Ubuntu freezes to death in random intervals

[Dariusz Dwornikowski]

Binary package hint: xorg

This has been happening since 10.4, now on 10.10 this happens too. I checked RAM with memtest running whole night, also it seams not to be graphics card issue - i tried nvidia drivers and open source drivers. The system freezes, caps lock, num lock lights are blinking. The problem is also that troubleshooting does not work. The ssh method won't show any new logs. System just freezes to death, it is totally unresponsive (sysrq does not work too).

This happens in variuos scenarios, but always there is some user action - it never freezes by itself.

Im now like desperate - cannot work on it. 5-6 freezes a day.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: xorg 1:7.5+6ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.34-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 173.14.28 Wed Sep 29 09:44:58 PDT 2010
 GCC version: gcc version 4.4.5 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-14ubuntu5)
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Oct 16 11:15:29 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS M1530
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=UUID=ea30e50e-6959-4424-babd-f448c37d68ae ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=pl_PL.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
Title: Xorg freeze
dmi.bios.date: 11/19/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A12
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA12:bd11/19/2008:svnDellInc.:pnXPSM1530:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: XPS M1530
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: maverick
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.35-22-generic

[Arnaud Soyez (weboide)]

I am getting random freezes as well on Ubuntu Maverick, it happens quite a few times a day.
I also have 64bits CPU and a Nvidia card with the nvidia drivers installed.

[Jean Vollenweider (kv-ag)]

Same problem here!
Hardware: Motherboard P7P55D-E, processor Intel i7 860 (64bit), RAM 8GB, graphics card GTX285 Nvidia.
Driver: Nvidia proprietary.
This system works fine with Kubuntu 9.10. The same system fails under Kubuntu 10.04 and 10.10, freezes within 10 to 20 minutes!
Shutdown and reboot possible with ssh.

[Ewa Jajszczyk (ewa-jajszczyk)]

I confirm. My laptop is DELL XPS M1530. I also have 64bits CPU and a Nvidia graphics card,

[Akshat Jain (akshatj)]

Based on #4's comment I confirm this bug.

[Arnaud Soyez (weboide)]

I've also tried with the Nouveau drivers and I still had two lockups today.

[Dariusz Dwornikowski (tdi-kill-9-deactivatedaccount)]

A small update. I disabled DRI and GLX and seems that is freezes only 2-3 times a day now. I have and impression too (it is only an impression) that freezes take place when there are disk writes. For example ubuntu freezes often when transmission is running or a USB disk is written to.

[Arnaud Soyez (weboide)]

After my switch to nouveau, someday the compiz effects got disabled, and since then I did not have any freeze or lock up. I'm probably just lucky, but that can be something worth giving a try.

[Jean Vollenweider (kv-ag)]

I can't confirm that the freezes disappear if the nouveau driver is used.
I think the crucial question is what has changed from (k)ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04 (xorg, apic, ...).
Keep in mind that the problem has been reported by people who uses different graphics cards and even different distros!

[Dariusz Dwornikowski (tdi-kill-9-deactivatedaccount)]

Hmm.. I tried nouveau on 10.04 and freezes were present. Ill try now on 10.10

[Jean Vollenweider (kv-ag)]

I have found the reason for the freezes in my case.
My mouse was connected to the computer via PS/2. Changing the connection to USB eliminates the freezes.

[Arnaud Soyez (weboide)]

I changed my keyboard and mouse to USB, and using the nouveau gfx driver, and still had two lock ups around a minute after opening my user session.

Also, (and as pointed earlier,) the machine does not lock up by itself, there needs to be human activity.
The two last freezes I had, the first brought me back to a TTY and froze (the tty used for all the boot messages). And the other freeze happened when I was just moving the mouse (no click or keystroke), and it simply froze.

[Dariusz Dwornikowski (tdi-kill-9-deactivatedaccount)]

Same here. Often crashes when i use chromium or firefox. Maybe some IO problems (with writes) ?

[Arnaud Soyez (weboide)]

I am willing to debug this issue but what can I do to generate a backtrace or logs? I have apport running, and tried to setup linux-crashdump but it does not work or I am not sure how to set those up correctly.

[phillamg (me-phillg)]

I have very similar issues (mild freezes for 15s, but crashes or hard freezes too) and I've found that none of it happens when I'm only running with 6gb memory installed (I have four banks of 2gb, all identical, also on AMD64). Can I suggest seeing if that's a work-around or helps identify the cause?

[Laura Booth (laura-a-booth)]

I can confirm the same issue. For me, it has occured while playing games in WINE (World of Warcraft in both d3d and open-gl modes, as well as Diablo II) When it occurs everything freezes completely and no input is accepted. Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to tty did not work, and I am forced to use the power button to shut down the computer. My laptop is a Gateway P-6860FX with an NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS. My processor and distro are 64-bit and I am running with 4gb RAM. I have the 260.19.06 NVIDIA Driver. After a crash of this nature, my syslog is filled with pages of this: NVRM: os_pci_init_handle: invalid context!

[bugbot (bugbot)]

Hey Dariusz,

Hi, have you had a chance to test if this bug is still present in natty?

If it does (and if you're the original reporter), please boot into natty
and run the command:

  apport-collect <bug-number>

which will update the bug with fresh logs and tag the bug as affecting
natty. (It is best to run this right after reproducing the problem.)

[bugbot (bugbot)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.