[gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Philip Webb]

During the past few months, I've been bit by sudden total freezes
while using Epiphany & Konqueror to browse Internet sites.
The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.

At first, I believed it was a bug in Epiphany, which is good to use,
but not well-supported as KDE & Firefox.  However yesterday,
it happened in similar circumstances with Konqueror,
which uses quite different libraries & rendering.

It seems to happen when the browser is downloading images, esp adverts,
& I simultaneously use the middle mouse button to click or scroll.
I may have several news stories downloading in different tabs
& I middle-click on a link to open another tab or scroll down a list
& one of the other tabs is still downloading extra images.
This is the only situation in which it happens.

There are Forum threads covering other situations, which don't apply to me,
& the only thread which is similar is

  http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-521365-highlight-random+freeze.html

which does not offer any helpful advice.
There are no bugs answering to 'Epiphany freeze' or 'Konqueror freeze'.

I'm using Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo, KDE 3.5.6 , Epiphany 2.16.3 & Xorg-x11 7.1 .
Otherwise, my system is very stable & problem-free.

Has anyone else run into this bizarre phenomenon ?
Does anyone have useful suggestions ?

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'  University of Toronto
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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 06 March 2007 21:22, Philip Webb wrote:
> During the past few months, I've been bit by sudden total freezes
> while using Epiphany & Konqueror to browse Internet sites.
> The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.
>
> At first, I believed it was a bug in Epiphany, which is good to use,
> but not well-supported as KDE & Firefox.  However yesterday,
> it happened in similar circumstances with Konqueror,
> which uses quite different libraries & rendering.
>
> It seems to happen when the browser is downloading images, esp adverts,
> & I simultaneously use the middle mouse button to click or scroll.
> I may have several news stories downloading in different tabs
> & I middle-click on a link to open another tab or scroll down a list
> & one of the other tabs is still downloading extra images.
> This is the only situation in which it happens.
>
> There are Forum threads covering other situations, which don't apply to me,
> & the only thread which is similar is
>
>   http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-521365-highlight-random+freeze.html
>
> which does not offer any helpful advice.
> There are no bugs answering to 'Epiphany freeze' or 'Konqueror freeze'.
>
> I'm using Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo, KDE 3.5.6 , Epiphany 2.16.3 & Xorg-x11 7.1
> . Otherwise, my system is very stable & problem-free.
>
> Has anyone else run into this bizarre phenomenon ?
> Does anyone have useful suggestions ?

The only time I had suffered similar symptoms to what you are describing (but 
with different applications) was when I had a bad memory problem.  No sooner 
had I changed the memory module, the freezes were gone.  Memtest86 did not 
show anything and it was only through trial and error that I found the faulty 
module.

Good luck.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Peter Alfredsen]

On Tuesday 06 March 2007, Philip Webb wrote:

> which does not offer any helpful advice.
> There are no bugs answering to 'Epiphany freeze' or 'Konqueror freeze'.
>
> I'm using Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo, KDE 3.5.6 , Epiphany 2.16.3 & Xorg-x11 7.1
> . Otherwise, my system is very stable & problem-free.

I'm experiencing something similar at equally random intervals. I have had 
maybe 3 of these freezes since the end of December. I am reasonably sure it 
is not memory, since I have emerge -e world 3-4 times since then (don't ask) 
and I have never had any unreproducible gcc errors. At one time I had a 
routine that helped me replicate the problem (now I just avoid it):
Go to forums.gentoo.org, grab a thread with massive posts. Click-drag a link 
quickly in circles. Boom!
The last freeze I had was last week, when I had 10 Konqueror windows open with 
on average 3 tabs each. Rtorrent was running in the background and suddenly 
my system deadlocked. I could still move the mouse but I couldn't click on 
anything. I suspect that if I could bother to write down the magic SYSRQ 
keys, I would be able to do a clean reboot.
The program I suspect is Konqueror (probably bad interaction with fglrx), 
since that is always open. I also always have Kmail, Konversation, Akregator, 
AmaroK, rtorrent and Kate running, though.

AMD Athlon 2500+
Ati X800 fglrx AGP
1 GB ram
~X86
Kernel 2.6.19-gentoo-r4 (waiting for someone to make a stable .20)

-- 
/PA
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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Kevin]

Peter Alfredsen wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 March 2007, Philip Webb wrote:
>
>   
>> which does not offer any helpful advice.
>> There are no bugs answering to 'Epiphany freeze' or 'Konqueror freeze'.
>>
>> I'm using Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo, KDE 3.5.6 , Epiphany 2.16.3 & Xorg-x11 7.1
>> . Otherwise, my system is very stable & problem-free.
>>     
>
> I'm experiencing something similar at equally random intervals. I have had 
> maybe 3 of these freezes since the end of December. I am reasonably sure it 
> is not memory, since I have emerge -e world 3-4 times since then (don't ask) 
> and I have never had any unreproducible gcc errors. At one time I had a 
> routine that helped me replicate the problem (now I just avoid it):
> Go to forums.gentoo.org, grab a thread with massive posts. Click-drag a link 
> quickly in circles. Boom!
> The last freeze I had was last week, when I had 10 Konqueror windows open with 
> on average 3 tabs each. Rtorrent was running in the background and suddenly 
> my system deadlocked. I could still move the mouse but I couldn't click on 
> anything. I suspect that if I could bother to write down the magic SYSRQ 
> keys, I would be able to do a clean reboot.
> The program I suspect is Konqueror (probably bad interaction with fglrx), 
> since that is always open. I also always have Kmail, Konversation, Akregator, 
> AmaroK, rtorrent and Kate running, though.
>
> AMD Athlon 2500+
> Ati X800 fglrx AGP
> 1 GB ram
> ~X86
> Kernel 2.6.19-gentoo-r4 (waiting for someone to make a stable .20)
>
>   
Have you tried a 2.6.20 kernel just for grins (taking note of "waiting 
for someone to make a stable .20" )?  I experienced various lockups / 
freezes with 2.6.19 that seem to have left me when I went to 2.6.20.  I 
was getting various timeouts on my ata controller that show in the logs 
as the source of the freezes.   Of course I run ck-sources, so I don't 
know if the problem existed with the kernel itself or the ck patches.  

My freezes would occur in firefox mostly of course I am almost always 
browsing the Internet for something.

Of course, I just joined the gentoo-user mailing list today so forgive 
me if this was already mentioned.
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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 16:22:24 -0500, Philip Webb wrote:

> The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.

If you have MAGIC_SYSREQ enabled in your kernel config, you can do a
clean reboot fro the majority of lockups by holding Alt and SysRq and
pressing S, U and B in sequence, which respectively sync your drives,
unmount them (and remount read-only) and reboot.

It's a lot more friendly to your filesystems than hitting the reset
button and should work unless the kernel has crashed. 

As for the cause, faulty memory has already been mentioned and I would go
along with that. The fact that it happens when you have several sessions
running, and thus working memory harder, adds weight to the likelihood of
this.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 24: New classic

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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Mittwoch, 7. März 2007, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 16:22:24 -0500, Philip Webb wrote:
> > The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.
>
> If you have MAGIC_SYSREQ enabled in your kernel config, you can do a
> clean reboot fro the majority of lockups by holding Alt and SysRq and
> pressing S, U and B in sequence, which respectively sync your drives,
> unmount them (and remount read-only) and reboot.

but U will not work, when processes are hogging the harddisk.

So start with E (terminate all processes), I (Kill all processes), and then S, 
U, B.

Or even better, start with R and K. Sometimes you can wrestle control from X 
that way and get your box back into a working state, without rebooting.

And the best thing - there is even a builtin help....
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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Philip Webb]

070306 Mick wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 March 2007 21:22, Philip Webb wrote:
>> During the past few months, I've been bit by sudden total freezes
>> while using Epiphany & Konqueror to browse Internet sites.
>> The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.
> The only time I had suffered similar symptoms (but different applications)
> was when I had a bad memory problem.  Memtest86 did not show anything
> and it was only through trial and error that I found the faulty module.

I emerged Memtest86 & ran it -- it takes  1 hr  for my  1 GB  memory -- ,
but I can't find anything to explain the output.  It found  2  errors :

  ... 0000c6e37c0 198.1MB ...
  ... 0000d6e37a0 214.1MB ...

I realise that these lines refer to hex locations, but I don't understand
the reference to 'MB' (perhaps they're the same info in a different form).
I have a note that :

  To tell kernel not to use bad patch of memory, append via Lilo :
    'badram=<m>,<n>', where  m n  are obtained via 'memtest'.

However, the above lines don't give pairs of addresses, only  1  each.

Yes, I did look at the official site & the installed README.
Does anyone have further advice ?

Meanwhile, I plan to compile Kernel 2.6.20-gentoo ,
following the other piece of advice received.

I still suspect an obscure bug in Xorg-x11 .

Thanks for both suggestions.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'  University of Toronto
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Donnerstag, 8. März 2007, Philip Webb wrote:
> 070306 Mick wrote:
> > On Tuesday 06 March 2007 21:22, Philip Webb wrote:
> >> During the past few months, I've been bit by sudden total freezes
> >> while using Epiphany & Konqueror to browse Internet sites.
> >> The only way out is to hit the reset button: eg Ctl-Alt-F2 doesn't work.
> >
> > The only time I had suffered similar symptoms (but different
> > applications) was when I had a bad memory problem.  Memtest86 did not
> > show anything and it was only through trial and error that I found the
> > faulty module.
>
> I emerged Memtest86 & ran it -- it takes  1 hr  for my  1 GB  memory -- ,
> but I can't find anything to explain the output.  It found  2  errors :
>
>   ... 0000c6e37c0 198.1MB ...
>   ... 0000d6e37a0 214.1MB ...
>
> I realise that these lines refer to hex locations, but I don't understand
> the reference to 'MB' (perhaps they're the same info in a different form).
> I have a note that :

yes it is the same info. MB = Megabyte. It says, that the errors are at 198,1 
and 214,1MB.

The problem: memtest86 and memtest86+ both find sometimes errors that aren't 
ones. Or don't find them, when there are some. Let it run several times to 
make sure - and then replace the stick.

>
>   To tell kernel not to use bad patch of memory, append via Lilo :
>     'badram=<m>,<n>', where  m n  are obtained via 'memtest'.
>
> However, the above lines don't give pairs of addresses, only  1  each.
>
> Yes, I did look at the official site & the installed README.
> Does anyone have further advice ?

yes, get new ram.
Everything else is not safe.



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Re: [gentoo-user] mysterious freezes when browsing Internet

[Peter Alfredsen]

On Tuesday 06 March 2007, Peter Alfredsen wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 March 2007, Philip Webb wrote:
> >Otherwise, my system is very stable & problem-free.
>
> I'm experiencing something similar at equally random intervals.

Just for your information, I discovered what the problem was. My 2½ year old 
Maxtor hd decided to let out the magic smoke. On my next reboot (evoked by a 
freeze), I was told my system was unable to mount my hd. It seems a number of 
bad blocks had been forming on my hd for these past few months, just waiting 
to trap me between a rock and a hard place. Luckily, the bad blocks were 
contained to a single area of the hd.

My method of recovery was straight-forward. I checked for bad blocks with 
badblocks, did a complete reiserfsck with --rebuild-tree and entered the hd 
and chrooted. Uhoh. /bin/bash segfault. I guess it's not called reiserfsck 
for nothing. A number of files had gotten little cutesie binary things 
embedded into them by reiserfsck, even though they weren't anywhere near the 
bad blocks. I had ordered a new hd by now and was waiting for it to arrive. I 
fixed the /bin/bash segfault by getting a quickpkg of the livecd bash. Gcc 
was fscked too. I downloaded a binpkg off tinderbox.gentoo.org. I did this 
until I had a fully functioning emerge system.

I then did an emerge -e world to get the right files in place, with 
FEATURES="buildpkg", so I could use the binpkgs to get a working system with 
my new hd. I learned of a new portage location 
here: /var/cache/edb/dep/usr/portage/. emerge --metadata didn't work, 
segfaulting, and if I tried to emerge some things, it would complain of the 
missing "syake" dependency. This was fixed by 
deleting /var/cache/edb/dep/usr/portage/ and doing emerge --metadata.

Yesterday morning, the emerge -e world had completed and I received my new hd 
later that day. Installing that was a comparative breeze. I just 
copied /etc/* to the new hd, emerged everything from binpkgs and was up and 
running. But when I emerged new stuff not from binpkgs, the configure would 
complain of the missing /usr/bin/as. Uhoh. It seems gcc doesn't create the 
necessary symlinks in /usr/bin automatically when emerging from binpkg 
(FIXME). I fixed this by installing the necessary symlinks from the bad hd.

I am now in the process of a new emerge -e world, to get everything back in 
perfect order.

/PA
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