Soft lockups in Hardy shortly after boot up

[Tan Kah Ping]

As per summary, shortly after booting up Hardy it will lockup forcing me to hard reset the system. This usually happens within 5 - 10 minutes of boot up.

Once I forcefully turn off the power, then one of 2 things could occur. First, when I turn on the power shortly after turning it off, the system fan runs real loud and the system doesn't boot (not even POST). Second, the system boots back up normally (usually when I leave it off for a minute or two) and everything is fine. I could even reboot numerous times and the lockup doesn't happen anymore until I turn off the system and leave it off for at least a few hours.

The lockups occur regardless of whatever I'm doing (web browsing, update, apt-get, even just idling the system). If I'm not using the mouse when the lockup occurs, then the mouse pointer seems to not be affected, but the rest of the system is unresponsive. Keyboard doesn't work. If I happen to be doing something, then it seems to continue fine until it needs to start access something it wasn't accessing. For example, currently playing music will continue until it finishes then the music player just stops when it needs to change to a new song.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Jul 22 22:11:03 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-19-generic x86_64

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

This sounds like hardware error. Are you sure the cooling system is working correctly on your comp? Also run a memory test please.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

I'm pretty sure it's not my cooling system. Once I get past the "first boot" hurdle, the PC works perfectly fine for hours. I run for at least 2 - 3 hours (more during weekends, of course ;-)

Right now, this is how I "have to" use my PC:

1. Boot up Hardy
2. Use it while avoiding accessing the hard disk for as much as possible until it inevitably locks up.
3. Forcefully cut off the power.
4. Wait at least 10 - 15 secs (preferably more).
5. Turn the PC back on, then use it for my regular stuff (music, web, torrent, videos, etc..)

If the machine runs fine for hours, I doubt the cooling system is causing it to lockup soon after the first time i boot. As you can see, it's not a very nice experience, not to mention it's bad bad bad for the hardware. This is even a recently clean installed system. I was having similar issues before which prompted me to do a clean install.

Previously, it was sporadic lockups occasionally occurring frequently (several reboots with lockups!!), but sometimes showing no signs of problems for 1 or 2 weeks.

I did a memory test when it started to happen and everything looks fine after 1 pass. Whatever it is, sounds like a memtest should find it within the 5 - 10 minute period but it doesn't, so memory should be fine IMHO

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

Strangely, there's no lockups so far tonight. The only thing I did different from my usual was to do a bit of audio conversion using soundconverter. That's about it.

I have no idea how that prevents the lockups from happening, but I'd just like to mention it in case it points to any clues I'm not seeing.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

Let's close this bug now and please reopen if this happens to you again.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

It's happened again :-(

Yesterday was fine but tonight it's gone back to that lockup pattern. Is there any form of info I could get and attach here that'd be any help at all?

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

After a bit more "testing", I found that if I use Audio CD Extractor, then it too has the similar effect of working around the lockup. So currently I'm assuming that any activity involving audio encoding will prevent the lockups for the session, for reasons unknown

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

It's gotten worse last weekend. It started giving me soft lockups on the first 2 boots!

I've since clean installed Gutsy and everything's running fine for a week now. This issue doesn't show on Gutsy at all.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in linux.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description does not yet have enough information.

Please include the following additional information, if you have not already done so (pay attention to lspci's additional options), as required by the Ubuntu Kernel Team:
1. Please include the output of the command "uname -a" in your next response. It should be one, long line of text which includes the exact kernel version you're running, as well as the CPU architecture.
2. Please run the command "dmesg > dmesg.log" after a fresh boot and attach the resulting file "dmesg.log" to this bug report.
3. Please run the command "sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log" and attach the resulting file "lspci-vvnn.log" to this bug report.
4. Please also attach your /var/log/kern.log and /var/log/kern.log.0 files to this bug report.
5. Please follow the steps outlined in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash - in particular, please run a memory test.

For your reference, the full description of procedures for kernel-related bug reports is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies Thanks in advance!

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

uname -a:

Linux akari 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Wed Aug 20 22:56:21 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

I'll attach the requested logs.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

I thought 2.6.27 is not available for Hardy? Or, did you mean for me to get it from PPA? I have no troubles installing .deb packages on my own. apt takes care of the details anyway ;-)

I'm not sure if testing using a LiveCD will help shake this one out, as Hardy LiveCD didn't give this problem the few times I've used it; only the *installed* Hardy did (both 32bit & 64bit)

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Tan,

That is correct, 2.6.27 is not available for Hardy. If you can't use the LiveCD to test you'll likely need to enable the Intrepid repository in your sources.list file and then install the 2.6.27 kernel. Thanks.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

Sorry for the lack of reply. I finally went and upgraded to Intrepid Beta last night. Tonight I got the soft lockup again after about 30 minutes I think. Here's my "uname -a":

Linux akari 2.6.27-4-generic #1 SMP Wed Sep 24 01:30:51 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

I'll reattach the other logs just in case.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

Just putting this out there in case it's a clue or something. Sound volume gets set to 0 on system restart after one of these soft lockups. This did not happen back in Hardy.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Thanks, but there is nothing in your logs suggesting you are seeing a soft lockup (there are no kernel BUG messages in your logs). Do you mean that your machine just appears to freeze? Please try running memtest, as described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MemoryTest.

It would also be useful to determine how alive your machine is and whether this is actually a kernel problem. When you get it to crash, can you still switch to a console (by pressing CTRL+ALT+F1)? If not, then try Alt+PrintScreen+R and then CTRL+ALT+F1. If this works, then it is probably a Xorg crash.

If it doesn't work, then please try following the debugging steps at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash.

Thanks

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

I've run memtest a few times already since this making this report. Passes every single time.

No, I can't switch to terminal (using Ctrl+Alt+F1). Even tried Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart & Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart Xorg session but keyboard appears entirely unresponsive. Nothing on-screen is clickable. Things that should have on-screen updates (eg, downloads in progress, file transfers) don't. The only thing that's responsive (sometimes) is the mouse. I'll try switching to terminal with that Alt+PrintScreen+R shortcut you suggested next time it happens.

I'm not sure I want to blame this on Compiz, but after disabling it I've not had the soft lockups for 2 days now. This is new because I tried disabling Compiz in Hardy and it definitely did not help at all.

Just to repeat myself, Gutsy runs perfectly normal on this exact machine.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

ok, I've run a MemTest (yet again) and it passed (again).

Alt+PrintScreen+R followed by Ctrl+Alt+F1 didn't do anything for me at all. The keyboard is completely dead when the lockup happens. Only the mouse pointer works.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash doesn't seem to have much else for me to try. I have only this one machine so remote debugging is out of the question. Even https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingXorg requires remote access if I've understood it correctly.

I did find a post containing what sounds very very much like my problem: http://kerneltrap.org/node/16521

[simonjames (simon-james-gervais)]

This problem sounds familiar, I am getting similar results from my computer.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/270754

I cannot give outputs because I am running XP now, but even in XP I get soft locks ups (although only during boots/reboots, I can play counter strike for hours and everything is fine :)

My frustrations started when I rebooted from an upgrade of intrepid 8.10, 2 months later, new ram, new video card, clean XP install, freshly flashed bios and it still locks up some mornings in XP. Never had this issue before.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

Never had this with XP back when I was still using it. Only more recent Ubuntu releases are giving me this problem. I think it started around the time of Feisty. It was only the occasional hang that I didn't give it any attention but it looks like it's getting worse with each Ubuntu release

Jaunty currently still has this. When it's in a good mood I'll maybe get 1 lockup then everything's ok after i reboot. But when it's bad like right now... it really makes me want to go back to Windows with all the crap it has. At least I don't have to hope if Wine will let me play any Windows game I want.

[Tan Kah Ping (kahping)]

I think I've finally figured this one out. Adam Niedling's suspicion turned out to be correct. It's a problem with my video hardware. Somehow it causes these lockups occasionally. My best guess is the PCIe contact's not so good causing Ubuntu to hickup. Once I "service" the card, then everything's fine again for a long spell. This is probably explains the lack of kernel BUG messages but I'm not too sure about that.

What I do find strange though is that this doesn't seem to happen when I use older versions of Ubuntu or even Windows XP.

Anyway thanks for everyone's efforts and sorry for the false alarm.