Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded. Even the second hand on my desktop clock stopped moving. Just as I was about to try for an alternate text console, it rebooted itself and seems to be fine. This is the third or fourth time I've had it lock up in the past few months, but the only time it's rebooted itself and, until I "upgraded" to F16 it never happened.
I'm reporting this mostly to see if anybody else has had any similar issues, and if so, what version of Fedora they're using. Suggestions for diagnostics will be appreciated, but they'll have to be something I can do over ssh, as I'm about to leave for Chaos Manor, where I'll be house sitting while Jerry and Roberta visit their beach house.
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 08:18:03 -0700, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded. Even the second hand on my desktop clock stopped moving. Just as I was about to try for an alternate text console, it rebooted itself and seems to be fine. This is the third or fourth time I've had it lock up in the past few months, but the only time it's rebooted itself and, until I "upgraded" to F16 it never happened.
Check that your fans are all running and that there isn't a lot of dust blocking air flow.
On 06/21/2012 12:07 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 21.06.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded.
Does M-sysrq work?
I don't have it active and even if I did, it rebooted before I had time to test it. Probably I should set it up next week when I get home.
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 06/21/2012 12:07 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 21.06.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes
ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded.
Does M-sysrq work?
I don't have it active and even if I did, it rebooted before I had time to test it. Probably I should set it up next week when I get home.
-- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.**org/mailman/listinfo/usershttps://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/**Mailing_list_guidelineshttp://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
I recently got a weird freeze in my F-17 upgrade. I went to remove one program and ended up removing about 38. after this I chose to re-install the entire OS and the problem was solved. You might not need to be as drastic. If you do top and view the one - or so many - program(s) that use an incredible amount of resources, then remove that/those program(s), you should be fine.
On 06/21/2012 04:46 PM, Richard Vickery wrote:
You might not need to be as drastic. If you do top and view the one - or so many - program(s) that use an incredible amount of resources, then remove that/those program(s), you should be fine.
So far, when I've had my desktop freeze I've never been able to get to either a terminal or a CLI to do that.
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 06/21/2012 04:46 PM, Richard Vickery wrote:
You might not need to be as drastic. If you do top and view the one - or so many - program(s) that use an incredible amount of resources, then remove that/those program(s), you should be fine.
So far, when I've had my desktop freeze I've never been able to get to either a terminal or a CLI to do that.
--
sounds like my experience, although, I was thinking - for yourself - of calling top at times like this current moment, and removing anything that, say, uses over 20%, certainly over 25%
On 06/21/2012 11:47 AM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 08:18:03 -0700, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded. Even the second hand on my desktop clock stopped moving. Just as I was about to try for an alternate text console, it rebooted itself and seems to be fine. This is the third or fourth time I've had it lock up in the past few months, but the only time it's rebooted itself and, until I "upgraded" to F16 it never happened.
Check that your fans are all running and that there isn't a lot of dust blocking air flow.
Joe...really?...that would cause a REBOOT all by itself? Hmm......I wouldn't have thought of that, I was thinking in the other direction.....hackers....virus....altered config files etc. only because a freeze is one thing....a complete reboot is something else altogether.....and it's scary.....especially if there are windows or web-pages open that have personal info....(banking...medical records etc...)
EGO II
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 08:18:03AM -0700, Joe Zeff wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded. Even the second hand on my desktop clock stopped moving. Just as I was about to try for an alternate text console, it rebooted itself and seems to be fine. This is the third or fourth time I've had it lock up in the past few months, but the only time it's rebooted itself and, until I "upgraded" to F16 it never happened.
Once had a PSU dying on me with quite the same results. Sometimes freezing, etc. Became worse and worse and eventually the PSU died. Not initially, but eventually it had problems booting up, once that started occurring it made it quite easy to figure out the problem (was suspecting overheating, bad connection, GPU before that).
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 21:25:23 -0400, "Eddie G.O'Connor Jr-I" eoconnor25@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/21/2012 11:47 AM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
Check that your fans are all running and that there isn't a lot of dust blocking air flow.
Joe...really?...that would cause a REBOOT all by itself? Hmm......I wouldn't have thought of that, I was thinking in the other direction.....hackers....virus....altered config files etc. only because a freeze is one thing....a complete reboot is something else altogether.....and it's scary.....especially if there are windows or web-pages open that have personal info....(banking...medical records etc...)
If your CPU or support chips are running hot, lots of odd bad stuff can happen. It's not the only possible cause though.
On 06/21/2012 12:07 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 21.06.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
Currently, my desktop's running F16, fully updated. Just a few minutes ago, I was reading my morning comics on-line when my box froze. Nothing responded.
Does M-sysrq work?
When you asked this, I was away from home, and when I got back everything was OK, so I forgot about it. Recently, it happened again. Now, I've activated the Magic Sysrq (making sure it's active at boot) and printed out the instructions, JIC. As there was a kernel update this morning, I logged out instead of rebooting, switched to a text console and tested it. After several tries, I managed to press Alt-SysRq-r correctly and got it to respond to that, but never got any other presses to work. After rebooting, I moved to a different console, logged in as root and checked to make sure it was supposed to be active. Yes. Again, it took several tries, but I managed to get r to work, and it eventually responded to s, syncing the drives. I can't say I'm confident about it, but it might work when needed. If you have any suggestions about how to make it work properly, I'll be more than happy to do some more testing. After all, the worst I can do is blow away some uptime. Thanx again for your suggestion, and sorry I didn't get back to you about it sooner.
On 19.08.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
If you have any suggestions about how to make it work properly, I'll be more than happy to do some more testing.
As far as I remember, Fedora has it compiled in, but the standard is "disabled". Look in /etc/sysctl.conf after "kernel.sysrq", and if it's set to 0 or not present, add "kernel.sysrq = 1" and do a "sysctl -p" as root afterwards.
If a system hangs, the most important thing is to get all your data written to disk, to minimize data loss. This is done by pressing "S", after pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq). An often cited and well known combination (and easy to remember) is R-E-I-S-U-B.
Hope this helps!
On 08/19/2012 02:01 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
As far as I remember, Fedora has it compiled in, but the standard is "disabled". Look in /etc/sysctl.conf after "kernel.sysrq", and if it's set to 0 or not present, add "kernel.sysrq = 1" and do a "sysctl -p" as root afterwards.
Yes. I did that when I set it up, and after rebooting to start the new kernel, I made sure that it was set correctly. It is. Now, by "pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq)" do you mean that I hold those two keys down, let go and then press the other key? It's not clear, because I'm not sure exactly what I did to get a proper response. And, what does "AltGr" mean? Is it either Alt key, the left one or the right one? Again, I managed to make it respond a few times, but I'm not really sure what I did. Much better to practice now, and learn how to make it work reliably rather than wait for an emergency and hope I can get it to respond!
On 19.08.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
Now, by "pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq)" do you mean that I hold those two keys down, let go and then press the other key?
No. You press these two keys, hold it down, and add the other keys while you are holding AltGr+Sysrq.
The AltGr key is most probably the right Alt key. I have a standard norwegian keyboard and have no clue how yours look like :-) The AltGr key is next to the space key on the right side in my case.
Open a console, try holding down the AltGr+Sysrq with your right hand and press "s" with your left. This combination forces an emergency sync (fsync) and does not harm. You should see a message on the screen.
If you encounter a hang/freeze in X, you won't see anything, but in most cases it works. You'll see the effect when your system reboots after pressing "B". In some cases, you can see something in /var/log/messages after bringing up your system again.
On 08/19/2012 02:34 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
Open a console, try holding down the AltGr+Sysrq with your right hand and press "s" with your left. This combination forces an emergency sync (fsync) and does not harm. You should see a message on the screen.
Doesn't work, at least, not reliably. Once, I pressed AltGr+SysRq, let them go and pressed s and got a proper response. Once. Quite possibly because it didn't need it again. However, I just went back to that console and now it's working. Go know. The important thing is, I now know that it has to be the right Alt, not the left, and to try several times if it doesn't respond the first time. Thanx. If and when I get another lockup, I'll try it, starting, of course, with r to get proper control of the keyboard.
Am 19.08.2012 23:19, schrieb Joe Zeff:
On 08/19/2012 02:01 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
As far as I remember, Fedora has it compiled in, but the standard is "disabled". Look in /etc/sysctl.conf after "kernel.sysrq", and if it's set to 0 or not present, add "kernel.sysrq = 1" and do a "sysctl -p" as root afterwards.
Yes. I did that when I set it up, and after rebooting to start the new kernel, I made sure that it was set correctly. It is. Now, by "pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq)" do you mean that I hold those two keys down, let go and then press the other key? It's not clear, because I'm not sure exactly what I did to get a proper response. And, what does "AltGr" mean? Is it either Alt key, the left one or the right one? Again, I managed to make it respond a few times, but I'm not really sure what I did. Much better to practice now, and learn how to make it work reliably rather than wait for an emergency and hope I can get it to respond!
STRG + ALT + PRINT + <sysrq-function> STRG + ALT * PRINT + S = emergency sync as example
you do NOT let go any key you press it in this order and let down the keys all the time
On Sun, 2012-08-19 at 23:01 +0200, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 19.08.2012, Joe Zeff wrote:
If you have any suggestions about how to make it work properly, I'll be more than happy to do some more testing.
As far as I remember, Fedora has it compiled in, but the standard is "disabled". Look in /etc/sysctl.conf after "kernel.sysrq", and if it's set to 0 or not present, add "kernel.sysrq = 1" and do a "sysctl -p" as root afterwards.
If a system hangs, the most important thing is to get all your data written to disk, to minimize data loss. This is done by pressing "S", after pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq). An often cited and well known combination (and easy to remember) is R-E-I-S-U-B.
Hope this helps!
Well I need to ask .What key is AltGR? and Prt and SysReg are the same key. So what keys are you pressing?
On Sun, 2012-08-19 at 14:54 -0700, Joe Zeff wrote:
On 08/19/2012 02:34 PM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
Open a console, try holding down the AltGr+Sysrq with your right hand and press "s" with your left. This combination forces an emergency sync (fsync) and does not harm. You should see a message on the screen.
Doesn't work, at least, not reliably. Once, I pressed AltGr+SysRq, let them go and pressed s and got a proper response. Once. Quite possibly because it didn't need it again. However, I just went back to that console and now it's working. Go know. The important thing is, I now know that it has to be the right Alt, not the left, and to try several times if it doesn't respond the first time. Thanx. If and when I get another lockup, I'll try it, starting, of course, with r to get proper control of the keyboard.
On my machine it works either way. The s key can be pressed while tha alt-sysreg is pressed or after.
Am 20.08.2012 15:55, schrieb Aaron Konstam:
If a system hangs, the most important thing is to get all your data written to disk, to minimize data loss. This is done by pressing "S", after pressing and holding down AltGr+Prt(SysRq). An often cited and well known combination (and easy to remember) is R-E-I-S-U-B.
Hope this helps!
Well I need to ask .What key is AltGR? and Prt and SysReg are the same key. So what keys are you pressing?
forget the AltGr it is the same as CTRL+ALT and on most keyboards the right ALT-key
CTRL+ALT+PRINT = SysRQ CTRL+ALT+PRINT+S = emergency sync
It just happened again. I have reason to think that Firefox is responsible, but at present, it's just a guess. (One way I can tell it's happening is that I have an analog desktop clock running, and don't maximize windows. As long as the sweep-second hand's moving, I know the box hasn't froze.)
None of the Magic SysReq keys worked, and I ended up using the reset button again. After rebooting and logging in, I opened a terminal and as root ran
tail -f /var/log/messages
to watch what, if anything happened. I then used RightAlt-SysReq-r and saw the response that the keyboard had been set back to default. Using s caused an emergency sync, so I know that it works when I'm in X, something I hadn't tried before. Now we know, it's not just X that hangs, it's everything. Any suggestions as to how to find out what's causing this? (If it's lack of RAM, I'm kinda stuck as the mobo's maxed out and I can't afford an upgrade ATM.)
On 08/21/2012 03:43 PM, Joe Zeff uttered this comment:
It just happened again. I have reason to think that Firefox is responsible, but at present, it's just a guess. (One way I can tell it's happening is that I have an analog desktop clock running, and don't maximize windows. As long as the sweep-second hand's moving, I know the box hasn't froze.)
None of the Magic SysReq keys worked, and I ended up using the reset button again. After rebooting and logging in, I opened a terminal and as root ran
tail -f /var/log/messages
to watch what, if anything happened. I then used RightAlt-SysReq-r and saw the response that the keyboard had been set back to default. Using s caused an emergency sync, so I know that it works when I'm in X, something I hadn't tried before. Now we know, it's not just X that hangs, it's everything. Any suggestions as to how to find out what's causing this? (If it's lack of RAM, I'm kinda stuck as the mobo's maxed out and I can't afford an upgrade ATM.)
Stupid question, but have you tried using a different browser than Firefox like Opera or Chrome? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks@alldigital.com - - AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 - - - - First Law of Work: - - If you can't get it done in the first 24 hours, work nights. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
On 08/21/2012 05:28 PM, Rick Stevens wrote:
Stupid question, but have you tried using a different browser than Firefox like Opera or Chrome?
Not recently. I do have Seamonkey installed for emergencies, but would rather not use it because I dislike it intensely. What I'd like to find is a way to learn after the fact what happened.
On 21 August 2012 23:43, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
It just happened again. I have reason to think that Firefox is responsible, but at present, it's just a guess. (One way I can tell it's happening is that I have an analog desktop clock running, and don't maximize windows. As long as the sweep-second hand's moving, I know the box hasn't froze.)
None of the Magic SysReq keys worked, and I ended up using the reset button again. After rebooting and logging in, I opened a terminal and as root ran
tail -f /var/log/messages
to watch what, if anything happened. I then used RightAlt-SysReq-r and saw the response that the keyboard had been set back to default. Using s caused an emergency sync, so I know that it works when I'm in X, something I hadn't tried before. Now we know, it's not just X that hangs, it's everything. Any suggestions as to how to find out what's causing this? (If it's lack of RAM, I'm kinda stuck as the mobo's maxed out and I can't afford an upgrade ATM.)
So, funnily I had to deal with a machine that was apparently randomly freezing a week ago. It was running out of RAM and turned out not to have a swap partition enabled (there was a swap partition, but not being used). There were messages in /var/log/messages reporting oom-killer had been invoked. This seems to be less of a problem if there's a swap partition as the machine slows down first instead and seems to be more stable as a result. It was however an older version of Ubuntu being run and definitely not Firefox that was running down the memory. Of course bad memory, if that's the case, would look different to out of memory. How much memory is on the machine? You might have said elsewhere, but I can't see it on this thread.
Narrowing it down to firefox, possibly tricky (FWIW, I'm running F16 and not having this problem). From your original description it happened while reading stuff online, so the computer is sitting not doing much. Is it feasible to leave it running for a while not doing anything with some other apps open instead? Then A/B that with Firefox? Tedious and time-consuming unfortunately.
On 08/22/2012 03:17 PM, Ian Malone wrote:
How much memory is on the machine? You might have said elsewhere, but I can't see it on this thread.
The mobo's almost a decade old and maxed out at 1GB. Actually, the CPU could handle twice that, but without an appropriate mobo, it doesn't matter. Right now, alas, I can't afford to upgrade, but I might be able to in a few more months. When I do, I'm going all the way to an x64 system (Homebrew. Not because I'm good at hardware but because a good friend of mine is.) and this box will become a server for me to experiment on. Among other things, I think I can make it work as an outgoing SMTP server for my domain, using my hosting company as a smarthost, while keeping the MX records unchanged so that incoming mail still winds up on their POP server. (That way I don't have to worry about Port 25 being open.)
Joe Zeff wrote:
When I do, I'm going all the way to an x64 system
Which processor are you interested in? I think AMD's FX-8120 3.1 GHz, 8 Core, for the price, is a sweet deal?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
Am 22.08.2012 00:43, schrieb Joe Zeff:
It just happened again. I have reason to think that Firefox is responsible, but at present, it's just a guess. (One way I can tell it's happening is that I have an analog desktop clock running, and don't maximize windows. As long as the sweep-second hand's moving, I know the box hasn't froze.)
None of the Magic SysReq keys worked, and I ended up using the reset button again. After rebooting and logging in, I opened a terminal and as root ran
tail -f /var/log/messages
to watch what, if anything happened. I then used RightAlt-SysReq-r and saw the response that the keyboard had been set back to default. Using s caused an emergency sync, so I know that it works when I'm in X, something I hadn't tried before. Now we know, it's not just X that hangs
and for that is STRG+ALT+Print+K which kills X really and bring you back to the login-screen which is way more helpful than a complete reboot or reset
Kill all processes on the current virtual console (Can be used to kill X and svgalib programs, see below) This was originally designed to imitate a Secure Access Key
On 24.08.2012, Reindl Harald wrote:
and for that is STRG+ALT+Print+K which kills X really and bring you back to the login-screen which is way more helpful than a complete reboot or reset
You can have that cheaper, without using m-sysrq, just press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE.
On 08/24/2012 08:23 AM, Heinz Diehl wrote:
On 24.08.2012, Reindl Harald wrote:
and for that is STRG+ALT+Print+K which kills X really and bring you back to the login-screen which is way more helpful than a complete reboot or reset
You can have that cheaper, without using m-sysrq, just press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE.
This should only be used when all else fails.
Am 24.08.2012 17:23, schrieb Heinz Diehl:
On 24.08.2012, Reindl Harald wrote:
and for that is STRG+ALT+Print+K which kills X really and bring you back to the login-screen which is way more helpful than a complete reboot or reset
You can have that cheaper, without using m-sysrq, just press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE
YOU CAN NOT IF X IS FREEZED
additionally "killing" CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE was a feature some releases ago in default settings