[hardy]psmouse.c kernel panic

Bug #207919 reported by Dave Shaw
10
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
linux (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.24-12-generic

Laptop: Dell Latitude D430
Kernel: Linux serenity 2.6.24-12-generic #1 SMP Wed Mar 12 22:31:43 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu Version: 8.04 Beta 1
Suspected Problem Location: Kernel module - psmouse

This bug is similar to 189814 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/189814). When running Hardy Beta1 with the 2.6.24-12-generic Kernel (latest package set) and a laptop with a synaptic touch pad, the following is displayed in /var/log/messages before the Kernel panics:

Mar 27 19:19:03 serenity kernel: [ 106.661044] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 4 bytes away.
Mar 27 19:19:05 serenity kernel: [ 107.810508] psmouse.c: resync failed, issuing reconnect request
Mar 27 19:19:07 serenity kernel: [ 108.284041] input: PS/2 Generic Mouse as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input11
Mar 27 19:19:08 serenity kernel: [ 108.430153] input: PS/2 Mouse as /devices/virtual/input/input12
Mar 27 19:19:08 serenity kernel: [ 108.501732] input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input13
Mar 27 19:19:50 serenity kernel: [ 123.609475] input: PS/2 Mouse as /devices/virtual/input/input14
Mar 27 19:19:50 serenity kernel: [ 123.657255] input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input15

If you remove powernowd, the problem goes away. If you rmmod psmouse, then modprobe it after gdm has started, the problem never appears. I will try and get some Kernel debug and paste it in this bug report, but when the Kernel panics it does not log the panic to any of the logs (I have only seen the actual Kernel panic error message twice), when I had a terminal up but still X still running.

If the Kernel doesn't panic, the mouse is just very slow and jerky, almost certainly related to the dynamic CPU scaling that powernowd does on battery power. While removing and re-inserting the psmouse module is an acceptable interim solution, its certainly not a good long term one, as sometimes I don't even get a chance to do so before the Kernel panics!

Confirmed that 7.10 and custom Kernel (2.6.24.4) with psmouse driver compiled in the Kernel doesn't have the problem.

Revision history for this message
Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

Hi Dave,

Would you be able to take a digital photo of the kernel panic you see? Also, per the kernel team's bug policy, can you please attach the following information. Please be sure to attach each file as a separate attachment.

* cat /proc/version_signature > version.log
* dmesg > dmesg.log
* sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log

For more information regarding the kernel team bug policy, please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Thanks again and we appreciate your help and feedback.

Changed in linux:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Thanks for the advice Leann. I am out of the country at the moment so don't have access to a digital camera. I will post a picture of the panic when I have it.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

I am finding this nearly impossible to send a screenshot, as it involves changing from the GUI to the console just before the panic. This also effects the latest 2.6.24-14-generic Kernel. Is there anything else I can do from my end (perhaps recompile this Kernel with more debug on for example)?

Revision history for this message
Sven Thomsen (sven-tumelum) wrote :

Hi,

same Problem here, I'm using a Dell D420.

Greetings,

Sven

Revision history for this message
Sven Thomsen (sven-tumelum) wrote :

OK, I've tested some more. Doing "rmmod psmouse" and "modprobe psmouse" fixes the problem temporarily.

Changed in linux:
assignee: nobody → ubuntu-kernel-team
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Incomplete → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

This may not be a particularly meaty or precise resolution, but can you guys not just compile psmouse into the Kernel instead of compiling it as a module? It doesn't seem like any Kernel devs are giving this the time of day when I would imagine a large portion of laptops are effected by this issue.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

This may have been addressed, I just disconnected AC power out during a meeting today (15/04/08), after an APT upgrade, and I have not seen any psmouse issues or slowdowns. Will keep an eye on this, preliminary looks good though! :)

Revision history for this message
Sven Thomsen (sven-tumelum) wrote :

OK, seems to be fixed with updates somwhere around the last two days.

No problems since then I've worked 6+ hous in different scenarios (with or without AC, with or without USB-Mouse).

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Still problematic, can get the laptop to crash within the first 10 mins of operation on battery. I've given up caring now as it seems nobody is interested. I was going to turn on full debug on the vanilla kernel, but i'm just going to build 2.6.25 from source and be done with it.

Revision history for this message
Alex Zvoleff (azvoleff) wrote :

I still see this on 2.6.24-17. Every few minutes, particularly if I leave the laptop for a few minutes and then come back to it, the mouse will freeze. If I stop moving the mouse when it hangs, the system will recover. If I continue to move the mouse after the system stops responding, I get a kernel panic (caps-lock and num-lock flashing). I have a Dell D620 with Intel 3945 wireless.

[ 967.707207] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 2 bytes away.
[ 968.448015] psmouse.c: resync failed, issuing reconnect request
[ 969.590795] input: PS/2 Mouse as /devices/virtual/input/input11
[ 969.638546] input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input12

Revision history for this message
Alex Zvoleff (azvoleff) wrote :

I tried removing the psmouse module as mentioned above (disabling the pointer stick and touchpad, but not my bluetooth mouse) and the problem persists, even if I leave the module unloaded.

Revision history for this message
Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

Care to test the Intrepid Ibex 8.10 kernel? It was most recently rebased with the upstream 2.6.25 kernel and is currently available in the following PPA:

https://edge.launchpad.net/~kernel-ppa/+archive

If you are not familiar with how to install packages from a PPA basically do the following . . .

Create the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kernel-ppa.list to include the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kernel-ppa/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/kernel-ppa/ubuntu hardy main

Then run the command: sudo apt-get update

You should then be able to install the linux-image-2.6.25 kernel package. After you've finished testing you can remove the kernel-ppa.list file and run 'sudo apt-get update' once more. Please let us know your results. Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Hi Leann,

I tried the 2.6.25-1-generic Kernel from the mentioned APT sources, and it failed miserably. I made it crash within 20s of getting a desktop just by moving the mouse :(

Do you want me to compile the vanilla patched Kernel with full debug on, that may present something useful.

Revision history for this message
Andrea Ratto (andrearatto) wrote :

Having similar problems on a Dell Latitude D630, Bios A09 kernel 2.6.24-17-generic, latest updates on hardy. It was ok with gutsy. Got several crashes and lots of touchpad synch issues in one day. Tried a custom DSDT, but did not help.
I would raise the importance as it basically makes the system too unstable for any serious usage and affects many people on different notebooks (by the number of duplicate bugs and forum posts)

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Indeed. I have yet to compile the custom Kernel because I upgraded my primary work desktop from Gutsy to Hardy and it blew a whole in X and now its extremely unresponsive so i'm having to use my laptop as my main work system and can't spare the CPU time. I'm going to reinstall hardy on the desktop and then i'll let you know how successful (or not) the custom Kernel is.

Hardy *is* the most rushed Ubuntu release to date :/

Revision history for this message
Andrea Ratto (andrearatto) wrote :

This is preliminary, but I disabled cpu frequency scaling and the touchpad has not given problems for a while. Could someone try this too?

Revision history for this message
Andrea Ratto (andrearatto) wrote :

dammit it crashed again. So it is not due to frequency scaling... sorry for the previous post.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

If you remove powernowd the problem goes away, but thats like amputating a leg because of a cut. Removing powernowd or an equivalent would hamstring a Linux based laptop, the battery life would be pitiful.

Revision history for this message
Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

Hi Dave,

Thanks for testing the 2.6.25 kernel. Could you attach your dmesg output after you are able to make it crash? Or is you system completely unresponsive? Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Its completely unresponsive, however i'll see if sending the logs to a syslog server will help.

Revision history for this message
Enrico Bertocchi (busomaka) wrote :

Same identical problem on a Dell Precision M70, no problem with Gutsy.

Revision history for this message
Enrico Bertocchi (busomaka) wrote :

It happens only on battery, cpu usage goes close to 100% for a couple of seconds, and it seems that's the reason of the jerky mouse.
If you are playing an mp3 the problem is noticeable through the tremendous jittering.

Revision history for this message
Andrea Ratto (andrearatto) wrote :

On my latitude d630 it happens both on battery and on ac. I added i8042.nomux=1 to the kernel command line and now it does not crash the whole machine anymore. It also seems to happen less frequently, but it is still there. It just came up now: lost my touchpad functionalities...

Revision history for this message
Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

Great news Leann. I will test this Kernel today.

Revision history for this message
Dave Shaw (dave-shawr) wrote :

I tested this earlier, first downloading 2.6.27-2 from the Intrepid APT sources, then actually upgrading to Intrepid and testing with it. I was wary doing the latter, since this is my work laptop, but so far, so good!

Usually in this time frame on battery power, it would have certainly crashed. I haven't seen an errors in /var/log/messages yet, which is promising.

Leann are you in a position to answer technically what has changed between the 2 versions? I had a quick peak in the Kernel changelogs, and didn't see anything obvious, and since this problem didn't exist in Feisty with the same Kernel, I'm wondering what the root cause of it actually was?

Revision history for this message
Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara) wrote :

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear this appears to be resolved. I'll tentatively mark this "Fix Released" for Intrepid. Obviously if you notice any regressions prior to Intrepid final coming out, please reopen this report by setting the status back to "New".

Now trying to describe to you what technically changed between two versions of the kernel is a rather tall order to ask. The reason I say this is because there can be literally thousands of patches that go into the kernel between just a single release (for ex from 2.6.26 to 2.6.27). This is mainly because we are constantly rebasing our kernel with what is upstream. If you only examined the Ubuntu kernel change log you'd have only seen what we've done to the kernel since we rebased. To get the full amount of changes you'd also have to examine the upstream kernel change log. And with out the stack trace of the kernel panic to help diagnose what went wrong, it's even more difficult to guess what may have resulted in the fix. The only likely way to find out exactly what fixed the issue would to do a git bisect. Sorry I couldn't be more specific here. Hope that helped a little. Thanks.

Changed in linux:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote : Kernel team bugs

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.

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.