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Why are cosmic apps so slow to load?

My laptop is running modern hardware with NVME drive and has 64GB of RAM. Running Pop!_OS 22.04 with Gnome/Wayland.

When I launch the cosmic-store or cosmic-edit (for example) via command line or launcher, each takes about 25 seconds for its app window to load. Loading the Pop Shop in the same fashion takes less than 1 second.

I saw a few lines indicating files couldn't be opened, and thought at first maybe my ulimit was set incorrectly, but there is plenty of headroom on my user (soft limit: 4096, hard limit: 1048576).

I do see a handful of logs that look questionable:

May 04 07:50:59 rosie systemd[2109]: app-gnome-com.system76.CosmicEdit-17126.scope: Couldn't move process 17126 to requested cgroup '/user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/app.slice/app-gnome-com.system76.CosmicEdit-17126.scope': No such process
May 04 07:50:59 rosie systemd[2109]: app-gnome-com.system76.CosmicEdit-17126.scope: Failed to add PIDs to scope's control group: No such process
May 04 07:50:59 rosie systemd[2109]: app-gnome-com.system76.CosmicEdit-17126.scope: Failed with result 'resources'.
░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
░░ 
░░ The unit UNIT has entered the 'failed' state with result 'resources'.
May 04 07:50:59 rosie systemd[2109]: Failed to start Application launched by gnome-shell.

What could be causing the cosmic apps to load so slowly?

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11 comments
  • Very few people will have experience with cosmic apps at this point, it's in alpha state... :)

    • Yeah, I get that. I've helped contribute to Pop!_OS in the past and thought I'd give it an early run. I'm just surprised that the packaged apps are so slow. When I ran them 6 months ago, they loaded so quickly I was shocked (<50ms).

      I'm not sure if it's my system, or the (new) state of the apps.

      • I think it's probably the system. Some kind of bug I guess. I'm really looking forward to cosmic too btw, seems very nice. But I guess it won't replace plasma anytime soon. These things takes time....

  • Every application launches within 0.2 seconds for me. Maybe you need to play around with env WGPU_POWER_PREF=high

    • Ok, I've narrowed down the cause of slowdown slightly. It is when my laptop is on battery only that load time takes about 25 seconds. When plugged in (mains power), load time is < 1sec.

      The only change I see in journalctl -xef when switching between battery/mains power is as follows (first line battery, second line mains):

      May 22 23:45:35 rosie kernel: Dynamic Preempt: voluntary
      May 22 23:45:54 rosie kernel: Dynamic Preempt: full
      

      Edit: I can also simulate the effect via sudo tlp ac (fast load time) and sudo tlp bat (slow load time).

    • Thanks. Strangely, after using WGPU_POWER_PREF=high, it is always fast for me, even when I don't specify this preference. I don't understand it. In any case, I guess it's "fixed" for now, so thanks!

      • I no longer think WGPU_POWER_PREF has any bearing on the fast/slow issue, see my other comment.

11 comments