OS "Turn Off Computer" works but Restart does not.

English Hardware
1

Hi, my system is as follows. I am running OS Linux 3.1.10-1.16-desktop x86_64
System: openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64)
KDE: 4.7.2 (4.7.2) “release 5”
Display Info
Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
Model: ES1000 515E
2D driver: radeon
3D driver: swrast (No 3D Acceleration) (7.11)
CPU Information
Processor (CPU): Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5410 @ 2.33GHz
Speed: 2,327.45 MHz
Cores: 8
Memory Information
Total memory (RAM): 8.8 GiB
Free memory: 7.9 GiB (+ 412.9 MiB Caches)
Free swap: 2.0 GiB

All is well until I try a restart from the desktop when system appears to log me out but then I just get a blank screen and nothing else. I can use the OS to turn off but not restart. Can anybody suggest why this might be please.
Budgie2

2

On 08/08/2012 12:06 AM, Budgie2 wrote:
> All is well until I try a restart from the desktop when system appears
> to log me out

i’m confused a little: what do you mean by “when system appears to log
me out”…that is, what do you see? what are the indications you get
from the machine that you have been logged out? like:

  1. you walk away from the machine for a while (how long) and when you
    come back the screen is black, the fans are not turning, all of the LEDs
    are dark, the machine is cold to the touch because it is completely
    off…or

  2. you are typing along and take a phone call (how long)…and when you
    look back at the machine the fans are turning, the LEDs are lit up but
    the screen is black and when you press any key nothing happens. also,
    nothing happens with a mouse click…or

  3. or as above, except when you look back from the phone to the computer
    you see a login screen, but you can’t type your password into it…or

  4. or what.

and, the next time it happens try this and report back what happens when you

a. hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and then press F2

b. does the screen change and say something like “Welcome to [blah
blah]” and end with “Login:” ??

c. if so, type in your user ID, and then it will ask for “Password:” so
give it your password and press enter

d. the screen may change to show a system prompt which will by kinda like


yourID@yourMachine'sID:~>

with a blinking underline at the end, waiting your your command

e. type in “top” (without the quotes and hit enter)

f. the screen will change and the data will change every few
seconds…watch for (say) thirty seconds noting what program is at the
top of the list (that will be the word or letters in the “COMMAND”
column…then, continue

g. press “q” and top should stop and return you to your prompt, with
another blinking underline…

h. hold down Ctrl and Alt keys and then press F7, what do you see when
you get back to your desktop? if it is normal report back here what you
saw at the top of top…

i. if it is black then hold down Ctrl and Alt keys and then press F2 and
type in


su -

do NOT forget the space and dash after the u…

j. give the root password, the display should change to red and show
something like


yourMachine'sID:~ #

and a blinking white underline

k. type in


shutdown -h now

and the machine should do an orderly shutdown and power off…so, then
do a power up and tell us here whats going on…

> but then I just get a blank screen and nothing else.

no sound from the machine, no LEDs lit, nothing at all??

note: Ctrl+Alt+Fx switches from desktop to the full screen command line
terminals one (F1) through six (F6)…and at F7 is always your
desktop…at F10 are kernel messages…

–
dd http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

3

What does the log file (/var/log/messages) say during the attempt to reboot?

4

I’d also take a look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log. There have been some discussions of x windows crashing and leaving people with unresponsive (though ssh’able) machines.

5

Yes, that happens to me, too, but on a 32 bit system. This is Toshiba laptop, purchased in 2004. It rebooted fine when I was running suse 10.1, but from opensuse 11.0 onward it has shutdown but not booted. Recently, I experimented with Arch linux, and it rebooted fine from there. However, it won’t reboot using Fedora 17, Mint Maya, opensuse 12.1 or opensuse 12.2.

I don’t let it bother me, particularly since it is an old machine that I have relegated to use for testing.

The one similarity that I see with your system, is that mine uses an ATI graphics card and the 2D radeon driver. But it is a different card, and the 3D driver is listed as R100 classic.

If I accidentally reboot, then after disk activity appears to have stopped, I power off then power on again.

I don’t have records to check this. I seem to remember that when running opensuse 11.0 and 11.3, if I powered it off in that way, there was a forced “fsck” on boot, indicating that the disk had not been properly updated.

With 11.4, 12.1 and now 12.2 (beta versions), if I accidentally reboot, then force a power off, the disk comes up clean. The change might be because I have been using an encrypted LVM since 11.4, and that might result in the filesystem umounting being done earlier in the reboot cycle.

A note to dd@ - I’m guessing that you have misunderstood the problem. I think the OP is not talking about spontaneous hangs. I think he is only talking about a hang after initiating a reboot.

I’ll add that, in my case, I have tried logging in at a virtual console (CTL-ALT-F1), and doing a “shutdown -r now” from there. I get the same hang. I think I have also tried shutting down X (with telinit 3), and then rebooting, and that does not help. However, I have not documented that attempt so I might be misremembering.

6

On 08/08/2012 08:06 PM, nrickert wrote:
> A note to dd@ - I’m guessing that you have misunderstood the problem.
> I think the OP is not talking about spontaneous hangs. I think he is
> only talking about a hang after initiating a reboot.

could be…certainly i don’t know what s/he meant by “system appears to
log me out but then I just get a blank screen and nothing else.”

which is why i asked for clarification…

anyway, if he is trying to ‘fix’ his linux by using the old MS procedure
of rebooting, he is wasting time…

–
dd

7

Hi and many thanks for the detailed comments/questions.

Nrickart is correct, the problem results from my initiating a reboot. This was prompted following an update. The machine runs 24/7 and re-boot is very slow so this is the only reason I attempt this process. I say appears to log me out from seeing script scrolling up screen. I then get black screen. No cursor. Not yet looked at the logs but of course I will although will probably not understand them. Will post them here in due course if you have time to look at them.
Many thanks for the replies.
Budgie2
ps What is MS?!!!