[feisty] lockups - "ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting."

[Elias K Gardner]

I am now running a fresh install of ubuntu 7.04 I reinstalled after have an increasing number of lockups. I am experiencing two different kinds.
first a complete freeze where the mouse will not move and the system is completely unresponsive and requires a hard shutdown
second exactly the same except the mouse can move around the screen but not interact with anything
There is a thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2707129#post2707129 with others who are having lockups in feisty.

My most recent freeze occurred with the only applications I had manually started being firefox, terminal, and nautilus.

What must be done to discover the cause of these freezes?

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description doesn't yet have enough information.
Please include as attachments the following additional information, if you have not already done so (please 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' 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.
For your reference, the full description of procedures for kernel-related bug reports is available at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Thanks in advance!

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Thanks for the helpful response and the link. First question how should I have know that this was a kernel issue? Simply because it was a full system freeze?

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Woops
How do I attach more than one file to a comment?

uname -a output: Linux Estle 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

There I think thats all you asked for if I can be of more help let me know.
is there anything i should do in preparation for another freeze or after it happens to collect more info?
cheers

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

I just had another lockup again requiring a hard reboot.

This time the screen suddenly flashed a creamy white color, with short horizontal black bars. It almost looked as if it was a video horizontal sync problem. I was watching a youtube video in firefox and the sound for this cut out about a second after the screen went

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I didn't see anything very informative in you dmesg.log file. Could you please add '/var/log/messages' as an attachment to your bug report? In regards to it being a kernel issue, that is my best guess given that you had a full system freeze. In regards to attaching files you can only do one at a time in Malone - Ubuntu's bug tracker. Thanks again.

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

here is /var/log/messages It looks as if it goes back to may 20 there should be at least 4 crashes in that period

[MHayes (hayes-mark)]

Linux test-pc 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

I'm encountering the same exact symptoms, where my system will freeze sometimes a few times an hour and sometimes only once every few days. I'm including the information about my system in this post, if you need any additional information let me know.

[MHayes (hayes-mark)]

Not sure if this is required, but I'm also including my /var/log/messages in case that's helpful.

So far I've tried:
- adding noapic to my boot options (which made the freezes occur less frequently)
- disabled /etc/init.d/powernowd (not sure if this did anything)
- disabled beryl + xgl and used vesa driver, but this didn't make a difference
- also tried connected via ethernet instead of wireless which didn't make a difference

[Mark D (bartsimpson)]

i too am experiencing the same problems. One thing to add is that i tried running Mandriva's latest distribution as well, and experienced the same exact issues. I reinstalled Fiesty Fawn and i'm still experiencing these lockups. here's my info, maybe it will help find a common thread to all these cases.

Linux tetsuo 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[jawilson (jawilson-cae)]

I have had the same problem. I am having it on a dell p4 laptop with an nvidia card using the nvidia driver, and on a desktop AMD (1333 Hz, can't remember the actual processor name, it's old) using an ATI card with the open-source radeon driver. The mouse and keyboard just stops working on each, and I have to do a hard power-off. I have tried it with both kubuntu and ubuntu. I have gentoo installed on my laptop now, using the same nvidia driver version and xorg 7.2, and it works fine, so it is not the hardware.

[peter76 (pf-moll)]

Having the same problem here on an iBook 900. I think this bug is related to X, because when I get this lockup, I can still ssh into my machine. When I run top through ssh, X is maxing out my cpu... Strange thing is I can't kill it either; it just keeps running. So I have to reboot over ssh. Just yesterday I've disabled everything "exotic" ( read composite stuff ) in my xorg.conf to see if that makes this bug go away. I don't know to much about x, so maybe I'm a bit cryptic in my descriptions, but please ask if I need to supply more info.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I suspect Elias's (the initial bug report) issue is related to the ipw2200 driver "ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.". Will everyone else who added comments please submit their own bug report. Thanks!

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Well thats the best news ive herd in a while. So is there any way i can help from here? Thanks for your great help Brian!

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

not sure if this will be relevant or helpful but i have started experiencing a new type of freeze. These come much more frequently and involve the screen going blank. They also require a hard reboot. I have been on the computer for a couple hours today and it has frozen 4 times on me. It is frequent enough to be almost unusable. Thank god for firefox's memory. I have not made any changes to the system except for system updates.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

The 18 month support period for Feisty Fawn 7.04 has reached its end of life some months ago. As a result, we are closing the linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20 task. It would be helpful if you could test the
new Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release and confirm if this issue remains -
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904overview. If the issue still exists with the Jaunty
release, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux (Ubuntu)". Thanks in advance!

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

Sorry, there is a part missing on my last comment. The complete one is:

The 18 month support period for Feisty Fawn 7.04 has reached its end of life some months ago.
As a result, we are closing the linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20 task. It would be helpful if you could test the
new Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release and confirm if this issue remains -
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904overview. If the issue still exists with the Jaunty
release, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux (Ubuntu)"
task from "Incomplete" to "New". Thanks in advance!