Issues with random freezes | Desktop & Handheld

[qkoli]

Hello,

I use CachyOS on my Desktop PC as well as a Steam Deck OLED. I have had issues with random freezing ever since, on both devices.

I combined this in one post, because the issues are quite similar.

On Desktop:
Usually it doesn’t freeze while in game. Just when I’m working in KDE, suddenly almost everything is unresponsive and even the time (seconds) in the bottom right of the KDE task manager is frozen. I cannot open the start menu and most windows are also not responsive. While this happens, my mouse is working fine and i can even drag windows around or am able to work in other windows that are not frozen (i. e. browser). After around 20 seconds, everything “rubberbands” to what i did while it was frozen: For example if i clicked the start menu 3 times while it was frozen, it opens, closes and opens again (three times) rapidly.

On Steam Deck:
I have the exact same issue on the Deck as on my Desktop, when using the Desktop Mode. But its even worse in Gaming Mode. Usually there, the game will start to not respond to any button inputs. When it happens while running forward with a character for example, the character will keep running in that direction with no way to stop it, since button inputs are not working. Also the “Steam”, “…” and even the Power Button are not working. After like 20 seconds of that happening, the game/deck freezes fully for another 15-20 seconds and then the deck just snaps back and everything is just working again.

I have been observing this, since i first installed CachyOS on both devices a few months ago and could not find any pattern and it feels to me that it just happens randomly.

I play mostly on the deck and only sometimes on the desktop. Depending on the game it can be really frustrating to die to this bug and loose progress and well, multiplayer games are even worse to play with this issue.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

[ZAYAZ_CZ]

It happens to me exactly the same, the difference is that I don’t have a Steam Deck; I have an Asus ROG Ally, but I have experienced those problems exactly like you.

Asus Rog Ally X / Handheld

Hey, I wouldn’t know where to start, but I’ll try to keep it short. From the basics, the installer in its handled PC edition gives an error before finishing, and after several tries, you can manage to complete the installation, but it’s clear that doesn’t bode well. After starting CachyOS, everything seems fine, but the Handheld Daemon function doesn’t work. If you install it manually, it opens, but after restarting, it completely stops working again. I don’t want to go on too long, but the lis…

[qkoli]

Oh, I’m sorry it happens to you as well. But also glad I’m not alone, somehow. Hopefully this increases the chances of getting this fixed.

Though, I didn’t have any errors while installing CachyOS.

I absolutely love CachyOS and would really like to keep using it. I can play normally, but this issue is difficult to deal with, since its completely random most of the time.
Yesterday i played a bit of Vampire Survivors and this issue kept on happening every single minute. It was literally unplayable.
After a reboot, i could play again, but still with this issue happening randomly occasionally and caused a few deaths of course.

I hope someone from the team sees this and we can find a fix for this. If there is anything i can do to help, please let me now.

[ZAYAZ_CZ]

Thank you for your response, but I would like it to be a straightforward installation without worries. I don’t want to bother anyone, but if I see that this is going to take a while, I will ask you. Thank you for your help.

[unrafa]

i’d try disabling swap zswap and zram

1. Comment out the swap entries in /etc/fstab if they exist, to prevent ZRAM from being automatically enabled at boot.
2. Unload the ZRAM module using the command sudo rmmod zram .
3. Disable the ZRAM service by running sudo systemctl disable systemd-zram-setup@zram0.service to ensure it does not start automatically on boot.
4. Set the zram_enabled parameter to 0 in /etc/systemd/zram-generator.conf to prevent ZRAM from being enabled by the zram-generator service.

[qkoli]

Thank you for your answer. I tried to do everything you listed, but:

1. I dont see/have any swap entries in /etc/fstab
2. If i try to execute sudo rmmod zram i get rmmod: ERROR: Module zram is in use
3. sudo systemctl disable systemd-zram-setup@zram0.service gives me this: The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy=, RequiredBy=, UpheldBy=, Also=, or Alias= settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance= for template units). This means they are not meant to be enabled or disabled using systemctl.
4. /etc/systemd/zram-generator.conf - i dont have this file.

All of this is the exact same on desktop as well as the deck.

[qkoli]

I got some logs from the latest freeze on my desktop. Before it froze, i was right-clicking Proton Pass in the System Tray and selected ‘Quit’. Immediately after, i clicked the notifications and before the notifications even opened, everything froze. The freeze started exactly at 18:30:43 and ended exactly at 18:31:08.

Mär 27 18:30:38 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-26 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:30:41 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-28 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:30:44 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:30:43 Predator plasmashell[1134]: qt.qml.signalhandler: Property 'onPressed' of object CompactRepresentation_QMLTYPE_626(0x6300f9845f10) is a signal handler. You should not call it directly. Make it a proper function and call that or emit the signal.
Mär 27 18:30:47 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:01 Predator systemd[1]: flatpak-system-helper.service: Deactivated successfully.
Mär 27 18:30:50 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:01 Predator systemd[1]: flatpak-system-helper.service: Consumed 8.703s CPU time, 766.4M memory peak.
Mär 27 18:30:53 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:07 Predator kded6[1119]: Service  ":1.78" unregistered
Mär 27 18:30:56 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-32 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:30:59 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:02 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:05 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:08 Predator systemd[937]: app-cachy\x2dbrowser@6e32fb7fb1e946378632fd0ad8e3187f.service: Consumed 6min 11.615s CPU time, 3.7G memory peak.
Mär 27 18:31:08 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:08 Predator plasmashell[1134]: kf.windowsystem.wayland: Failed to recreate shadow for PlasmaQuick::AppletPopup_QML_463(0x6300f5bdbff0, name="popupWindow")
Mär 27 18:31:11 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:14 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 27 18:31:17 Predator wpa_supplicant[813]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-34 noise=9999 txrate=2401900

[qkoli]

Here is another one. Weirdly enough, it has different error messages. Also i noticed, while the freeze is happening, the log order is messed up. If you look at the seconds: 11 → 09 → 14 → 09 …
The freeze started exactly at 08:27:11 and ended exactly at 08:27:33.

Mär 29 08:27:05 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-31 noise=9999 txrate=216100
Mär 29 08:27:08 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=2401900
Mär 29 08:27:09 Predator kwin_wayland[1035]: kf.windowsystem: static bool KX11Extras::mapViewport() may only be used on X11
Mär 29 08:27:11 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:09 Predator kwin_wayland[1035]: kwin_scene_opengl: 0x501: GL_INVALID_VALUE error generated. <levels>, <width> and <height> must be 1 or greater.
Mär 29 08:27:14 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:09 Predator kwin_wayland[1035]: kwin_scene_opengl: Invalid framebuffer status:  "GL_FRAMEBUFFER_INCOMPLETE_ATTACHMENT"
Mär 29 08:27:17 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:09 Predator kwin_wayland[1035]: kwin_scene_opengl: 0x502: GL_INVALID_OPERATION error generated. Framebuffer name must be generated before being bound.
Mär 29 08:27:20 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:09 Predator kwin_wayland[1035]: kwin_scene_opengl: 0x506: GL_INVALID_FRAMEBUFFER_OPERATION error generated. Operation is not valid because a bound framebuffer is not framebuffer c>
Mär 29 08:27:23 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:26 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:29 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:32 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=1441300
Mär 29 08:27:33 Predator plasmashell[1177]: kf.windowsystem.wayland: Failed to recreate shadow for PlasmaQuick::AppletPopup_QML_548(0x58783c655d40, name="popupWindow")
Mär 29 08:27:35 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=576400
Mär 29 08:27:35 Predator steam[5748]: [2025-03-29 08:27:35] Shutdown
Mär 29 08:27:35 Predator kded6[1154]: Service  ":1.71" unregistered
Mär 29 08:27:38 Predator wpa_supplicant[773]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-33 noise=9999 txrate=576400

[jagrit007]

I’m facing the exact same issue. My taskbar and all KDE apps freeze, and during this frozen state, I’m unable to perform any write operations. For example, WhatsApp stops working and shows a “No space available on device” error, YouTube playback halts, and any third-party text editors or IDEs fail to save files.

I can’t switch sessions or use hotkeys to open the terminal. Once it freezes, the only option I have is to force a shutdown by holding the power button — which is really frustrating. I’m also unable to connect to the system via SSH from another device.

Although I haven’t been able to retrieve the logs, my guess is that the issue is related to the storage device.

I’ll try switching to a different DE for a few days.

[qkoli]

Sorry to hear you have the same problems. Did switching DE help?

If so, I’ll switch DE on my desktop as well and go back to SteamOS on the deck. The deck is especially frustrating to use with this bug…