System crash when using wireless

[Nashenas88]

My computer crashes completely randomly regardless of network use. I have been downloading heavily, browsing google and youtube, and even once, while sitting in class and not touching my computer, I only had firefox open, and it happened. This happens sometimes 5 times within an hour or once in 2 days. I have friends with the same laptop and ubuntu installed, and they have the same problems. Also I have a friend with the same laptop, but with linux mint installed, and he does not have this problem. I can check and see if he has iwl3945 installed (I have a feeling it's related to the panic), and I'll check which version of the kernel he's using.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

Thanks for reporting this bug. Random kernel panics are no pretty sight.

Please also attach your complete /var/log/syslog file to this bug report after the bug has been reproduced(if possible).

Thanks in advance.
//magnus

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

The last panic occured on Nov 11 at approximately 8:05 pm (20:03 ~ 20:05 in the syslog). I had to hold down the power button to shut it down.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

Thanks. Unfortunately the syslog didn't show us the problem. We would like to see what messages appearing on your screen during the panic. So if you have pen and paper or even better a camera ready when it panics next time, could you attach that information as well?

Thanks in advance.
//magnus

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

The problem is that there is no error message. My screen is completely frozen, and nothing works. No ctrl+alt+backspace to restart the xserver, no REISUB, I also try hitting ctrl+alt+f1-6 to see if I can get to a shell, but that fails, and the mouse doesn't even move (I have also had some strange crashes where everything is frozen except for the mouse, but I think that's a separate bug related to gnome). The only sign that my system is doing something is that my wireless and caps-lock keys are flashing at a steady rate. I assume my scroll-lock would too, but my laptop doesn't have a light for that one. I can take a picture for you, but all you'll see is what looks like a normal screen shot. The only thing that could possibly show what's happening is a video of my screen and me pressing the keys I mentioned above, but I don't see how that could help.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

Ooh, i see! You are 'just' getting a completely frozen computer. A kernel panic would most likely look something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Forced-linux-kernel-panic-under-qemu.jpg
And it would have dumped output and errors to the logs, i couldn't find such info in your logs.

So, perhaps this is an Xorg issue. Could you attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log after the next freeze?
Q: Are you using Compiz (those pretty desktop effects it is impossible to live without)?

Thanks in advance.
//magnus

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

I'm using the compiz fusion that comes with ubuntu, although I haven't installed compizconfig-settings-manager, which I normally do. I'm just a little confused as to how that's related to network traffic, since I never get a crash unless I'm connected wirelessly, more often with my school's vpn connection than anything else. (I'm not sure if it happens when connected with a wire, since I haven't tried this yet).

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

just crashed about 5 minutes ago, /var/log/Xorg.0.log attached below.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

Hi,
your Xorg log has ha few small errors and warnings, but i don't think it is enough to result in a complete freeze.

You are saying that this only happens when using wireless, so the driver or network-manager should probably be the trigger here. And since your computer freezes, i don't know how we can get a backtrace from network-manager.

//magnus

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

Hey Magnus, I also tried turning off compiz and living without it. Didn't help. Still crashed. So I'm living with it again. Another thing I noticed recently is every time I restart after a crash, right before the login window loads, the screen flashes for a fraction of a second with a somewhat distorted image of my screen when it was frozen. I'm not sure if that's relevant or not or if for some reason it's just showing something that was in some sort of cache. I've also noticed that I only seem to be crashing when connected to my school's vpn connection. When I'm at home, I used a regular wireless connection (not sure whether it's a b g or n, I'll check when I go home tonight), but at school I'm connected to (I'm assuming either a b or g, since iwconfig lists it as IEEE 802.11abg, but we have to use a VPN to actually access the school's network.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

"Another thing I noticed recently is every time I restart after a crash, right before the login window loads, the screen flashes for a fraction of a second with a somewhat distorted image of my screen when it was frozen."

That is interesting, because the only thing that could cause that behavior is the x-server(or gdm perhaps), i guess.

"I've also noticed that I only seem to be crashing when connected to my school's vpn connection."

Also interesting. I bet you're browsing some specific websites at school, right? Perhaps some heavy flash in firefox can cause this?
But, this should probably have something to do with NM/driver and VPN afterall, i just don't know how to troubleshoot that...

[Nashenas88 (nashenas88)]

"Also interesting. I bet you're browsing some specific websites at school, right? Perhaps some heavy flash in firefox can cause this?"

Well not really, I'm just using the internet like normal, sometimes just using pidgin for chat when the crash happens, other times downloading, sometimes just firefox open with a single page that only contains text and tables, nothing big at all.

[jocliba (jocliba)]

I have the same problem with Intrepid and kernel 2.6.27-7-generic. It happens only when I am using my university's wireless network. It uses wpa radius with peap. At home I have a wireless network with wpa psk and I don't have problems.

Now I'm using ipw3945 without problems.

[Magnus S (magnuss)]

@ jocliba: There are some differences between your configuration/problem and the one from the original reporter. Please create a new bug report and point it towards linux. We can always link them together later if it really is the same bug. Post back the link, so i can have a look at it.

//magnus

[Ondřej Surý (ondrej)]

Hi, I can confirm regression in iwl3945 driver in Intrepid.

Computer freezes completely flashing Caps Lock and Scroll Lock. It's completely random.

For me it happens at IETF conference with bunch of wireless networks in the air (G, A, G with 802.1x, A with 802.1x, IPv6 only) and lot of APs.

Using computer in my home network is fine.

Installing linux-image-2.6.24-21-generic from hardy helps.

This bug was confirmed to be in latest fedora as well (but they have some workaround, so it doesn't freeze whole computer).

Kernel oops shows some iwl3945 and some hpet lines. I will try to get a screenshot and attach it to the bug report.

Ondrej.

[Jonathan Keeling (jmjk2)]

I believe I'm seeing the same bug with 2.6.27-10-generic kernel. I have attached a photograph of what appears if switched to the console when the freeze occurs.

[Julien Sorel (paradirc)]

I have a very similar problem. I didn't notice this bug report so I created a new one a few days ago. I just marked it as a duplicate of this one.

Link: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/306373
Maybe some information posted there could help.

[sp3ctum (mika-vilpas)]

I think I have the same issue. It started occurring in my school when I came back from Christmas leave.

I noticed that it seems to occur when the connection to the wireless network is lost. That happens a lot in our school. In the fall (08) the connection would just reconnect quickly.
A friend of mine had his laptop (Vista) next to mine and he just lost the connection as my ubuntu (8.10) froze completely. There was no mouse movement, no keyboard response, and the caps lock was blinking like someone also reported.
A hard boot was the only way to bring Ubuntu back up.

I hope this helps.

[chocbar31 (chocbar31-gmail)]

Same problem here. I can use my PC and Pidgin fine until I have to go wireless; soon as I do, flashing CAP lock and Scroll lock. The entire system is unusable except holding-down the power button.

Everything works fine when using wired connections with Pidgin.

Happens at home and at work, anywhere else I attempt to use Pidgin over wireless.

This bug sucks!

[bishboria (bishboria)]

I _was_ experiencing this bug, but have managed to narrow the problem down.

I changed my router settings to use mac address filtering instead of encryption and since then the system freezes has stopped completely.

I'm guessing that the problem lies in some encryption code when trying to connect.

[Julien Sorel (paradirc)]

Personally, I experience this bug in all cases, even with unsecure networks. But I noticed we don't have exactly the same problem, since your crashes occur only when trying to connect and mine occur after the connection is established.

[arunasirigere (arunasirigere-india)]

I am also facing the same problem. my laptop also often freezes with caps lock led blinking. I am using Dell 630m with ubuntu 8.10 and kernel version is 2.6.27-11-generic.

When I installed the ubuntu intially my laptop was not recognizing any wireless networks until I download patch for my b43 wireless driver from Broadcom official website and use it.

I have gone through many thread related to this bug but did not find solution for the kernel version 2.6.27-11-generic anywhere.

I really appreciate any kind of help.

[Antonio Roberts (hellocatfood)]

I'm using Ubuntu Jaunty on an ASUS X50SL-AP124C laptop (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144182) and sometimes when my computer is connecting to a wireless network it freezes completely. I assume it's freezing once it's connected as I still get the connecting icon animation showing. When this happens I shut down the computer by pressing the power button and sometimes it'll connect to the wireless network right away when the computer restarts

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

There have been a number of wireless updates recently particularly in Juanty. Can you confirm this issue exists with the most recent Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release - http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-desktop . Also can you please try installing the linux-backports-modules-jaunty package. The linux-backports-modules-jaunty package contains and updated compat-wireless stack which may help. Be sure to reboot after installing this package in order to test. Please let us know your results.

[Antonio Roberts (hellocatfood)]

I've just had a major problem with Ubuntu. I'm running 9.04 with all updates as of 23rd August 2009 on an ASUS F5SL laptop. I've attached some pictures (images.zip) that can help illustrate this problem better. I have a problem that is similar to this bug where my computer freezes occasionally when connecting to a network. Usually I just hold down the power button and restart and everything is fine. Occasionally when fsck runs it finds a few inconsistencies but fixes them and I get on with my day as usual.

However this time I loaded up Ubuntu (the computer had not crashed beforehand) and upon login I was greeted by an error. I didn't/couldn't take a screenshot but it was saying that an item in the gnome panel couldn't be loaded. I pressed close and then had an error saying that x or my graphics couldn't be loaded. I had to restart the computer and then the major problems began.

The loadup screen would run as normal but then my screen would go all glitchy (glitchscreen.jpg) This would blink a few times and tehn my system would become unresponsive. I restarted and fsck would run at the loading screen and would stop after 13% saying that there's an error and that I must run fsck manually

I tried pressing esc at the grub bootloader and running xfix. This did nothing. I tried booting in recovery mode and fsck would run automatically and stop at 13% with the same errors as above (fsck.jpg).

At first I ran memtest but after 63% and an hours wait with no errors I was advised to cancel it and run fsck manually after it failed to do it automatically. I got several messages along the lines of "Inodes 92192 count wrong. Fix?[y/n]" (manualfsck.jpg) I pressed yes on all of these and then restarted. The boot screen loaded as normal and then I got the glitch screen again.

Luckily I am able to load up a LiveCD and backup all of my data, which makes me feel more comfortable with the idea of reinstalling. However, what I want to know is what is this problem, where is it and how can I fix it? I have the proprietary graphics driver installed for the ATI card and have done since I installed Ubuntu in March but that has never caused me problems. From the start Ubuntu has occasionally been crashing due to wireless issues.

Is this a case of a bad wireless card, bad driver, proprietary graphics card messing things up or something that I have missed along the line.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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