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when I run top command in my console after fresh start, I have a frontend process that uses a lot of CPU.

Does anyone know what it is? Or how to check where it comes from?

frontend task

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    Hi, and welcome to the site. Although it is not a real problem for this particular question, for future posts please consider copy-and-pasting program output instead of attaching screenshots, as this makes searching easier for those trying to answer (or looking for similar issues).
    – AdminBee
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 12:20

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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I had the same problem. You probably have a second process running (update-secureboot-policy), consuming CPU too.

It's a problem of DKMS not properly configured with Secure Boot enable. You can find documentation here

To solve this, you could configure DKMS properly or disable Secure Boot. I choosed the second one and disabled it on the bios.

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  • Works great for me disabling Secure boot from BIOS too
    – Pedro
    Commented Aug 26, 2020 at 18:15
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If anyone is looking for the solution, I copy the solution from AskUbuntu by Andy K.

Killing is not an option and disabling SecureBoot is not good idea in UEFI era. The problem appears, because "frontend" program is waiting for password to enroll keys, but the GUI to type password is not displayed (this is some shitty bug).

It is happening usually after a system upgrade.
To resolve the problem you must (as root):

killall -9 frontend
update-secureboot-policy --enroll-key

In the appeared pink GUI:

  • Type any one-time password (used only for enroll confirmation after reboot)
  • Confirm it
  • Reboot
  • After reboot you will see a blue GUI
  • Choose Enroll Key... (or Enroll MOK or something similar to enroll. It could be different for each PC or BIOS firmware)
  • There you can view the key and choose Continue to enroll it
  • Type your password again (from step 1)
  • Reboot

See SecureBoot manual for details.

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Killing the process 'frontend' (from a terminal window) seemed to have no effect (for now). Then typing the suggested command gave an error, but after that I could run the adapted vboxdrv.sh script and after that VirtualBox just worked.

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The best option would be to check the process with the PID 7876; there are a lot of options to check it with the command ps; one of them would this one:

ps -p 7876 u

It would check the PID 7876 and which program is calling to that process; information that should be helpful...

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I had the same problem. You probably have a second process running (update-secureboot-policy), consuming CPU too.

My solution was to remove VirtualBox:

sudo apt remove --purge virtualbox
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    Did it work? Why did it work?
    – Jeremy Boden
    Commented Jul 4, 2021 at 0:01
  • I don't know why, but some time along I had problems with another OS after installing VirtualBox. My solution, back then, pointed to this link. So... I remembered, removed VirtualBox from my system and: tada! Problem solved
    – SMontiel
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 1:17

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