[gentoo-user] OS inaccessable after brief uptime in X

[gentoo-user] OS inaccessable after brief uptime in X

[Harry Putnam]

I keep having a problem where the OS becomes inaccessable after
running in X for a while.  I haven't noticed a time pattern yet but it
doesn't take long sometimes.

Today I started from an OFF machine, booted up, started X did a few
things  A few minutes later I attempted to login via ssh from a remote
laptop down stairs.  The os is inaccessable via ssh, or port 25 (its
also a mailhup for home lan).

Went back to the actual machine and it is inaccessable from console as
well.

It's happened repeatedly now for a week or two, but I've been busy with
other stuff, and if I need it running I've just left it in console
mode. 

The problem apparently does not occur in console mode.

I see no problem when starting X and I see nothing in
/var/log/messages that gives a clue about what is happening.

I'm running fairly up to date Desktop profile on kernel:

 (uname -a)
  Linux reader 2.6.31-gentoo-r4_rdr-5 #6 SMP 
  Wed Nov 4 09:19:17 CST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) 
  CPU 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

I'm not sure how to track down the problem since I'm not seeing any
give away clues in /var/log/messages

So far, once the lockup has happened it appears there is no way in
other than the reboot switch. 

Re: [gentoo-user] OS inaccessable after brief uptime in X

[daid kahl]

> I keep having a problem where the OS becomes inaccessable after
> running in X for a while.  I haven't noticed a time pattern yet but it
> doesn't take long sometimes.

> I see no problem when starting X and I see nothing in
> /var/log/messages that gives a clue about what is happening.
>
> I'm running fairly up to date Desktop profile on kernel:
>
> I'm not sure how to track down the problem since I'm not seeing any
> give away clues in /var/log/messages
>
> So far, once the lockup has happened it appears there is no way in
> other than the reboot switch.

Can you read through the recent thread titled " ~amd64 : X11 (?)
crashing"?  Myself and others post many trouble-shooting ideas for
buggy X operation.

It could be any number of things, but I think at least 4-5 different
suggestions were posted.  That'd be a good place to start.  If all
that's tried, then let us know and we can consider other options.

On that thread, and maybe another, there is discussion about FF and
youtube.  I found I had to recompile FF after updating the kernel for
audioout on flash, since there must have been some changes to ALSA.

Regards,
daid

Re: [gentoo-user] OS inaccessable after brief uptime in X

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 28 November 2009 22:53:52 Harry Putnam wrote:
> I keep having a problem where the OS becomes inaccessable after
> running in X for a while.  I haven't noticed a time pattern yet but it
> doesn't take long sometimes.
> 
> Today I started from an OFF machine, booted up, started X did a few
> things  A few minutes later I attempted to login via ssh from a remote
> laptop down stairs.  The os is inaccessable via ssh, or port 25 (its
> also a mailhup for home lan).
> 
> Went back to the actual machine and it is inaccessable from console as
> well.
> 
> It's happened repeatedly now for a week or two, but I've been busy with
> other stuff, and if I need it running I've just left it in console
> mode.
> 
> The problem apparently does not occur in console mode.
> 
> I see no problem when starting X and I see nothing in
> /var/log/messages that gives a clue about what is happening.
> 
> I'm running fairly up to date Desktop profile on kernel:
> 
>  (uname -a)
>   Linux reader 2.6.31-gentoo-r4_rdr-5 #6 SMP
>   Wed Nov 4 09:19:17 CST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R)
>   CPU 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
> 
> I'm not sure how to track down the problem since I'm not seeing any
> give away clues in /var/log/messages
> 
> So far, once the lockup has happened it appears there is no way in
> other than the reboot switch.

Looks like you need more info for a diagnosis. Unfortunately this is a hit and 
miss game as we don't have much clue what's going on. The lack of anything 
valuable in /var/log/messages seems to indicate that either a) no syslog 
messages were generated (common with client apps) or b) there is a message but 
the system locks up before it can be flushed to disk.

Some ideas:

Set up an ssh session to the offending machine from a different machine that 
is permanently on. Wait for the problem to occur and see if anything got 
printed on the ssh console.

Set up a syslogger on a remote machine and send all your logs to it. If that 
produces nothing, try having the local syslogger replicate ~/.xsession-errors 
to the remote logger. I often find that remote logging manages to keep working 
after the local disk has given up.

Obviously, these are long range diagnosis techniques and you have to be 
patient. "emerge -e world" will take around 24 hours and may well fix your 
problem, but not tell you what the cause was.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] OS inaccessable after brief uptime in X

[Amit Dor-Shifer]

my 2-cents: Might want to check filesystem integrity too (e.g: fsck, 
xfs_check).
Amit

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Saturday 28 November 2009 22:53:52 Harry Putnam wrote:
>   
>> I keep having a problem where the OS becomes inaccessable after
>> running in X for a while.  I haven't noticed a time pattern yet but it
>> doesn't take long sometimes.
>>
>> Today I started from an OFF machine, booted up, started X did a few
>> things  A few minutes later I attempted to login via ssh from a remote
>> laptop down stairs.  The os is inaccessable via ssh, or port 25 (its
>> also a mailhup for home lan).
>>
>> Went back to the actual machine and it is inaccessable from console as
>> well.
>>
>> It's happened repeatedly now for a week or two, but I've been busy with
>> other stuff, and if I need it running I've just left it in console
>> mode.
>>
>> The problem apparently does not occur in console mode.
>>
>> I see no problem when starting X and I see nothing in
>> /var/log/messages that gives a clue about what is happening.
>>
>> I'm running fairly up to date Desktop profile on kernel:
>>
>>  (uname -a)
>>   Linux reader 2.6.31-gentoo-r4_rdr-5 #6 SMP
>>   Wed Nov 4 09:19:17 CST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R)
>>   CPU 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
>>
>> I'm not sure how to track down the problem since I'm not seeing any
>> give away clues in /var/log/messages
>>
>> So far, once the lockup has happened it appears there is no way in
>> other than the reboot switch.
>>     
>
> Looks like you need more info for a diagnosis. Unfortunately this is a hit and 
> miss game as we don't have much clue what's going on. The lack of anything 
> valuable in /var/log/messages seems to indicate that either a) no syslog 
> messages were generated (common with client apps) or b) there is a message but 
> the system locks up before it can be flushed to disk.
>
> Some ideas:
>
> Set up an ssh session to the offending machine from a different machine that 
> is permanently on. Wait for the problem to occur and see if anything got 
> printed on the ssh console.
>
> Set up a syslogger on a remote machine and send all your logs to it. If that 
> produces nothing, try having the local syslogger replicate ~/.xsession-errors 
> to the remote logger. I often find that remote logging manages to keep working 
> after the local disk has given up.
>
> Obviously, these are long range diagnosis techniques and you have to be 
> patient. "emerge -e world" will take around 24 hours and may well fix your 
> problem, but not tell you what the cause was.
>
>