When I update my system and/or after updating it, it freezes (almost) completely for several tens of seconds up to several minutes. The duration of the freeze probably depends on the amount and the kind of updates (it’s worst for updates close to the system core like Intel graphics drivers or kernel updates). According to the KDE system monitor the CPU usage is very high, but I don’t trust the information because a high/maximum CPU usage typically leads to a much higher fan noise (it’s a notebook). However, the read and/or write load of the system drive during a freeze seems to be at its limit. Meanwhile the system monitor shows several processes in “disk sleep” status.
Usually I use pamac (originally “pamac-aur-git”, now “pamac-all”) for software management and updating. Recent tests with yay also showed this problem.
After freezing the system runs as if nothing had happened but it’s somewhat annoying and I would assume that it shouldn’t be like that (and it wasn’t always like that).
what is : balooctl status
is just only a guess 
personally pacman is al the way to update generaly… once libalpm is updated you have to carefull atleast…freeze can be the graphics drivers but since cpu points out… mayby with indexing?
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Total files indexed: 68.515
Files waiting for content indexing: 0
Files failed to index: 0
Current size of index is 6,82 GiB
By the way: I have installed some Gnome based programs and thus also some of the core components of Gnome, including “tracker” (which is apparently the Gnome counterpart to baloo). It can be quite nasty, which is why I disabled it a while ago. Maybe I should test that with regard to baloo as well.
Addendum: I currently see no indication that baloo indexes system files. And more than the “system” is not on the system disk. Well, the home directory, but that contains only any configuration files of my user account. Everything else (all my personal files etc.) is on an additional hard disk, and I would say that this one is not involved.
That size seems too much. Mine is 2.46 MiB.
Maybe this was due to the “also index file content” option. Now the index is no longer available and baloo is diasbled. Let’s see if this has any recognizable influence on the problem.
mayby it helps or not, is just bit by pieces look wat it is… high cpu can various, but tracker or a like is build in gtk3 these days as dep…only thing would do something as gtk3-mushroom but is out of date
mayby is something to tlp but is always rough, identify bits and pieces
This is mine on KDE.
[ricklinux@eos-kde ~]$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Total files indexed: 2,632
Files waiting for content indexing: 0
Files failed to index: 0
Current size of index is 301.47 MiB
[ricklinux@eos-kde ~]$
In my case almost all files from my secondary data disk were indexed. Compared to 301.47 MiB for 2.632 files, 6.8 GiB for 68.515 files is not so strange.
Whether all the files would need to be indexed is another question. Since I rarely search for something in there, I can probably do without it…
Just switch off baloo and use angrysearch or catfish when you need to find something. They are both perfectly capable and don’t waste time indexing stuff when you don’t need to. Perhaps not as convenient but less hassle. You just need to do a quick re-index before you use angrysearch. I don’t use catfish so I can’t say but angrysearch searches everything and is really fast. Files, configs everything.
Not sure about the big freeze though. There would appear to be a bottleneck somewhere. Perhaps writes and rewrites between either the kernel or your hard drive. That’s way beyond my knowledge though, perhaps just a few thing worth looking at?
Did you try turning off indexing to see if the problem persists?
Baloo is disabled, the last update itself was initially unsuspicious, but shortly after the update the system froze again.
What is your hardware? inxi -Fxxxa --no-host
System: Kernel: 5.9.9-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=86456569-f6ea-4495-8e70-fe4dbe013ec6 rw quiet
cryptdevice=UUID=60534597-f6f9-4f27-a5be-d027275be8fc:luks-60534597-f6f9-4f27-a5be-d027275be8fc
root=/dev/mapper/luks-60534597-f6f9-4f27-a5be-d027275be8fc
resume=/dev/mapper/luks-60534597-f6f9-4f27-a5be-d027275be8fc loglevel=3
Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.3 tk: Qt 5.15.1 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Arch Linux
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Medion product: E6431 MD60112 v: 1.0 serial: <superuser/root required>
Mobo: Medion model: E15SIN v: 1.0 serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 206
date: 06/24/2016
Battery: Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech M585/M590 Multi-Device Mouse serial: 406b-04-52-90-ac
charge: 100% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: Discharging
CPU: Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-6567U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake family: 6 model-id: 4E (78)
stepping: 3 microcode: 88 L2 cache: 4096 KiB
flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 26411
Speed: 1800 MHz min/max: 400/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1800 2: 1797 3: 1800 4: 1800
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT vulnerable
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable
Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics: Device-1: Intel Iris Graphics 550 vendor: Pegatron driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:1927
Device-2: Realtek USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-6:7 chip ID: 0bda:58bd
serial: 200901010001
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: intel unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa
display ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 143 size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") diag: 389mm (15.3")
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Graphics 550 (SKL GT3) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.2 direct render: Yes
Audio: Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Pegatron driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl
bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d70
Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.9.9-arch1-1
Network: Device-1: Intel Wireless 3165 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl port: f040 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 8086:3165
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: 32:21:cd:05:58:ec
Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Pegatron driver: r8169 v: kernel
port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168
IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: ec:aa:a0:2e:12:e9
Drives: Local Storage: total: 1.71 TiB used: 699.44 GiB (40.0%)
SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1500LM012-1R817G size: 1.36 TiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B
speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 5400 rpm serial: WDZ8EK5F rev: SDM1 scheme: MBR
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Phison model: S11-128G-SSD size: 119.24 GiB block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B
speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: 90530767120805146124 rev: 00.3 scheme: GPT
ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Samsung model: SSD 840 Series size: 232.89 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B
logical: 512 B serial: 3147E514216071C rev: 0204 scheme: MBR
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 118.94 GiB size: 116.58 GiB (98.01%) used: 52.59 GiB (45.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
Swap: Alert: No Swap data was found.
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info: Processes: 220 Uptime: 14m wakeups: 3 Memory: 15.55 GiB used: 2.66 GiB (17.1%) Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers:
gcc: 10.2.0 clang: 11.0.0 Packages: pacman: 2075 lib: 479 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: konsole
inxi: 3.1.09
Try uninstalling xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-vesa
Uninstalling the specified xf86-packages has no effect either.
I have decided not to deal with this phenomenon any further.
Many thanks for the hints and efforts of all involved.