[jaunty] System randomly freezes

[nachocual]

Binary package hint: xorg

I've recently upgraded from my perfectly working 8.10 to 9.04 beta. I'm using the amd64 version. Everything in the system is up to date as 04/04. I've also used memtest86+ and everything is ok.

Since I upgraded, the system randomly freezes, stoping to respond to anything (it happens at very random time intervals, sometimes very close to each other, sometimes not so). Can't change to a text terminal using alt+ctrl+f1-6. Using alt+ctrl+bckspc doesn't work either (I've disabled don't zap flag, so it works when the system is responding). I have to power down the system holding the power button down (its a laptop, so I don't have a resert button).

The system is a HP Pavillion dv2735la. I think there's more details of the hardware in the files I'm attaching (its the first time I report a bug, novice ubuntu user, around 4 month using it).

If you need any information just ask, as I don't know much about debbuging errors please explain where to find it.

PD: sorry about my english, i'm from Argentina.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu16
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=es_AR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersion: Linux version 2.6.28-11-generic (buildd@crested) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) ) #38-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 27 10:01:17 UTC 2009
SourcePackage: xorg
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64

Similar bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/345119

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Heh, blinking capslock is a fairly good sign you're getting a kernel oops, not X.

Look for the docs on troubleshooting kernel problems.

[nachocual (nachocual)]

I don't know, last 3 or 4 times it happened, the mouse stopped responding completely and there was no flashing light.

My guess is that at the moment of reporting the bug I was experimenting two different kind of system crash, the kernel related one being solved by the recent updates. The one that's still happening should be xorg related.

Should I change the description to reflect the new situation?

[Jithin Emmanuel (jithin1987)]

I also have this same problem. Using a fully updated jaunty beta with intel graphics. The crashes are occurring randomly. Mostly when I use Kmail or firefox. Can any one tell me how to debug this system freezing.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I'm curious, why did you reassign this to X?

[Niran Babalola (niran)]

I'm having this same issue to the point that the system is unusable for more than five minutes at a time.

[Niran Babalola (niran)]

I forgot to mention that my system is a MacBook 1,1.

[nachocual (nachocual)]

Bryce, I did it because I'm not getting flashing lights any more, so I thought it wasn't the kernel what's causing the problem. If you think it should be assigned to linux anyway, please change it again, didn't mean to be rude.

By the way, should I change the description to reflect the new situation? And could you explain Jithin and me how to debug the system crashs, so we can provide more useful information?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Yes, as additional information is proven out, it is usually useful to fix both the title and description. This can help prevent other users from getting confused and think they have the same issue as you, when they do not. (Or conversely can help bug workers notice if your bug is a dupe to a known issue.)

While caps lock flashing is an almost certain indication of a kernel problem, not flashing does not mean it is not a kernel problem. Many non-X kernel crashes/lockups/etc. don't show themselves with flashing caps lock. Thus my curiosity that you moved it back to X.

For kernel bugs, usually you look in dmesg, /var/log/syslog, and other log files to locate an error message.

Fwiw, the word "randomly" in a bug report usually is a good sign that the issue has not been adequately analyzed. When filing a good bug report you should always strive to boil the problem down such that you do not need to use that word, much as you wouldn't tell your doctor, "Doctor, I feel pains randomly through my body..." ;-)

[Jithin Emmanuel (jithin1987)]

After installing and recent updates the quantity of freezes pre day has decreased for me. Yesterday it was almost 1 in every hour, for today it freezed only once.

[nachocual (nachocual)]

I have also seen a decrease in the occurrence of system freezes. Bryce, could you explain me how could I further analyse the problem? I don't know what to look for in the logs or in the dmesg tool. If you don't have time point me to somewhere where I might find that kind of information, I didn find it by myself. Thanx!

[gsmayya (gsmayya)]

I can confirm that even I am experiencing this from past few days. I had to actually reboot my system after usage of around 1 hour.

When the system is left as is with programs running, I have not yet had a freeze.

I am tried to find any suspecting entry in the /var/log files. I was not able to conclusively point the finger at one cause. Have attached a file with the last entries, before the reboot happened.

I am not sure where else to look for. If someone can guide me with that info, I can help in trying to narrow down the issue.

My system specs are:

HP 6910p laptop.
Upgraded to Jaunty on Alpha 6 stage from 8.10
Filesystem is ext3 mounted as ext4 with extends.
Intel graphics driver.

[kaleidoscopeit (jaater)]

I can confirm also on my 2 systems.

I experienced various random freezes, not related to any specific action, also using a virtual teminal and sadly no KP messages appeared, simply a total system freeze without keyboard leds blink.

System A :

   Sempron 2800 +, Nvidia chipset + onboard vga

Last 2 occurence

   today : accessing an usb mass storage through a wine software.
   yesterday : fsck on a ext3 filesystem in a virtual console with the system in SAFE mode.

System B :

  P4 3GHz + Intel Chipset + Intel Vga

Last 2 occurence :

  today : 2 time during a single system update

Bye

[Jithin Emmanuel (jithin1987)]

And all this happened after the kde 4.2.2 update that happened last friday. (May be some other package that got updated along with that) My friend here who is using jaunty alpha 6 but no updates since last friday, IS NOT FACING THIS ISSUE.

[gsmayya (gsmayya)]

For around a day I didnot had any problems, but now, it is getting very frequent. Almost every half an hour. From past 3 hours I had around 6-8 times freezes.

Is it atleast identified like what is causing the issue.

I just scrapped some logs at the time of every reboot.

[Xadloki (x4dl0g)]

Same issue here on AMD64 with Nvidia 180 drivers, I made a clean install from daily build and installed a couple of applications (samba, hellanzb, screen, irssi, centerim ntp and ntpdate). The freezes happen from 5 min to 30 min after rebooting. I've looked through the log files and the last lines before boots are related to ntpd, I don't know if this helps at all but I'll just paste a couple of lines before the freezes from syslog.

Apr 9 03:02:32 ubuntu kernel: [ 94.048020] Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -65408709 ns)
Apr 9 04:23:13 ubuntu ntpd[3412]: synchronized to 194.137.39.67, stratum 2
Apr 9 04:23:13 ubuntu ntpd[3412]: time reset +0.267020 s
Apr 9 04:23:13 ubuntu ntpd[3412]: kernel time sync status change 0001

[Xadloki (x4dl0g)]

I thought I'd mention that as long as I'm not using Hellanzb I have had no further freezes in Jaunty.

[nate (enatefox)]

Same issues here. Never an issue in Intrepid but since Jaunty RC from Alpha on and now my newly installed Jaunty release, random freezes. I have had no errors reports in Xorg.0.log, syslog, etc. to work with. Occurs with and without Compiz enabled. Can only ALT+SysRQ to reboot (not able to jump to terminal). I have started KDM with output to a log file-- empty. Started Compiz with output to a log file-- nothing unusual.

This happens mainly at work when I run rdesktop although it also freezes at home, just not as often.

Tried different kernels, etc. to no avail. Fully updated, minimal packages installed:
Jaunty 9.04
2.6.28-11-generic
Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

I do not even know how to debug this since /var/log has not been helpful though if someone could suggest a way, I will help debug.

[SeguinJonathan (rockonjo)]

I can confirm same bug on Dimension E521 with nvidia 7300LE after upgrade to jaunty.

This is oddly similar to another bug I had back in 8.04 (I cannot remember the fix but I believe it had to do with nvidia drivers and kernel incompabilities). I have tried the newest drivers (180.51) but still get freezes.

I have reverted to open source drivers (changed "nvidia" to "nv" in xorg.conf) until the bug is fixed.

[nate (enatefox)]

Ok, I seem to have resolved the issue here.
Specs:
Jaunty 9.04
2.6.28-11-generic
Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

Reinstalled server edition, installed generic kernel, installed plasma, compiz and related packages, xinit and kde-core in that order. With bare minimum KDE4.2 and installing apps one by one I have not had a single freeze. Compiz with skip_checks "just worked" and performance is faster than it was when I installed kde-core with additional KDE components as done previously. Something in KDE it seems is causing the issue for me at least on Intel and it seems the order listed above that I installed packages in does not include the problematic package.

[Pedro Saraiva (pedro-a34195)]

I'm getting system freezes too. If I remember all of them occurred when I was browsing with firefox. The hole desktop freezes, I can't switch to terminal, can't restart gdm, can't enable/disable caps-lock. The only thing that can be done is move the mouse pointer around...

I'm using the final version of Jaunty with all updates released so far. My system is an Acer laptop, Pentium M 1.7, with an integrated intel 855GM graphics card. The distribution is installed on a ext4 partition, and the home directory is a ext3 partition.

Hope this gets fixed soon. If more information is needed, please ask.

Thanks for reading,

Pedro Saraiva

[nate (enatefox)]

I lied, after a while the crashes came back. Upgrading to 2.6.30rc3 fixed the issues completely. Running as fast as it did with Hardy. However, wife's laptop is still freezing despite the new kernel and identical graphics cards.

Download the new kernel drivers here:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.30-rc3/

Both laptops running:
Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller

[I Craft Crafts (icraftcrafts)]

same here. new install with updates. laptop hp compaq nx6310 2gigs ram. celeron m processor.

here's my lspci output if its any help.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
02:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
02:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
08:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 01)

[I Craft Crafts (icraftcrafts)]

forgot to mention: i have to shut down the system manually when this happens to get it up again. mouse pointer was actually missing.

[I Craft Crafts (icraftcrafts)]

forgot to mention: i have to shut down the system manually when this happens to get it up again. mouse pointer was actually missing. alt sysrq and i think the letter b worked to reboot it.

[nate (enatefox)]

Shaheem, don't just pres sysrq and b! You can corrupt your drives pretty easily that way.
Correct way is:
Hold Alt+SysRq then type "REISUB" in that order to safely unmount, remount read-only and reboot.

[nate (enatefox)]

Update: even though updating to Karmic still led to freezes with 2.6.30RC3, I reinstalled yet again and have had no crashes with this setup:

Karmic upgrade from Jaunty server, 2.6.30RC3, installed only KDM with compiz and konsole set to run in .xsession. I didn't install kwin or gnome but let gnome install as a dependency of screenlets but nothing set to default and nothing automatically running except KDM, compiz, konsole and screenlets at login.

I think this may be related/dependent on KDE4.2 or specifically plasma. While I do miss plasma, I love no crashes. Anybody experience similar or crashes with Gnome? If I have time, I try to add applications until crash time and see if I can narrow it down.

I installed "kdm" only, not kde-core as previously done and am using compiz to replace x-window-manager (as bare as I could make this install) and it works very well. Performance is way better than a standard KDE install.

[Russel Winder (russel)]

I see the freezing up on my Gnome-based Ubuntu running on an AJP M3000N since the Intrepid -> Jaunty upgrade. I reported this as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/375072 in case it was distinct from this bug report.

The freeze up definitely seems to be Xorg related rather than Linux related since, as long as I have a wired Ethernet connection, I can ssh in the back and the machine is fine. No keystrokes work on the laptop itself though so power cycling is the only recourse if working on wifi.

This must be considered a critical blocking problem I think as it makes the laptop unsafe to use.

[nate (enatefox)]

A fun HAL upgrade with Karmic caused me to reinstall (bug was fixed later at least) and it was back to Jaunty. System froze twice before I finished upgrading to Karmic. Running 2.6.30-5-generic now with nary a freeze although any of the 30* final releases (not the RCs) have been working fine.

solution is upgrade to Karmic.

[Sir Romanov (romain-couillet)]

I think this is a duplicate of
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/355155

In my case, I have those
[ 0.000000] Fast TSC calibration using PIT
[ 0.145055] checking TSC synchronization [CPU#0 -> CPU#1]: passed.
[ 0.778058] Marking TSC unstable due to TSC halts in idle
[ 1.000176] Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -116420021 ns)
straight after boot... and after a while, provided that I am a big too aggressive with my computer (e.g. 20min of fullscreen video... not so aggressive init?), I get those:
[ 3996.237102] CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 15000 nsec
[ 4026.248042] CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 22500 nsec
and then it's all slow and I have to reboot... slow both in KDE or under a terminal...

Can anyone else confirm Karmic does no longer have this issue? I do not feel like moving to an alpha version... Also, has anyone tried 2.6.30-rc6 ? (-rc5 ain't working)

[Ulrich (ulrich-leopold-gmail)]

These random freezes also happens to me and I find it a serious bug as it prevents me doing my daily work. Could you please upgrade the repositories to stable kernel packages for Jaunty. I had several freezes during the last days and lost some work. Jaunty seems too unstable and I cannot recommended it currently here in a our research institute for daily work.

Thx, Ulrich

[jackp (jackpommer)]

Upgrading the kernel seems to have solved the problem for me. I used KernelCheck - http://kcheck.sourceforge.net/ -- and it went smoothly.

jack

[laysan_a (laysan-a)]

Please see this thread for more on this problem:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7436411#post7436411

and this one

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7436660#post7436660

[laysan_a (laysan-a)]

Ok, I had two more freezes today - so far...Last night (early this AM) I managed to go a few hours without a crash: used Firefox and watched a couple of videos - including the dvd I was watching when it crashed earlier in the day (though with a different player).

The first crash happened just after initial boot, as network manager was connecting my wireless. After I rebooted from that I opened firefox (two windows and a couple of tabs) and I heard the hd begin to write furiously (might have been the update manager). I touched my mouse wheel and the screen dissolved to black. Nothing worked. The hard drive light remained on steadily, but I couldn't hear if there was any actual writing going on. I hit the power.

A little later an interesting thing happened. I opened a text file in Abiword and I noticed my temperatures climbing steadily. My processor monitor showed heavy continuous processor use at about 80%. My temp. widget is untrustworthy - it shows four temperatures in the fifties (Fahrenheit - it says) normally - but I don't see why the trend can't be trusted. The temps rose until they peaked out above one hundred. I had to terminate Abiword (didn't close normally), and the temps. immediately dropped to normal, and the heavy processor use stopped.

I'm attaching my sys.log, kernel.log, debug and xorg.log files

[Jithin Emmanuel (jithin1987)]

Only way to fix these freezes is to install kernel 2.6.30 from
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
and to user packages from xorg-edgers ppa. This is the only
combination which worked for me.

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 4:04 AM, laysan_a<email address hidden> wrote:
>
> ** Attachment added: "Logs11Jun.zip.zip"
>   http://launchpadlibrarian.net/27796935/Logs11Jun.zip.zip
>
> --
> [jaunty] System randomly freezes
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/352373
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Regards
Jithin Emmanuel

[laysan_a (laysan-a)]

It doesn't appear that a kernel upgrade to 2.6.30 solves this issue - at least not for some of us. My own experience and that of some others suggests that the apparent randomness of the freezes can create the belief that the problem is solved in the short term, when it is actually not. I am running the .30 kernel and it is freezing to black as much as ever.

A couple of people have reported some success by (a). rolling back to an earlier xorg-ati driver or (b). recompiling the version of X for 8.10 to work on Jaunty.

See these posts:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7442134&postcount=408
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7460608&postcount=426
and
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3942

[Jithin Emmanuel (jithin1987)]

On Tuesday 16 Jun 2009 9:27:11 am laysan_a wrote:
> It doesn't appear that a kernel upgrade to 2.6.30 solves this issue - at
> least not for some of us. My own experience and that of some others
> suggests that the apparent randomness of the freezes can create the
> belief that the problem is solved in the short term, when it is actually
> not. I am running the .30 kernel and it is freezing to black as much as
> ever.
>
> A couple of people have reported some success by (a). rolling back to an
> earlier xorg-ati driver or (b). recompiling the version of X for 8.10 to
> work on Jaunty.
>
> See these posts:
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7442134&postcount=408
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7460608&postcount=426
> and
> http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3942
In addition to upgrading to kernel 2.6.30 you need to use latest intel driver
from xorg edgers ppa. I am using that happily for a few days and no freeze.
--
Thanks
Jithin Emmanuel

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi nachocual,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 352373

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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