I have exactly the same problem with Lubuntu 13.10, 64 bit. When i copy a big file from hard drive to USB stick, the system gets laggy and iotop shows that kswapd0 periodically eats 99.9% of IO.
Turing of hugepages (http://lwn.net/Articles/467328/) and adjusting dirty_background_bytes / dirty_bytes (http://lwn.net/Articles/572911/) did not solve the problem. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kernel Packages, which is subscribed to linux in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1267648 Title: Copying large amount of files to USB stick makes system laggy or even freeze/hang (temporary) Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: WORKAROUND: With disabled swap all works smoothly even with large vm sysctl settings and low free memory: vm.dirty_ratio = 60 vm.dirty_background_ratio = 40 1. In order to reproduce this, create large enough temporary file: dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/zeroes bs=8196 count=1000000 1000000+0 records in 1000000+0 records out 8196000000 bytes (8.2 GB) copied, 31.5395 s, 260 MB/s 2. Mount USB stick/external USB hard drive. 3. Start copy to external device: cp /tmp/zeroes /media/bob/16\ GB\ USB\ 3.0/ Expected behavior: file being copying in background for a quite a lot of time (since USB sticks not so fast) not interrupting other work on system. Observed behavior: after some time of copying system starts to lag --- mouse cursor jerking, alt+tab lags, windows became dimmed, music lags. If I try to copy around 20 GB of files (e.g. photoes collections) system became almost completely unresponsive and I can observe in syslog following messages: Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.200909] INFO: task kworker/u16:1:15378 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.200955] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.200997] kworker/u16:1 D ffff88025f254580 0 15378 2 0x00000000 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201046] ffff880159bebc10 0000000000000046 ffff880159bebfd8 0000000000014580 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201090] ffff880159bebfd8 0000000000014580 ffff880218c6aee0 7fffffffffffffff Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201134] ffff880159bebd68 ffff880159bebd70 ffff880218c6aee0 ffff880159bebde0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201178] Call Trace: Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201200] [<ffffffff816ec5b9>] schedule+0x29/0x70 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201229] [<ffffffff816ea499>] schedule_timeout+0x239/0x2d0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201263] [<ffffffff81091ac8>] ? resched_task+0x28/0x80 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201294] [<ffffffff81092555>] ? check_preempt_curr+0x75/0xa0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201327] [<ffffffff81092599>] ? ttwu_do_wakeup+0x19/0xd0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201362] [<ffffffff816eca4d>] wait_for_completion+0xad/0x120 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201396] [<ffffffff81094520>] ? wake_up_state+0x20/0x20 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201429] [<ffffffff81084606>] kthread_create_on_node+0xa6/0x120 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201467] [<ffffffff8107de90>] ? manage_workers.isra.25+0x2a0/0x2a0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201503] [<ffffffff8107da5b>] create_worker+0xeb/0x200 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201533] [<ffffffff8107027c>] ? mod_timer+0x13c/0x210 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201563] [<ffffffff8107dd42>] manage_workers.isra.25+0x152/0x2a0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201598] [<ffffffff8107e20a>] worker_thread+0x37a/0x3c0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201632] [<ffffffff8107de90>] ? manage_workers.isra.25+0x2a0/0x2a0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201668] [<ffffffff81084740>] kthread+0xc0/0xd0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201697] [<ffffffff81084680>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x120/0x120 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201734] [<ffffffff816f716c>] ret_from_fork+0x7c/0xb0 Jan 9 02:36:19 bob-laptop kernel: [120872.201765] [<ffffffff81084680>] ? kthread_create_on_node+0x120/0x120 Lagging stops when copying finishes. This issue observed with all tested USB storage devices (two USB sticks and one external USB-HDD), in both USB 2 and USB 3 ports, with destination filesystem ext4 and NTFS. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10 Package: linux-image-3.11.0-15-generic 3.11.0-15.23 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-15.23-generic 3.11.10 Uname: Linux 3.11.0-15-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2 Architecture: amd64 AudioDevicesInUse: USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /dev/snd/controlC0: bob 20835 F.... pulseaudio bob 27269 F.... pulseaudio /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: bob 20835 F...m pulseaudio CheckboxSubmission: 3d16077c4fdd6a017d47f6e3dc4f3c54 CheckboxSystem: b633b4f40868d491c2ae5b50030ce6f3 Date: Fri Jan 10 04:05:31 2014 HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=e4b8cb86-0729-4f43-896f-89d9216cbc0f InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-01-01 (8 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release amd64 (20131016.1) MachineType: Sony Corporation SVS1311S9RB MarkForUpload: True ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.11.0-15-generic.efi.signed root=/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root ro quiet splash RelatedPackageVersions: linux-restricted-modules-3.11.0-15-generic N/A linux-backports-modules-3.11.0-15-generic N/A linux-firmware 1.116 SourcePackage: linux UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) dmi.bios.date: 05/17/2012 dmi.bios.vendor: Insyde Corp. dmi.bios.version: R0142C5 dmi.board.asset.tag: N/A dmi.board.name: VAIO dmi.board.vendor: Sony Corporation dmi.board.version: N/A dmi.chassis.asset.tag: N/A dmi.chassis.type: 10 dmi.chassis.vendor: Sony Corporation dmi.chassis.version: N/A dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnInsydeCorp.:bvrR0142C5:bd05/17/2012:svnSonyCorporation:pnSVS1311S9RB:pvrC60ARA3P:rvnSonyCorporation:rnVAIO:rvrN/A:cvnSonyCorporation:ct10:cvrN/A: dmi.product.name: SVS1311S9RB dmi.product.version: C60ARA3P dmi.sys.vendor: Sony Corporation To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1267648/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages Post to : kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kernel-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
