Kernel Oops - Fatal exception in interrupt; EIP is at c13e812c ata_bmdma_interrupt+0x4c/0x1e0 SS:ESP 0068:f4c09f60

[Meghan Pietila]

Kernel panic on Kubuntu 12.10 livecd boot
"Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt"

My system, running Ubuntu 12.10, started having problems last week; freezing up after about 2 minutes when attempting to use USB thumb drives/card readers (hard freeze, couldn't even use CTRL-ALT-DEL or switch to other consoles). After a few days it reached the point where the system wouldn't even boot anymore (possibly corruption from all those power-offs).

Decided to switch over to Kubuntu 12.10; downloaded and burned a livecd on about July 22, 2012. CD loaded great on another system and installed Kubuntu beautifully. Whenever I attempt to use the cd on this system, the initial menu comes up fine, but choosing to run from the livecd causes a kernel panic on boot. Computer completely freezes at this point, can't get any kind of appreport or other logs.

I can attach a photo of the screen (broken-machine's-screenshot?) if it would help. In the meantime, here's a transcribed snippet (this may not be the first oops, there's the bottom of another stacktrace at the top of my screen but I have no way to scroll up):

EIP: [<c13e812c>] ata_bmdma_interrupt+0x4c/0x1e0 SS:ESP 0068:f4c09f60
CR2: 000000005d5bdeb9
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Pid: 0, comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G D 3.2.0-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu
Call Trace:
  [<c1592732>] ? printk+02xd/0x2f
  [<c1592600>] panic+0x5c/0x161
  [<c15a901d>] oops_end+0xcd/0xd0
  [<c15915e9>] no_context+0xc3/0xcb
  [<c1591711>] __bad_area_nosemaphore+0x120/0x128
  [<c13a820d>] ? scsi_done+0x1d/0x70
... bunch of rows (atapi_qc_complete, raw_spin_lock_irqsave, ata_hsm_qc_complete)...
  [<c15a8797>] error_code+0x67/0x6c
  [<c15a7f3d>] ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x2d/0x40
  [<c13e812c>] ? ara_bmdma_interrupt+0x4c/0x1e0
  [<f8707609>] ? nouveau_irq_handler+0x29/0x110 [nouveau]
... more rows...
panic occurred, switching back to text console

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1029704/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 1029704

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Meghan Pietila (phishlady)]

Used boot option "irqpoll" from the Kubuntu livecd and was able to get it to boot. I'll try to get more debugging information now.

[Meghan Pietila (phishlady)]

Spoke too soon... I was able to get only to the screen that asked if I wanted to Install or Try. I clicked on Try and got a kernel oops; slightly different error this time:

EIP: [<c104948e>] enqueue_sleeper+0x3e/0x2e0 SS:ESP 0068:c1805d98
CR2: 0000000008501ee2f
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Pid: 0, comm: swapper/0 Tainted: G D 3.2.0-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu
Call Trace:
  [<c1592732>] ? printk+0x2d/0x2f
  [<c1592600>] panic+0x5c/0x161
  [<c15a901d>] oops_end+0xcd/0xd0
  [<c15915e9>] no_context+0xc3/0xcb
  [<c1591711>] __bad_area_nosemaphore+0x120/0x128
  [<c15ab7aa>] do_page_fault+0x3da/0x490
  [<c12b3458>] ? timerqueue_add+0x58/0xb0
  [<c107d501>] ? enqueue_hrtimer+0x21/0x80
  [<c107dac5>] ? lock_hrtimer_base.isra.22+0x25/0x50
  ... bunch more lines in trace... (not sure which lines are useful so I'll wait for some feedback)

[Meghan Pietila (phishlady)]

Cannot run apport because cannot get system to boot

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Meghan Pietila, thank you for reporting this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. Could you please use a Live CD environment that allows you to try it without panicing (ex. Precise) and perform the actions requested in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1029704/comments/2 ?

[Meghan Pietila (phishlady)]

Attempted to load using LiveCD for Ubuntu 11.10 instead of 12.04 and got kernel panic there also. 11.10 had been running with no problems on the machine for nearly a year now, so at this point I'm assuming I've got some severe hardware issues. Unless I see a comment here for another action to try, I'll be retiring this motherboard/RAM/video card in the next few days.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]