
> As of now (after the reboot into the old kernel), the current uptime
> is about 26 hours.  Previously, this workstation would go up to
> several hundred days without a reboot.  I typically use GnuCash at
> least once or twice a month.
> 
> I suppose it is also possible that my GnuCash accounts file has
> "gotten too large" or that some other (unknown) limit inside of
> GnuCash has been passed, and this is causing the freezes..  My GnuCash
> save file appears to be 1.6MB.  So it seems unlikely I have passed
> some hidden limit.
> 
> The FAQ ...
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Troubleshooting_and_Improvements
> ... suggests looking at /tmp/gnucash.trace.
> 
> /tmp/gnucash.trace is currently empty (zero bytes).  However, I did
> not know to check this file while Gnucash was frozen.  Does the trace
> file get truncated to zero each time GnuCash starts?  (I have
> restarted GnuCash since the last freeze.)
> 
> I am happy to hear any suggestions for how to proceed.  I recognize
> that I am running a very old version of GnuCash (the version provided
> by Ubuntu 18.04).
> 
> I am considering waiting for Ubuntu 19.10 and installing it, as I
> suspect that some non-GnuCash upgrade to 18.04 is causing the problem.
> And given the intermittent nature of the problem (and given that the
> problem produces no output), I suspect it will be very difficult to
> track down.
> 
> I am mostly reporting this issue in case anyone else is experiencing it.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Parke