Linux Mint freezing for ~+10 seconds at each track change

[digitalextremist]

Premium member on Linux Mint 21.3 with Spotify version 1.2.31.1205.g4d59ad7c

At a recent update, and sometimes at certain versions then seeming like it goes away then comes back differently, this happens now:

- In a playlist, I reach the end of one song, or I hit "next track"

- The next song seamlessly starts playing

- Everything but sound froze on the system

- I have to wait about 2 seconds at the end of the track

- And I have to wait about 8 seconds after the track changed

- Nothing is possible on the terminal at all, other than hear the song

- Mouse cursor does react to underlying UI, i.e. change to resize, click, versus point; and cursor moves but is not possible to click with

- Once back online, system reacts to all clicks and key-presses like scared chipmunk

This first started happening off and on when the "Now Playing" sidebar was introduced. I have that turned off, and that fixed it before. Now it is still closed but continues to happen much more aggressively and for longer, as described.

I will detect this easiest by sitting at a screen and using mousewheel up to the end of the song frantically to see activity, or use `htop` for example, and those will be frozen for the entire period. Basically causes the question:

Do I want music ever in my life again, or be able to use my computer? Anyone else choose music and pick much much longer songs as the solution so far? 🙂 Hoping there is an easy fix, otherwise watching for patch.

Feels network related somehow but not sure why.

UPDATE: Noticing I might be right on network-related somehow, so including those details. I temporarily have a break from freezing it seems. I have a redundant internet connection. There was just a storm that knocked out one connection and right now I am running on just one. Will explore that further and eventually turn back on the other and see if issue returns.

UPDATE: Turned back on the second connection after issue resolved with link, and still not seeing the freeze yet.

[digitalextremist]

Update on this worth more than an edit to the original post:

I notice the length of "freeze" time increasing as the session goes on.

And then if I close the application and reopen it, the first time I press play, it does not happen. 

[ss3332]

Not isolated to Mint, but possibly the Cinnamon desktop.  Also it's not a network thing.  The machine is unresponsive except for moving the mouse when a track changes.  Watching "top" I see a metric f-ton of "cinnamon" processes spawned immediately after it comes back.  I'll test on another DE but it seems to be a Cinnamon thing.

[ss3332]

I've confirmed that the Ubuntu DE doesn't freeze, so this is some weird interaction with Cinnamon.