Hibernate issues on Laptop/PC during high RAM usage

Question

For several day/months I was trying to find solution for hibernation during high RAM usage on my laptop - Toshiba Satellite L50-B-1K6. I am facing similar issues on my desktop PC.

My hardware configuration is:

$ inxi -Fx
Machine:   System: TOSHIBA (portable) product: SATELLITE L50-B v: PSKTCE-02G009Y4
           Mobo: Type2 - Board Vendor Name1 model: Type2 - Board Product Name1 v: Type2 - Board Version
           Bios: INSYDE v: 1.70 date: 08/14/2014
Battery    BAT1: charge: 7.2 Wh 29.5% condition: 24.2/30.0 Wh (81%) model: LGC PA5186U-1B status: Discharging
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-4210U (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9580
           clock speeds: max: 2700 MHz 1: 1697 MHz 2: 1615 MHz 3: 1279 MHz 4: 1700 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Jet PRO [Radeon R5 M230] bus-ID: 09:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.4 driver: intel Resolution: 1366x768@60.01hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 12.0.1 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 8 Series HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Card-2 Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:03.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.7.2-1-MANJARO
Network:   Card-1: Intel Wireless 3160 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 07:00.0
           IF: wlp7s0 state: up mac: 30:3a:64:ef:d2:29
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller port: 4000 bus-ID: 08:00.0
           IF: N/A state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1000.2GB (3.8% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: HGST_HTS541010A9 size: 1000.2GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19G used: 13G (69%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda11
           ID-2: /home size: 29G used: 15G (54%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda12
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 9.01GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.0C mobo: N/A gpu: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A

Available RAM memory is 4 GB. SWAP partition is 9 GB.

Hibernation mostly depends on your HW config (my mistake was buying Toshiba of course) and kernel version.

My current kernel version is:

4.7.2.1

I had similar problems with older kernel versions (4.1, 4.4, 4.6, ...) also.

Tried various hibernation methods with no luck:

$ systemctl hibernate
$ sudo sh -c "echo disk > /sys/power/state"
$ pm-hibernate
$ s2disk
- TuxOnIce kernel

Problem is always similar - hibernate is sucessfull when my RAM usage is low, for example 500MB (12.5 %).

But when I start firefox (or some other high RAM usage program - 50% of RAM) and want to hibernate I am facing following issue.

During resume(thaw), swap space accumulates and hibernation eventually fails - after 3-7 hibernations.

System will hibernate sucessfully, but when I try to turn on laptop it restarts instead of resume(thaw).

Summary: Swap usage is increasing with every hibernation, your machine becomes slow and hibernation eventually fails - restart instead of resume.

This issue can be also found at:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1796851
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php?59209-swap-gradually-filling-after-hibernate-resume

I'll post my workaround for this issue, and hope that you will post your tweaks - how you managed to fix this.

Apparently if you run top and press the f key, you can follow the instructions to enable a SWAP column (and sort by it). It would be very interesting to see whether top is able to account for the >>4GB of swap being used or not. — sourcejedi, Sep 18 '16 at 10:19

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

When swap accumulates your PC/laptop becomes slow and hibernation eventually fails because there is not enough SWAP space for hibernation.

So solution is to manually empty swap partiton after return from hibernation (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1796851&p=11011907#post11011907).

I've added function in my ~/.bashrc to handle this:

function nk-hibernate() {
    sudo sh -c "echo disk > /sys/power/state"
    # setsid i3lock -c 117864 # lock screen with tool of your choice
    sudo swapoff -a
    sudo swapon -a
}

Warning - swapoff can be really slow! How can swapoff be that slow?

When I want to hibernate I just open terminal and run:

$ nk-hibernate

After resume from hibernation, swap is cleaned (swapoff) and then again activated (swapon) in order to hibernate again.

If anyone knows better solution please share.

EDIT: As @sourcejedi mentioned, this doesn't solve problem completely. I had situation where laptop restarts after some period (10+ hibernations). This just speeds up machine after resume from hibernate

In that thread, it's not considered a solution. "Even with my swap displaying 0% [i.e. after swapoff], if I'm trying a 2nd or 3rd hibernation attempt since my last restart, it fails with that not enough swapfile prompt." — sourcejedi, Sep 18 '16 at 10:05
Interesting that you can manage to fill >>4GB of swap with repeated hibernations. — sourcejedi, Sep 18 '16 at 10:08
Hopefully someone here will post solution for your case also — nexayq, Sep 18 '16 at 10:09

Hibernate issues on Laptop/PC during high RAM usage

1 Answers1