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For a while now when I switch between two user sessions the inactive one in some cases will stop executing GUI processes. This way I'm forced waiting for another session to load and can't do something in another one, because if I switch and return after a while it's still on the same point. The software affected includes rsync, rdiff-backup, KDE background processes, Steam launched in Openbox session (even downloading stops) and at least some games. VLC is not affected, at least it skips to needed time after I switch back, but for a moment I can see old frame and time in it's window.

What process is responsible for such behaviour? Can I reconfigure it somehow?

Update: Memory and Swap Usage

Some additional context: The irony is I suggested this exact behaviour on the old brainstorm.ubuntu.com (now defunct).

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@Fabby done, it doesn't look like a swap problem if that's what you implying. – int_ua Jul 3 '15 at 10:06
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Yeah, that's what I was implying... ;-) I've tried to simulate the behaviour you're experiencing by: log on as a user, then log on as a secondary user, start a movie, [Ctrl][Alt][F7] to the first user, start a find on /, [ctrl][Alt][F8] to the second user and everything keeps on running... (though the sound of the movie is muted when switching users.) How do you test? – Fabby Jul 3 '15 at 12:08
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@int_ua I don't know about steam specifically, but I've had games that contain specific code to be paused when switching users... I don't use KDE so I think I cannot help you any further... Sorry! – Fabby Jul 7 '15 at 20:37
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By both noting the output state before and after switching to another user and by an external HDD light ceasing all activity during another session being active. – int_ua Sep 20 '17 at 12:31
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for rsync you are using verbose to print progress? have you tried without it + have you tried with sending it directly to the background rsync .... &? How about nohup rsync .... & ? for GUI they must suspend because there is only one output resource and it does taken by another user session and they will pause : ) – αғsнιη Sep 29 '17 at 3:09
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What process is responsible for such behaviour?

Display Manager (DM) is the one you are looking for. Anyone: lightdm, gdm, kdm (old kde), sddm (new kde), xdm ...

Can I reconfigure it somehow?

AFAIK, That should be that way with X server. However, I used to skip that behavior using:

  • CLI tools on another virtual console TTY
  • CLI tools as initservice

Concerning audio streams, when I started using GNU/Linux in 2006. Audio devices were managed separately from Display. Now, things changed much specially with the new integrated devices/ports like HDMI. So Pulse server should be aware of some X display events. As I remember (I will recheck this), Pulse server is run as user process.

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Can you please prove the first point? How exactly or where in the code it does this? There are a lot of situations where CLI in TTY is not an option and downloads and backups are the real problem, audio is a minor issue. – int_ua Oct 6 '17 at 6:28
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You can launch a screen session from the CLI with bash and inside this session you can launch the application. And now you can close this Terminal without problems and recover using screen -r command. Is more or less this:

screen bash
rsync -V xxx yyy

And you can close the CLI and return whatever you want and do:

screen -r

To confirm the job is done. I don't know if this can work with GUI apps using a command like:

nohup your-X-application &
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