Troubleshooting an annoying behavior - Gnome/NixOS
You're going to see some typing errors in this post, and thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is intentioooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonal. It's going to make the post unpleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasant to read, but I assure you it's more unpleasant to type.
The issue: Every 5-10 seconds or so, my laptop has recently started pausing, with one symptom being repetition of any key I happen to be typing at that moment, whether a letter, deletion, or something else. I haven't changed anything, and something very similar seems to be happening on mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy Fedora-based desktop.
I have tried thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhe usual troubleshooting steps, such as watchinggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg my processes, disabling gnome extensions, and I cannot pin down the cause.
(1) Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyone seen anything like this?
(2) Any suggestions for troubleshooting?
The laptop is more than powerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrful enough, a Gen 8 X1 Carbon. OS and apps are up to date. I assume an OS, gnome, or applicationnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn update has broken something, but I cannot for the life of me pinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn down where the issue is occurring.
EDIT:
Adding system specs --
Intel® Core™ i7-10610U 16GB Intel® UHD Graphics Gnome/Wayland NixOS 23.11 kernel 6.1.57
EDIT 2:
Well, it appears to be gnome. Switched to KDE and everything is perfectly fine. I don't like KDE (but I fully respect others' preferences, just ... to avoid unpleasantness). I'm going to do some digging around to see if gnome is conflicting with something in NixOS land.
I have no idea how to fix something like this, but what would I do is try to isolate the problem. Boot live iso with another Linux and see if that happens again. If it does, I would try live windows iso to see if it can be because of Linux kernel or drivers. I it happens even on windows, it's probably a hardware thing.
This is your best bet op. You can't figure out the issue if you don't know where the problem is coming from
Yeah, I will definitely try another live iso. The ONLY possible lead I have is that in btop there's a .gnome-session entry that pops to the top of the list when the pause happens, but (a) the peak displayed CPU usage is like 10%, and (b) I can't figure out what it is. So I'm going to try both a KDE session and maybe a new user just to see if there might be something config-related. Though, again, I didn't change anything in my nix config.
Part of my issue is that I'm not even sure how to describe what's happening to search to see if it's a known issue in recent kernels, gnome, etc. I keep descending into insane metaphors, like "it's sort of like when the cat is about to throw up a hairball and everything pauses while the horror unfolds in front of you."
I would try in the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3 or F1 or F2 depending on the distro), and then a live iso, then a live version of Windows or the Windows installer.