Ubuntu 20.04 Freezes randomly and media loops the last 1-2 seconds clip

After a few days of installation of Ubuntu 20.04 on my Desktop system, I am facing this issue of my OS freezing at random intervals. Happening 2-3 times a day.

The question may be similar to this one but the those answers are not applicable because I already have 16 GB of SWAP and a recent kernel version.

I also checked many other similar questions but could not find the specific solution.

The picture of the htop, the last time it happened.

I checked the /var/log/syslog file and could not find anything relevant.

Screenshot of syslog file.

All the time it froze, I was using two browsers: Firefox(2-3 tabs) and Chrome(4-5 tabs, youtube in on of them) and a few other applications like Vscode, Terminal etc. I was not doing any heavy(memory-wise) work.

I am not sure what is causing this. One possible culprit I am guessing is 'may be', the dconf-editor. The issue started the day I installed dconf-editor because I had to add Byobu to the favorites in the dock. So, I followed some of the steps from this answer. But it didn't work as expected and showed some weird results. So I reverted all the changes done to it.

Adding here the relevant system information.

sudo lshw -short
H/W path        Device     Class          Description
=====================================================
                           system         All Series (All)
/0                         bus            H81M-K
/0/0                       memory         64KiB BIOS
/0/1                       memory         16GiB System memory
/0/1/0                     memory         8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
/0/1/1                     memory         8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1067 MHz (0.9 ns)
/0/3d                      memory         256KiB L1 cache
/0/3e                      memory         1MiB L2 cache
/0/3f                      memory         6MiB L3 cache
/0/43                      processor      Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4460  CPU @ 3.20GHz
/0/100                     bridge         4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller
/0/100/1                   bridge         Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller
/0/100/2                   display        Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
/0/100/14                  bus            8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI
/0/100/14/0     usb3       bus            xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/14/0/2              input          Rapoo 2.4G Wireless Device
/0/100/14/1     usb4       bus            xHCI Host Controller
/0/100/16                  communication  8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1
/0/100/1a                  bus            8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2
/0/100/1a/1     usb1       bus            EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1a/1/1              bus            USB hub
/0/100/1b                  multimedia     8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller
/0/100/1c                  bridge         8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1
/0/100/1c.2                bridge         8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3
/0/100/1c.2/0   enp3s0     network        RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
/0/100/1d                  bus            8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1
/0/100/1d/1     usb2       bus            EHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1d/1/1              bus            USB hub
/0/100/1f                  bridge         H81 Express LPC Controller
/0/100/1f.2                storage        8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode]
/0/100/1f.3                bus            8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller
/0/2                       system         PnP device PNP0c01
/0/3                       system         PnP device PNP0c02
/0/4                       system         PnP device PNP0b00
/0/5                       generic        PnP device INT3f0d
/0/6                       system         PnP device PNP0c02
/0/7                       system         PnP device PNP0c02
/0/8                       system         PnP device PNP0c02
/0/9            scsi0      storage        
/0/9/0.0.0      /dev/sda   disk           480GB WDC WDS480G2G0A-
/0/9/0.0.0/1    /dev/sda1  volume         476MiB Windows FAT volume
/0/9/0.0.0/2    /dev/sda2  volume         15GiB Extended partition
/0/9/0.0.0/2/5  /dev/sda5  volume         15GiB Linux swap volume
/0/9/0.0.0/3    /dev/sda3  volume         114GiB EXT4 volume
/0/9/0.0.0/4    /dev/sda4  volume         316GiB EXT4 volume
/0/a            scsi4      storage        
/0/a/0.0.0      /dev/sdb   disk           1TB WDC WD10EZEX-60M
/0/a/0.0.0/1    /dev/sdb1  volume         931GiB EXT4 volume
/1                         power          To Be Filled By O.E.M.




swapon -s
Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda5                               partition   15999996    0   -2



sudo dmidecode -t 2

# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes
Base Board Information
    Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
    Product Name: H81M-K
    Version: Rev X.0x
    Serial Number: 191059533403458
    Asset Tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
    Features:
        Board is a hosting board
        Board is replaceable
    Location In Chassis: To be filled by O.E.M.
    Chassis Handle: 0x0003
    Type: Motherboard
    Contained Object Handles: 0




free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           15Gi       4.5Gi       6.7Gi       1.0Gi       4.2Gi       9.7Gi
Swap:          15Gi          0B        15Gi




sudo lshw -c video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 06
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:31 memory:f7800000-f7bfffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff

ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 अगस्त   19 16:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 अगस्त   19 16:25 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 नवम्बर   3 16:50 desktop-icons@csoriano
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 अगस्त   19 16:20 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 अगस्त   19 16:20 [email protected]

sudo ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/
total 12
drwx------  2 sand sand 4096 नवम्बर   6 22:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 sand sand 4096 नवम्बर   6 17:03 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 sand sand 1770 नवम्बर   6 22:00 application_state
-rw-rw-r--  1 sand sand    0 नवम्बर   3 16:13 gnome-overrides-migrated


uname -r
5.11.0-38-generic

If the issue is something that is occurring with some specific software or browser like Chrome, try disabling the hardware acceleration option in the software, I had a almost similar case and nothing helped but disabling hardware acceleration in Chrome seems to have fixed the issue.

You can check my issue here, Random screen distortion and freeze in Ubuntu 20.04/22.04

You have two different 8G memory DIMMs installed, and they're at different clock speed rates.

/0/1/0                     memory         8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1333 MHz (0.8 ns)
/0/1/1                     memory         8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1067 MHz (0.9 ns)

When installed in pairs, memory interleaving calls out that both DIMMs should be exactly the same size, access, and clock rates.

The memory spec for your ASUS H81M-K motherboard is:

2 x DIMM, Max. 16GB, DDR3 1600/1333/1066 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel Memory Architecture

Source: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/Business/H81MK/techspec/

Note: See https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/asus/h81m-k#memory for compatible memory DIMMs.

Go to https://www.memtest86.com/ and download/run their free memtest to test your memory. Get at least one complete pass of all the 4/4 tests to confirm good memory. This may take a few hours to complete.

Update #1:

Regarding different memory DIMMs, it may slow down to the slowest speed (which in your case is almost 1/2 speed), or it might get confused, but for memory interleaving to work, the DIMMs must be exactly the same. Removing the slowest DIMM, for testing purposes, would tell you if the freezing problems went away.

Update #2:

Check your BIOS with sudo dmidecode -s bios-version... it should be 3604. Get it at https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/Business/H81MK/HelpDesk_BIOS/

There is no obvious way to fix this problem but you could take the following Precautions , Good Luck!

• Try increasing the swap size (Only for the author of the question - Your swap size is more than enough (16 GB) , Maybe try decreasing it and configure swapiness)

• Try a lighter desktop environment such as XFCE .

• Change the power button to suspend button (suspend fixes the problem without a full restart (sometimes) ) settings > power options > power button action > suspend

• try disabling services that you don't want (You can use Stacer also for that sudo snap install stacer)

• Always keep your system updates sudo apt update ; sudo apt upgrade

• Avoid heavy usage

• Use cpu freq with power saving mode .

• Use alternative flavours of ubuntu like XUBUNTU or LUBUNTU

• rm -rf .config ; mkdir .config #Removes configurations

• Use more workspaces rather than opening more then 3 apps in 1 workspace

• keep your computer clean sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt clean

• use an old kernel (only use if if it is supported)

• And at last decrease swapiness.(10 is a good value)

If the problem is after update or kernel update

If that is the case then

• Open Grub menu (Press ESC or SHIFT key before the boot splash screen appear)

• From there choose "advanced options for ubuntu"

• Then choose an older kernel (probably the oldest)

Check if the problem is still there if not then Give me further updates in the comments.