[gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   My wife ran into a problem this evening that required I do a
reboot. She runs Gnome. Sometimes something about her setup goes
haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper. In the
past I've found that if we log her out and then in the console kill
all processes left running with her account as the owner that she can
then log back in and use Gnome correctly.

   This evening one of these processes was unkillable. I tried

kill -15 PID
kill -9 PID
killall -9 process_name

but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.

   Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[gentuxx]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Mark Knecht wrote:

>Hi,
> My wife ran into a problem this evening that required I do a
>reboot. She runs Gnome. Sometimes something about her setup goes
>haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper. In the
>past I've found that if we log her out and then in the console kill
>all processes left running with her account as the owner that she can
>then log back in and use Gnome correctly.
>
> This evening one of these processes was unkillable. I tried
>
>kill -15 PID
>kill -9 PID
>killall -9 process_name
>
>but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
>
> Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?
>
>Thanks,
>Mark
>
Was it a <defunct> or <zombie> process?

- --
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echo "hfouvyAdpy/ofu" | perl -pe 's/(.)/chr(ord($1)-1)/ge'

gentux's gpg fingerprint ==> 34CE 2E97 40C7 EF6E EC40  9795 2D81 924A
6996 0993
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)

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=AssW
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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Richard Fish]

On 11/28/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> kill -15 PID
> kill -9 PID
> killall -9 process_name
>
> but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
>
>    Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?

Nope.  Usually this means something went terribly wrong in hardware. 
Pullling a hard drive out of the system while it is running is an easy
way to duplicate this problem, as it will cause the kernel to enter an
interminable reset loop to try and recover.  Problems with network
filesystems could also cause something similar.

You should check dmesg output to see if the kernel is complaining
about something.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Pongracz Istvan]

Hi,

As far as I know, this happens, when a process waiting for a hardware 
resource.

Maybe something happened, which blocks the hardware, that means, the 
kernel process never returns to the userspace.

This can be caused by bad/buggy hardware or buggy driver.

So, Richard is right, check your hardware, does everything work fine or not.

Regards,
István


Richard Fish wrote:

>On 11/28/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>kill -15 PID
>>kill -9 PID
>>killall -9 process_name
>>
>>but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
>>
>>   Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?
>>    
>>
>
>Nope.  Usually this means something went terribly wrong in hardware. 
>Pullling a hard drive out of the system while it is running is an easy
>way to duplicate this problem, as it will cause the kernel to enter an
>interminable reset loop to try and recover.  Problems with network
>filesystems could also cause something similar.
>
>You should check dmesg output to see if the kernel is complaining
>about something.
>
>-Richard
>
>  
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[jarry]

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 Richard Fish wrote:
 > Pullling a hard drive out of the system while it is running is an easy
> way to duplicate this problem, as it will cause the kernel to enter an
> interminable reset loop to try and recover

<OT>
I do not claim that what you said is not true, but once in
the past, when I was young and dumb (now I'm old and dumb)
I intentionally pulled out that 80-wire data-cable from one
of my 2 ata-disks during heavy i/o-loading (copying files)
just to see, if my raid-1 array (hda+hdc) survives it...

Computer got crazy for ~20 seconds, spilled out a couple
of screens with errors, but then resumed normal opperation
and even finished copying files without any "hard-lock".
Just marked that one disk as "failed" and went on. 
Maybe it was just a luck...

But I think new s-ata (or scsi) drives support some sort
of hot-plug, so even disconnecting should not lock the
whole system...
</OT>

Jarry



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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Richard Fish]

On 11/29/05, jarry@gmx.net <jarry@gmx.net> wrote:
> <OT>
> I do not claim that what you said is not true, but once in
> the past, when I was young and dumb (now I'm old and dumb)
> I intentionally pulled out that 80-wire data-cable from one
> of my 2 ata-disks during heavy i/o-loading (copying files)
> just to see, if my raid-1 array (hda+hdc) survives it...

Ah yes, RAID setups make this a survivable scenario.  Thanks.

> But I think new s-ata (or scsi) drives support some sort
> of hot-plug, so even disconnecting should not lock the
> whole system...

I think this is only true if you don't have any filesystems mounted on
the disk, or at least no files in use.  I've seen problems that
required a reboot when I accidentally shutoff a USB disk that was in
use.

So it's not really the whole system that locks up, just anything
trying to access that disk.  Of course, if we are talking about the
one and only system disk, well, the whole system locks up.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Mark Knecht]

On 11/28/05, Richard Fish <bigfish@asmallpond.org> wrote:
> On 11/28/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> > kill -15 PID
> > kill -9 PID
> > killall -9 process_name
> >
> > but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
> >
> >    Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?
>
> Nope.  Usually this means something went terribly wrong in hardware.
> Pullling a hard drive out of the system while it is running is an easy
> way to duplicate this problem, as it will cause the kernel to enter an
> interminable reset loop to try and recover.  Problems with network
> filesystems could also cause something similar.
>
> You should check dmesg output to see if the kernel is complaining
> about something.
>
> -Richard

Very strange.

1) The process (gnome-vfs-daemon) was not defunct or zombie.

2) It only happens when my wife uses the system. If it's hardware
related only she can trigger it.

3) There were absolutely no messages in /var/log/messages or dmesg.

The way this gets triggered is a bit unclear. She's working along and
then does something that causes he desktop, but not Gnome pannel, to
disappear. The machine is still alive. She can run Firefox but she
cannot lot out.

To get out of X we do Alt-Ctrl-Backspace. We then go to the console
and see that there are about 7 processes left owned by her avccount
even though she is logged out. We have found that for her to log back
in successfully we have to kill all of these processes. If processes
cannot be killed then when she tries logging back in she gets no
desktop again.

This only happens with her account. We have deleted he home directory
and rebuilt it twoce. Eventually the same thing occurs. I suspect it's
a bug in Gnome, or Gnome pannel, triggered by all the strangle little
setups she likes to do to it with drawers and transparent things.
Possibly it's a video driver issue?

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Billy Holmes]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> Possibly it's a video driver issue?

I'd say this is probably the first place to start looking. Try using an 
open source X driver and see if the problem goes away.
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[gentoo-user] Re: unkillable processes

[James]

Mark Knecht <markknecht <at> gmail.com> writes:


> She runs Gnome. 
>    This evening one of these processes was unkillable. I tried

> kill -15 PID
> kill -9 PID
> killall -9 process_name

>    Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?

The next time it happens you might want to kill of X and restart xdm
(gdm/whatever) too, in addition to killing off those processes related to her
(gnome) login.


just a thought,
James




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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Michael Crute]

On 11/28/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>    My wife ran into a problem this evening that required I do a
> reboot. She runs Gnome. Sometimes something about her setup goes
> haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper. In the
> past I've found that if we log her out and then in the console kill
> all processes left running with her account as the owner that she can
> then log back in and use Gnome correctly.
>
>    This evening one of these processes was unkillable. I tried
>
> kill -15 PID
> kill -9 PID
> killall -9 process_name
>
> but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
>
>    Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark

The times this has happened to my I used htop to send a SIGSEGV to
make the program think it segfaulted and that caused the program to
die. Its probably a horribly sloppy hack but it has worked for me in
the past.

-Mike

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________________________________
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Software Developer
SoftGroup Development Corporation

Linux takes junk and turns it into something useful.
Windows takes something useful and turns it into junk.

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Shawn Singh]

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Do you and your wife have separate logons and if so, does this only happen
when she is logged into her account using Gnome?

In the past I've seen problems on my sisters' computer that sound similiar
to what you've described and I've blown way the files that are created with
Gnome is setup (this is on a box running Mandrake 9.2) the next time one of
them logs in the files get recreated and this usually resolves the issue,
and in times when it didn't work (because I just didn't seem to be hitting
the nail on the head), I backed up their "stuff" (docs and so forth) created
a new login for them, put their "stuff" into their new home and let them use
it and if the problem went away, I'd just let them use this new login, or
blow away their home dir and recover it with the copy.

While it's certainly not elegant, it usually resolves their issues pretty
quickly.

Hope this helps,

Shawn

On 11/29/05, Michael Crute <mcrute@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/28/05, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >    My wife ran into a problem this evening that required I do a
> > reboot. She runs Gnome. Sometimes something about her setup goes
> > haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper. In the
> > past I've found that if we log her out and then in the console kill
> > all processes left running with her account as the owner that she can
> > then log back in and use Gnome correctly.
> >
> >    This evening one of these processes was unkillable. I tried
> >
> > kill -15 PID
> > kill -9 PID
> > killall -9 process_name
> >
> > but none worked. To make forward progress I just rebooted.
> >
> >    Is there some other way I could have tried killing this process?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mark
>
> The times this has happened to my I used htop to send a SIGSEGV to
> make the program think it segfaulted and that caused the program to
> die. Its probably a horribly sloppy hack but it has worked for me in
> the past.
>
> -Mike
>
> --
> ________________________________
> Michael E. Crute
> Software Developer
> SoftGroup Development Corporation
>
> Linux takes junk and turns it into something useful.
> Windows takes something useful and turns it into junk.
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


--
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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Daniel da Veiga]

"kill -9 -1" should just kill all her processes, even the Xsession
that she owns, and restart X. I would restart your manager (xdm, gdm)
just to be sure.

While you have your gnome locked, you could check what is running and
if any process is defunct at console, so you would know wich app
and/or gnome process caused the problem.

I would bet in hardware issues like anyone before, but only if that
happened to all accounts randomly (bad memory, processor overheated,
faulty disk, etc), but as it only happens to her account, you must
check software, and I bet (of course) Gnome.

Try switching manager for her (KDE, Fluxbox, any) and see if it
happens there too.


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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Billy Holmes]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> kill -15 PID
> kill -9 PID
> killall -9 process_name

see if you can perform a "top" and find the process that is hung.

if it has a state of "D", then you can't kill it. It's waiting for some 
type of IO or for some hardware. This is typical of a hardware failure, 
buggy driver, and sometimes weird things just happen if your computer 
becomes too hot (not enough cooling).
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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Travis Osterman]

> Sometimes something about her setup goes
> haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper.

I've had a similar issue and, for me, it's usually nautilus erroring. 
If I run '$ nautilus &' that usually fixes things (brings back
wallpaper, icons, panels, etc)..

HTH

-- Travis

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Mark Knecht]

On 11/30/05, Travis Osterman <tosterman@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sometimes something about her setup goes
> > haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper.
>
> I've had a similar issue and, for me, it's usually nautilus erroring.
> If I run '$ nautilus &' that usually fixes things (brings back
> wallpaper, icons, panels, etc)..
>
> HTH
>
> -- Travis

Thanks Travis. We'll keep that in mond for the next time this happens.

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-user] unkillable processes

[Matthias Langer]

On Wed, 2005-11-30 at 16:34 -0800, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On 11/30/05, Travis Osterman <tosterman@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Sometimes something about her setup goes
> > > haywire and she loses all her desktop icons and her wallpaper.
> >
> > I've had a similar issue and, for me, it's usually nautilus erroring.
> > If I run '$ nautilus &' that usually fixes things (brings back
> > wallpaper, icons, panels, etc)..

Well, thats very similar to my approach, when i got problems with gnome
(usually minor ones):

$ killall nautilus

If your gnome is setup correctly nautilus should be restarted afterwars
atomatically - and hopefully work again.

Matthias
> >
> > HTH
> >
> > -- Travis
> 
> Thanks Travis. We'll keep that in mond for the next time this happens.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
> 

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