Hello, my system seems to freeze randomly. It would be great to get some advice on how to debug the issue, e.g. by looking at various logs (and ideally without re-installing the OS or removing hardware).
The freezing would occur sometimes after days, sometimes after minutes of a reboot. The desktop would be visible, but neither keyboard, mouse, or network would work. The activity on the desktop also freezes, including the clock. The harddrives don’t seem to have any activity. No keyboard combination (e.g. Ctrl-F5 or Ctrl-Alt-Del) would have any effect. A reboot seems to be the only way.
Looking at /var/log/message or .xsession-errors didn’t immediately show anything related to the freeze. But it would be helpful to know which logs to check, and what messages to look for.
The system is setup as follows:
Software
** OpenSuse 11.0
** Linux 2.6.25.20
** Gnome
** Running Compiz (as windows manager)
Hardware
** AMD Athlon 64 CPU
** Asus K8N4-E Mainboard
** 4x 1GB SDRAM DDR400
** nVidia GForce 8600GT
** WinTV PVR 150 Card
** 3x Internal SATA HD
** 2x ViewSonic screens
** USB Printer and External HD
The system boots fine, and I can run dozens of apps in parallel, several times and without problems, including Nautilus, Firefox, VMWare, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and F-Spot. I’ve had uptimes of several weeks.
Note that it took quite a while to get all hardware, monitors, Compiz, VMWare, Myst, etc. to work; hence I’m reluctant to reinstall.
Has this just started happening over a period of time?
Hard to tell; for a longer time for sure, but not sure whether it happened on my OpenSuse 10.3 around two years ago (don’t remember, but there were different kinds of issues for sure, possibly related).
BIOS Temperatures for CPU etc look OK?
Yup. It seems to be humming along…
How old is the power supply and what wattage?
It is maybe a year old. Actually bought an upgrade with higher wattage at the time, to power all the devices.
Have you inspected the system for dust/lint buildup and looked at the CPU fan/heatsink.
Yes, I constantly (sometimes daily) blow out dust, check fans, CPU, etc. All good.
Are you running lm-sensors?
Actually, no. Just installed (it just said Core Temp +43.0 C). But the temps overall seem to be good as far as I can tell. The case is well ventilated.
If your keyboard light flashes on and off after you freeze up, and you’re running a wireless card, that could be the source of the problem. If not, please disregard.
Hi
Hmmmm, well you could look at the other logs in /var/log eg warn acpid
etc. Have you looked at booting from an install cd/dvd that has mem
test and running that overnight?
>
> Hello, my system seems to freeze randomly. It would be great to get some
> advice on how to debug the issue, e.g. by looking at various logs (and
> ideally without re-installing the OS or removing hardware).
>
> The freezing would occur sometimes after days, sometimes after minutes
> of a reboot. The desktop would be visible, but neither keyboard, mouse,
> or network would work. The activity on the desktop also freezes,
> including the clock. The harddrives don’t seem to have any activity. No
> keyboard combination (e.g. Ctrl-F5 or Ctrl-Alt-Del) would have any
> effect. A reboot seems to be the only way.
<snip>
> Thanks!
>
cooper09;
Are you running any services such as Samba or Dovecot? If so these links may
apply. If you are not, the links most likely do not apply to your case.
/var/log/warn: Shows some messages like “kernel: set_rtc_mmss: can’t update from 58 to 2”, “kernel: ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND…”, “kernel: ACPI: I/O resource it87 conflicts…”, among other more harmless messages.
/var/log/acpid: Shows only a bunch of “client connected from 41242…” messages.
Will look at the mem test. I actually had one memory bank failure a couple of months ago, but replaced the pair with 2 new ones.
Will also look at using gkrellmn + hddtemp, thanks. Haven’t noticed anything peculiar running top, besides occasional spikes of beagled.
The freeze is happening quite sporadic, and mostly only after days of operating. I’ve considered that it may be related to the screensaver, e.g. when I keep the monitors on over night…
Yes, I am running Samba version 3.2.4-4.3-2042-SUSE-SL11.0, but not Dovecot. The samba service seems to work ok with other Win boxes on the LAN. After reading that thread, and looking at /var/log/samba/log.smbd, I did not see any notify errors. My smb.conf file does not have the “notify:inotify = false” entry, but I can try adding it, if you still think it may be related.
The screensaver was ‘Phosphor’ after I disabled the random some time ago (thinking this one would be ok). I’ve now set it to ‘Blank screen’, but does it make a difference, or do I need to disable the “Activate screensaver when computer is idle” checkbox? If so, it would be sad to always manually turn of the monitors…
Briefly checking compiz doesn’t seem to have any screensaver settings, but I’m wondering whether it could interfere?
The screensaver was ‘Phosphor’ after I disabled the random some time ago (thinking this one would be ok). I’ve now set it to ‘Blank screen’, but does it make a difference, or do I need to disable the “Activate screensaver when computer is idle” checkbox? If so, it would be sad to always manually turn of the monitors…
Briefly checking compiz doesn’t seem to have any screensaver settings, but I’m wondering whether it could interfere?
cooper09 adjusted his/her AFDB on Wednesday 13 May 2009 09:06 to write:
>
> Hello, my system seems to freeze randomly. It would be great to get some
> advice on how to debug the issue, e.g. by looking at various logs (and
> ideally without re-installing the OS or removing hardware).
>
> The freezing would occur sometimes after days, sometimes after minutes
> of a reboot. The desktop would be visible, but neither keyboard, mouse,
> or network would work. The activity on the desktop also freezes,
> including the clock. The harddrives don’t seem to have any activity. No
> keyboard combination (e.g. Ctrl-F5 or Ctrl-Alt-Del) would have any
> effect. A reboot seems to be the only way.
>
Have toy enabled SysReq in YaST>System>sysconfig/editor, this might give you
chance to sync the disks before a reboot which could dump some meaningful
info into some logs, also if it does sync then you will not have to sit
through a fs check on reboot.
>
> PV;1985694 Wrote:
>>
>> Are you running any services such as Samba or Dovecot? If so these
>> links may apply. If you are not, the links most likely do not apply to
>> your case.
>>
>> ‘[Samba] samba freezes the server’
>> (http://www.mail-archive.com/samba%40lists.samba.org/msg98069.html)
>> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=463372
>>
>
> Yes, I am running Samba version 3.2.4-4.3-2042-SUSE-SL11.0, but not
> Dovecot. The samba service seems to work ok with other Win boxes on the
> LAN. After reading that thread, and looking at /var/log/samba/log.smbd,
> I did not see any notify errors. My smb.conf file does not have the
> “notify:inotify = false” entry, but I can try adding it, if you still
> think it may be related.
>
>
cooper09;
See my follow up to this post. The above error is for OpenSuse 11.1 only NOT
11.0. It was my mistake.
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green