Intermittant X crash with ATI card, multiple X drivers

[Elliot Kendall]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-core

Since upgrading from 10.10 to 11.04, X crashes occasionally, maybe 1-3 times per day. I have tried a variety of troubleshooting measures to isolate the problem, but without success:

1. The crash occurs with the fglrx, ati/radeon, and fbdev drivers, so it doesn't seem to be specific to a particular driver
2. The crash still occurs after downgrading to a 10.10 kernel, so it doesn't seem to be specific to the new kernel
3. The crash occurs with the standard Xorg packages from 11.04, the packages from ubuntu-x-swat, and the packages from xorg-edgers.

The crash only happens when I'm actively using the system - I never come back to it to find it at the login screen.

My video card is:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV610 [Radeon HD 2400 XT]

Backtrace is as follows:

[350373.115] 0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x3b) [0x80b188b]
[350373.115] 1: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x65828) [0x80ad828]
[350373.115] 2: (vdso) (__kernel_rt_sigreturn+0x0) [0xb77b740c]
[350373.115] 3: /usr/bin/X (ProcAllowEvents+0xba) [0x807a01a]
[350373.115] 4: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x4df17) [0x8095f17]
[350373.115] 5: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x1a81c) [0x806281c]
[350373.115] 6: /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xe7) [0xb74c6e
37]
[350373.115] 7: /usr/bin/X (0x8048000+0x1a411) [0x8062411]
[350373.115] Segmentation fault at address 0x135

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Please collect a full backtrace on this crash - see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Backtracing for guidance.

[Elliot Kendall (elliot-kendall)]

I'm unhappy to say that this is not an ATI problem. I just switched video cards to an NVIDIA and am still seeing the same crashes.

I'm working my way through the suggestions on the Obtaining Backtraces for X Crashes page but have had no luck so far. Apport doesn't capture anything, running X through gdb locks the machine hard, and setting NoTrapSignals in xorg.conf causes the X crash to take the rest of the system with it. I'm running X through startx now in an attempt to get a core file, but I'm not sure what else I can do if that also fails.

[Elliot Kendall (elliot-kendall)]

I reinstalled 11.04 fresh in the hope that this was somehow related to the upgrade from 10.10, but no luck. I also switched to x86_64.

I do get a slightly different backtrace in Xorg.0.log now:

Backtrace:
[ 6735.877] 0: /usr/bin/X (xorg_backtrace+0x26) [0x4a2656]
[ 6735.877] 1: /usr/bin/X (0x400000+0x621ca) [0x4621ca]
[ 6735.877] 2: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x7fdf2f28a000+0xfc60) [0x7fdf2f299c60]
[ 6735.877] 3: /usr/bin/X (0x400000+0x3d7e5) [0x43d7e5]
[ 6735.877] 4: /usr/bin/X (ProcAllowEvents+0x14b) [0x43df1b]
[ 6735.877] 5: /usr/bin/X (0x400000+0x2e2a9) [0x42e2a9]
[ 6735.877] 6: /usr/bin/X (0x400000+0x21a7e) [0x421a7e]
[ 6735.877] 7: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xff) [0x7fdf2e1d3eff]
[ 6735.877] 8: /usr/bin/X (0x400000+0x21629) [0x421629]
[ 6735.877] Segmentation fault at address 0x3ab81

I am still unable to provide a full backtrace. None of the suggestions in the Obtaining Backtraces for X Crashes page work for me.

[Elliot Kendall (elliot-kendall)]

Here is a full backtrace:

#0 0x000000000043d7e5 in PlayReleasedEvents () at ../../dix/events.c:1188
        prev = <value optimized out>
        qe = 0x3096340
        dev = <value optimized out>
        pDev = <value optimized out>
#1 ComputeFreezes () at ../../dix/events.c:1385
        replayDev = <value optimized out>
        w = <value optimized out>
        grab = <value optimized out>
        dev = <value optimized out>
#2 0x000000000043df1b in ProcAllowEvents (client=0x2965480) at ../../dix/events.c:1846
        time = {months = 0, milliseconds = 18270373}
        mouse = 0x2544b90
        keybd = <value optimized out>
        stuff = 0x2f426a0
#3 0x000000000042e2a9 in Dispatch () at ../../dix/dispatch.c:431
        clientReady = 0x26e75d0
        result = <value optimized out>
        client = 0x2965480
        nready = 0
        icheck = 0x7f1410
        start_tick = 5560
#4 0x0000000000421a7e in main (argc=1, argv=<value optimized out>, envp=<value optimized out>) at ../../dix/main.c:287
        i = <value optimized out>
        alwaysCheckForInput = {0, 1}

[Elliot Kendall (elliot-kendall)]

What do I have to do to get this not marked incomplete? I provided the full backtrace as requested.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nolan (kijiki0)]

Eliot:

Do you happen to use sawfish? Does the crash always happen after you hit a WM hotkey?

This smells like bug 780961.

[Elliot Kendall (elliotkendall)]

Good eye! Yes, I am running sawfish, and the crash is probably related to hotkeys. This is probably a duplicate.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hey elliot-kendall,

You filed this bug report against natty, but I see it's still open and
doesn't appear to have much activity recently. So, now that oneiric
is released and stable, this may be a good point for you to upgrade
and re-test if this issue is still present there.

If it's solved in the new release and you think it's worth backporting
the fix, please indicate that. Or if having the fix in the new release
is good enough, feel free to close out the bug (or let us know and we'll
close it.)

If it's not solved, leave the bug report open. I can't promise we'll
get to it (we get way more bugs filed than we can usually get to), but
your testing and feedback can help out if and when we do.