[Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p] System freezes

[Daniel Arnitz]

* Problem description: The system freezes completely. This includes screen, mouse, and keyboard including numlock light. Even after several weeks of testing I was not able to tie the freezes to a specific event, program, or behavior. There seem to be a few scenarios where freezes are more likely (see below), but they can essentially occur at any time. I have updated my bios and the system; this did not solve the problem. I have not yet tried the mainline kernel, since I am unsure which version to select.

* Steps to reproduce: Run long-term measurement device remote control in Matlab (data collection; SCPI, low cpu load, some network, a couple GB RAM usage). The system typically freezes within 24 to 48 hours. I have also tried several other scenarios:
- normal work with KDE (Kile, Thunderbird, Firefox, Inkscape, VLC, Dolphin): RARELY (~ once a month)
- measurement device remote control in Matlab (memory, network).

The following didn't seem to reproduce the problem:
- running date + sleep in a bash loop.
- running date + sleep in a bash loop within screen.
- running ping constantly.
- idle loop in Matlab (do nothing).
- random data copying loop in Matlab (memory only).

* Keeping CPU load high by inverting a some matrix in the data collection loop seems to prevent this problem.

* Last working version: Kubuntu 11.10

* Additional information:
- memory test came back negative (no problems)
- crash is reproducible on a text console
- could not obtain trace dump (system does not react to keyboard)

Neither of the following fixed the problem:
xserver-xorg-lts-quantal libgl1-mesa-dri-lts-quantal:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-quantal:i386

or fixing the "*BAD*gran_size" issue described in:
http://my-fuzzy-logic.de/blog/index.php?/archives/41-Solving-linux-MTRR-problems.html

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: linux-image-3.5.0-40-generic 3.5.0-40.62~precise1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-40.62~precise1-generic 3.5.7.20
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-40-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.25.
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.4
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: arnitz 2208 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: arnitz 2208 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: command ['iw', 'reg', 'get'] failed with exit code 1: nl80211 not found.
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0xfe520000 irq 44'
   Mixer name : 'Intel CougarPoint HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0662,17aa3070,00100101 HDA:80862805,17aa3070,00100000'
   Controls : 36
   Simple ctrls : 16
Card1.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:1 'Audio'/'Plantronics Wireless Audio Plantronics Wireless Audio at usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.4, '
   Mixer name : 'USB Mixer'
   Components : 'USB047f:d955'
   Controls : 4
   Simple ctrls : 2
Date: Fri Sep 20 08:13:34 2013
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=2f562564-0248-4280-a46b-9cd0f0e8e5e6
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
IwConfig:
 eth0 no wireless extensions.

 eth1 no wireless extensions.

 lo no wireless extensions.
MachineType: LENOVO 4524-AN4
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-40-generic root=UUID=af77f384-9007-4d2b-8395-5ada0dcfb93e ro quiet splash enable_mtrr_cleanup mtrr_spare_reg_nr=1 mtrr_gran_size=64K mtrr_chunk_size=256M vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.5.0-40-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.5.0-40-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.79.6
RfKill:

SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2013-06-20 (91 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/16/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 9HKT54AUS
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr9HKT54AUS:bd10/16/2012:svnLENOVO:pn4524-AN4:pvrThinkCentreM91p:rvnLENOVO:rn:rvr:cvnToBeFilledByO.E.M.:ct3:cvrToBeFilledByO.E.M.:
dmi.product.name: 4524-AN4
dmi.product.version: ThinkCentre M91p
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Arnitz, could you please capture the oops following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash ?

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

My apologies for the late reply; I did not have access to the affected machine for the past month.

I experienced two freezes since installing linux-crashdump. The first crash was captured by linux-crashdump (-> attached); the second one was not. I will post additional crashdumps as they become available.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Arnitz, the crash file you posted appears to be a crash file from your /var/crash folder, not a kernel call trace or xorg backtrace. Please follow these instructions to have apport report a new bug about your crash that can be dealt with by the automatic retracer. First, execute at a terminal:
cd /var/crash && sudo rm * ; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo service apport start force_start=1

If you are running the Ubuntu Stable Release you might need to enable apport in /etc/default/apport and restart.

Now reproduce the crash, then open your file manager, navigate to your /var/crash directory and open the crash report you wish to submit.
If this fails you will have to open a terminal and file your report with 'ubuntu-bug /var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash' where _my_crash_report.crash is the crash you would like to report. If you get an error that you aren't allowed to access this report you will have to file it with 'sudo ubuntu-bug /var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash'. If you run the command against the crash report and it does nothing, you may be affected by https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/994921 . In order to WORKAROUND this, one would need to open the following file via a command line:
gksudo gedit /etc/apport/crashdb.conf

and comment out the line:
'problem_types': ['Bug', 'Package'],

by changing it to:
# 'problem_types': ['Bug', 'Package'],

Save, close, and try to file the crash report again via:
ubuntu-bug /var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Christopher Penalver, thank you for the clarification. I followed your instructions. Unfortunately, /var/crash is empty after the crashes.

The secondary kernel for linux-crashdump is loaded; cat /sys/kernel/kexec_crash_loaded returns 1. A test crash using echo c | sudo tee /proc/sysrq-trigger has the same symptoms as the actual oops , i.e., a completely unresponsive system. The system does not reboot after the test crash and /var/crash is also empty. I've waited for 90 minutes before forcing the reboot by turning off power.

The memory is OK (test passed), and the crash is reproducible on a text console. As far as I can tell, the kernel logs are clean.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Arnitz, the instructions noted in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/5 were only in regarding to the crash file you posted in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/4 . It is not instructions on getting linux-crashdump to post anything to /var/crash.

Despite this, would the remote capture provide additional information following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash#Remote_debugging ?

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Christopher Penalver, my apologies for having been imprecise. I know that the instructions in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/5 were not related to linux-crashdump.

According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/CrashdumpRecipe?action=show&redirect=KernelTeam%2FCrashdumpRecipe ,
linux-crashdump should also create a crash log in /var/crash. This is part of your instructions in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/3, which is what I followed. However, /var/crash is empty after the crashes. I uploaded the crash file in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/4 because it was the only one that was in the folder after a crash. I did not realize that it was unrelated to the system crash. I then deleted all the crash logs as per your post https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1228109/comments/5, which then made me realize that the system crashes do not produce logs.

I did not try the remote capture procedure, since https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash#Remote_debugging says "Some crashes [...] are impossible to reproduce on the text console. The best way is then to use a second computer [...] using ssh."

The crash is reproducible on the text console. It does not produce any output there. I will try the remote login next and see if it provides any additional information. SSH to the affected machine after it has crashed is not possible.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Christopher Penalver, please find attached the output of /proc/kmsg and /var/log/syslog, remotely captured following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash#Remote_debugging

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Arnitz, thanks for the remote capture. However, no crashing that I saw. I'll mark Confirmed for now so someone else may review. Have you had a chance to test the Saucy enablement stack as per https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack to see if things improve for you?

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Thank you! I have not yet tried the Saucy kernel. I'm running into https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-lts-saucy/+bug/1268463 , so this will likely not be a smooth update. I can't risk breaking this system right now, but I will make the update ASAP. Thank you!

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Christopher Penalver, I upgraded to the Saucy enablement stack. Unfortunately, things did not improve - I still have system freezes.

[Rossano Bersagliere (rossano-bersagliere)]

Same story here. I tried everything between 12.04 and 14.04, freezing the system randomly. Latest bios upgrade, switching memory banks or disks seems to have nothing to do with the problem. It appears that the last stable distro was 11.10 in 14 out of 15 M91p we have left.

This is not a great deal since we are using 11.10 only to host Virtualbox guests but here the weird thing: system won't freeze wathever guest distro we use (I tried 12.04, 12.10 and 13.10) if we stick on 11.10 on the host.

One more thing. Virtualbox guests running seem to exacerbate the problem (I've seen this in 12.04 and 13.10): number of crashes ranges from 2 to 3 per month to 2 to 3 per week (sometimes twice a day).

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Rossano Bersagliere, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into a Ubuntu repository kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[rsoika (ralph-soika)]

I have the same issue. I reported this in another bug report (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1137817)
In the mean time I am running Kernel Version 3.14.4. on the debian jessie release

I am happy to see that other people describe exactly the same behavior.
But it seems that it is impossible to isolate the problem in any way :-(

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Arnitz, could you please test the latest upstream kernel available (3.15-rc7) following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds ? It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please comment on which kernel version specifically you tested. If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tags:
kernel-fixed-upstream
kernel-fixed-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested. For example:
kernel-fixed-upstream-3.15-rc7

This can be done by clicking on the yellow circle with a black pencil icon next to the word Tags located at the bottom of the bug description. As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the following tags:
kernel-bug-exists-upstream
kernel-bug-exists-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug's Status as Confirmed. Please let us know your results. Thank you for your understanding.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[stuart (stuart-hayton)]

I believe I had the same issue, my M91p would freeze after some random time from boot, however its not an immediate hang, the mouse cursor goes on a go slow, then disappears over a few seconds, keyboard and mouse are then totally unresponsive including ctrl-alt-f1 etc. However I *think* its just the UI thats locked.
I've done 2 things which appear to have resolved my problem (yeah I know bad practice, one change at a time) installed the latest proprietary nvidia driver (I have the NVS 300 card) I assume you all do too. And I set the BIOS video selection to PEG (pci express graphics?) rather than auto. I know I had to do something similar with my dual card Lenovo W520 laptop with similar symptoms.
Can you confirm if this is the same problem and if this works for you?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

stuart, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, this bug report is not scoped to you, or your problem. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into the default Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Daniel Arnitz (daniel-arnitz)]

Thank you stuart. I'm afraid your solution does not apply to me. My freezes are instant, without any sluggish or strange mouse or keyboard behavior, and the system locks completely, including low-level functions such as Ethernet pings. I'm also not using an Nvidia card, nor any proprietary driver, and my PCI express slot is empty.

[yannick L (yannick-lorenzat)]

I believe i have the same issues as you guys.

I'm late but i have some information about this issue.
At work i have different workstation : lenovo m90P, lenovo m91p and lenovo m93p.

The freeze occure for me only on the m91p.

Now about the ubuntu version : The m91p work perfectly on ubuntu 11.10
The freeze append only after we migrate on ubuntu 12.04.

I tried a lot thing (latest kernel, latest vieo drivers etc..), the only thing which work was the retro upgrade of the kernel from 3.2 to 3.0

hope that help

[penalvch (penalvch)]

yannick L, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report with Ubuntu by executing the following in a terminal while booted into the default Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Policies/DuplicateBugs
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

As well, please do not announce in this report you created a new bug report.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs