booting fails: unable to handle kernel paging request at 40646461

[Heiko Selber]

I upgraded from Xubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 today.

The new system fails to boot when I use the default kernel 2.6.28-11.

I use a fairly old Fujitsu-Siemens E6540 laptop.

It does boot without a problem when I select kernel 2.6.27-11 in grub.

The progress bar on the splash screen gets stuck at ca. 10%.

The boot console (with 'quiet' turned off) shows several errors (in fact so many that I can't scroll up to the first one) which start with this line:

BUG: unable to handle kernel paging request at 40646461

It is followed by varying statements, e.g. this one:

IP: [<c01b8c71>] _kmalloc+0x61/0xf0

I didn't write down anything further because I can't convince myself to write so much with pen and paper, but I can provide more information if needed.

New errors appear every minute or so when I leave the console idle.

It might have to do with PCMCIA, because each error says something about yenta_socket, but as I wrote I can only see the last few errors.

When I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, shutdown fails also with the same error.

BTW: The upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 initially failed at the beginning of the third step (I forgot what it was, perhaps download packages?) because "another process is accessing the package database" (or similar), but it did pass when I tried again.

[ratbat (bernd-moest)]

I have similar problems and I'm using the same laptop. I've failed to install 9.04 and also to run it from cd. 8.10 works properly.

When I try to boot from CD it brings me thist message:

* Loading hardware drivers

udevd-event[2241]: /sbin/modprobe -b pci:0000125Dd00001978sv000010cFsd00001053bc04sc01i00'
abnormal exit

Segmentation fault

Here's my complete hardware list:

CPU INFORMATION
 GenuineIntel, Pentium III (Coppermine)
 Number of CPUs: 1
 CPU clock currently at 598.398 MHz with 256 KB cache
 Numbering: family(6) model(8) stepping(3)
 Bogomips: 1196.79
 Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse up

MEMORY INFORMATION
 Total memory: 502 MB
 Total swap: 839 MB

STORAGE INFORMATION
 SCSI device - scsi0
  Vendor: ATA
  Model: TOSHIBA MK2016GA
 SCSI device - scsi1
  Vendor: SONY
  Model: DVD RW DW-Q58A

HARDWARE INFORMATION
MOTHERBOARD
 Host bridge
  Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
  Subsystem: Fujitsu Limited. Device 1039
 PCI bridge(s)
  Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
  Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
 USB controller(s)
  Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
  Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
 IDE interface
  Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) (prog-if 80 [Master])

GRAPHIC CARD
 VGA controller
  ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)
  Subsystem: Fujitsu Limited. Device 1074

SOUND CARD
 Multimedia controller
  ESS Technology ES1978 Maestro 2E (rev 10)
  Subsystem: Fujitsu Limited. Device 1053

NETWORK
 Ethernet controller
  Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
  Subsystem: Netgear Device 5d00

[Martin Daser (m4rt1n-d453r)]

Hi I had the same problem and came to the same conclusion: I installed 8.10 and upgraded to 9.04 while keeping the kernel from 8.10.
That works, but leaves you with an old kernel.
In the meantime I installed a new mainline kernel, actually 2.6.31-020631-generic from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

This one runs! Yay!

I hope the issue will be solved in Karmic ... I did not yet try the rc.

While searching for solutions on the internet, I found another statement, which says that the original reason for the crash was an invalid setting in the ACPI tables of the 6540's BIOS (don't nail me down on details, as I am not familiar with that part of the box ...).
If that is true, I wondered whether there was a BIOS update which corrects those tables.
I didn't find one though ...

Good luck,
    Martin

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. Could you please add the log files from '/var/log/dist-upgrade/' to this bug report as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!