Hal Failed to Initialize

[Juan C. Villa]

Binary package hint: hal

Hey Guys,

I have been through all the discussion on "Failed to Initialize HAL" errors and I have not found a solution for my problem. I have had Ubuntu 8.04 installed on my machine since the official release of the beta. About four days ago a new wave of updates came and one of those updates caused this error message when I restarted the PC. I have tried a clean installation and then updating and I get the same error. I also tried another clean install and updating everything except hal and I get the same error. It only happens on my desktop and not my VMs or laptop.

Desktop Hardware:
Intel Core 2 Duo
2gb ram+
nVidia 7900GS
PCHDTV Inc. HD-5500 (Could be the problem here)

I have attached the dmesg output. There's a very nasty exception in there, here's an excerpt:

[ 47.758115] BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000008
[ 47.758121] printing eip: f8b24cd2 *pde = 00000000
[ 47.758125] Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
[ 47.758128] Modules linked in: ppdev acpi_cpufreq cpufreq_conservative cpufreq_userspace cpufreq_stats cpufreq_ondemand freq_table cpufreq_powersave sbs video output sbshc container dock battery iptable_filter ip_tables x_tables ac sbp2 lp snd_hda_intel dvb_pll lirc_mceusb2 snd_hwdep lirc_dev evdev snd_seq_dummy parport_pc lgdt330x parport cx88_dvb cx88_vp3054_i2c videobuf_dvb dvb_core tuner tea5767 tda8290 tuner_simple mt20xx tea5761 snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi cx88_alsa snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss snd_rawmidi serio_raw snd_pcm cx8802 snd_seq_midi_event cx8800 snd_page_alloc cx88xx psmouse ir_common snd_seq i2c_algo_bit tveeprom i2c_core compat_ioctl32 videodev v4l2_common v4l1_compat videobuf_dma_sg videobuf_core btcx_risc snd_timer snd_seq_device button snd iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support heci soundcore intel_agp agpgart pcspkr shpchp pci_hotplug sr_mod cdrom usb_storage ext3 jbd mbcache sg sd_mod 8139cp pata_marvell usbhid hid libusual ata_generic ohci1394 ieee1394 ahci pata_acpi 8139too mii libata scsi_mod ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore e1000 thermal processor fan fbcon tileblit font bitblit softcursor fuse
[ 47.758209]
[ 47.758212] Pid: 5643, comm: hald Not tainted (2.6.24-15-generic #1)
[ 47.758214] EIP: 0060:[<f8b24cd2>] EFLAGS: 00010282 CPU: 1
[ 47.758229] EIP is at snd_pcm_info+0x82/0x110 [snd_pcm]
[ 47.758231] EAX: 0000005d EBX: f74a1800 ECX: 00000020 EDX: f7456600
[ 47.758234] ESI: 00000000 EDI: f7456720 EBP: f743c1d4 ESP: f5427e98
[ 47.758236] DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0033 SS: 0068
[ 47.758239] Process hald (pid: 5643, ti=f5426000 task=f5411680 task.ti=f5426000)
[ 47.758242] Stack: f7456600 f7456600 f7042cc0 f743c1d4 f707be90 f8b21d34 000040d0 f75d3540
[ 47.758250] f7042cc0 f75d3570 f75d3540 00000000 f8a5c4a4 f7457840 01427f30 ffffffff
[ 47.758256] f75c4300 00000000 f504c170 f7457840 c01c43e6 f7457840 f504c170 00000000
[ 47.758263] Call Trace:
[ 47.758272] [<f8b21d34>] snd_pcm_proc_info_read+0x34/0x180 [snd_pcm]
[ 47.758289] [<f8a5c4a4>] snd_info_entry_open+0x114/0x280 [snd]
[ 47.758307] [<c01c43e6>] proc_reg_open+0x46/0x70
[ 47.758316] [<c018c41f>] __dentry_open+0xbf/0x1c0
[ 47.758324] [<c018c5d5>] nameidata_to_filp+0x35/0x40
[ 47.758329] [<c01c43a0>] proc_reg_open+0x0/0x70
[ 47.758336] [<c018c630>] do_filp_open+0x50/0x60
[ 47.758343] [<c0120aab>] check_pgt_cache+0x1b/0x20
[ 47.758354] [<c018c2d2>] get_unused_fd_flags+0x52/0xd0
[ 47.758361] [<c018c68c>] do_sys_open+0x4c/0xe0
[ 47.758369] [<c018c75c>] sys_open+0x1c/0x20
[ 47.758374] [<c01053c2>] sysenter_past_esp+0x6b/0xa9
[ 47.758388] =======================
[ 47.758390] Code: 50 00 00 00 8b 04 24 83 c0 50 e8 5a fd 6e c7 0f b7 43 14 b9 20 00 00 00 8b 14 24 89 82 c0 00 00 00 0f b7 43 16 89 82 c4 00 00 00 <8b> 46 08 89 82 c8 00 00 00 8b 46 08 2b 46 0c 89 82 cc 00 00 00
[ 47.758428] EIP: [<f8b24cd2>] snd_pcm_info+0x82/0x110 [snd_pcm] SS:ESP 0068:f5427e98
[ 47.758442] ---[ end trace 52c69f595a6c96ba ]---

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.

[Juan C. Villa (juanqui)]

After some more debugging I have isolated the issue to the kernel image and not HAL

[Juan C. Villa (juanqui)]

The issue can be circumvented by booting to the older 2.6.24-12 kernel rather than 2.6.24-15. This is only a temporary workaround. The issue still has to be fixed for 2.6.24-15

[thom (tsk)]

Could it be the same issue as:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/212271

?

[Juan C. Villa (juanqui)]

This bug IS a duplicate of bug 212271. Thanks thom!

[thom (tsk)]

You're welcome Juan, keep up the spirit ;-)

[thom (tsk)]

Can I interest you in this message I found ?
It worked for me :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/212960

dr_agon wrote : Solved? 2.6.24-15-generic: saa7134-alsa makes HAL to fail (permalink)

After reading the bug #212960 I just tried to install updated linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-16-generic v.23ubuntu2 supplied by Stefan Bader in his repository (https://launchpad.net/~stefan-bader-canonical/+archive) and the problem is gone! I mean that I removed saa7134 from blacklist and everything loads fine, have no HAL error.
Thanks!
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