Re: [i3] window assigned workspace and high cpu usage

  • From: Fabian Keil <freebsd-listen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: i3-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2015 11:57:21 +0200

"Antonio-M. Corbi Bellot" <antonio.corbi@xxxxx> wrote:

I am currently using i3 version 4.10.2.

Since a few months I've been observing a strange behaviour in i3 when I
assign a window from emacs or chromium to a specific workspace. The
behaviour I'm describing here was also the same with i3 4.[7,8,9].x.

For example, I assign emacs to this key combination:

bindsym $mod+Shift+m exec "emacs"

And the workspace assignment is this:

assign [class="Emacs"] 2

Assuming I'm working in workspace 1, when I press $mod+Shift+m (I don't
change to ws 2 for the moment), emacs starts in workspace 2 but I see
an increment in cpu usage being the main culprits emacs (approx. 60%
cpu usage) and xorg (approx. 90% cpu usage). And this cpu usage is
sustained...it doesn't slow down until I change to workspace 2 ($mod+2)
and then I observe that emacs hasn't finished starting and in the very
moment I've changed to workspace 2 it is like it resumes execution and
it finishes starting normally. It is then that cpu usage from xorg and
emacs slow down to their normal values.

I've also observed this behaviour with chromium, no other applications
suffer from this 'strange' behaviour, i.e I use claws-mail in workspace
4 and it opens there without a glitch. Also I use glade (3.18.1) in
this way, assigned to workspace 2, and it starts nicely.

I'm not sure if it is an emacs/chromium bug or an i3 bug or even a xorg
bug, but I've observed it only with i3 and these applications.

Has anyone observed this?

I've observed similar behaviour as a result of the i3 config line:

| exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 4; exec emacs; workspace 1'

My workaround is to drop the "workspace 1", otherwise emacs busy-loops
on fd 6 (socket /tmp/.X11-unix/X0) until I switch to its workspace
and wait for the window to be rendered.

I don't use chromium (not enough RAM to build it).

Fabian

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