screen freezes everyday at 23.59

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1

This has only just started to happen. Machine has been running fine for almost 12 months - openSuse 11.0 , withe latest updates of KDE 4.1.1 release 7.

The key symptom is that the desktop seems frozen however the mouse pointer still works but mouse clicks or keyboard entry have no effect. However the machine is still working and when accessed via ssh Top shows init and plasma but with only about 1% of cpu.

There is no entry in any of the log that I can see (via Yast - there may be other logs I should be looking at but don’t know what). The one thing I am sure of is that this is being triggered when the clock changes from 23.59. I managed to reproduce it by changing the machine clock during the middle of the day tp 23.58 and then sure enough at 23.59 it froze. So it must be a time based event that is causing it. Looked in cron, nothing there set to go off. So guessing it could be some software trying to do update check maybe but not sure what it could be as I haven’t installed anything new on this machine apart from the normal patches.

The only thing I can think of is that it may have started when I tried to switch compiz on but nothing seemed to happen so swicthed it off again. Perhaps something there.

Any help towards finding a soluton (or at least the cause of the problem) would be much appreciated

Thanks

Malcolm

2

Maybe Yast is refreshing repos at that time. Did you create an update schedule?

3

Thankls for the suggestion.
Software repositories are set to automatically refresh but can’t see anything reesembling a schedule for them. Online automatic update is not enabled. I wish there was a log file I could examine that might have some help. Will try disabling all of teh automatic repository refreshes.

4

Hi,

as you described it seems that the rest of the machine still works, but only kde freezes (correct me if I am wrong). If that is the case you will find nothing in the global logs, you might find something in your .xsession-errors log in you home directory.

It would also be helpful if you say which repository did you use to install kde 4.1.x. Currently I have 4.1.3 (KDE 4.1.3) “release 68.1” from kde 4 stable repository installed, which is a newer version than you mentioned. Maybe updating kde solves your problem.

Hope this helps

5

I believe there is more than one thread in the openSUSE fora with the word
“midnight” in the subject, check them out.

My guess is that a cron job is starting at midnight, and throwing an
non-recoverable error.

6

Thanks the advice so far. Yes it is only KDE that freezes, and if I kill the session associated with the freezing windows (via ssh) I can then login again and carry on as normal.

I upgraded to KDE4.1.3 using the stable repository you mention. Problem still persists. Hoewever I am convinced it is something to do with my KDE config as I logged in as another user, set the time to 23.58 and waited for the midnight hour. Sailed right on through with no problems.

So then went and found the .xsession-errors file and there are some messages in there which look like problems. [Aside : Earlier in week I changed my KDE config to use mplayer instead of KDE soundsystem for event notification as other forum entries had pointed to that as a possible source of freezing.]

++++ Here are the last 50 line from xsession-errors +++

Playing /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Window-Close.ogg.
[Ogg] stream 0: audio (Vorbis), -aid 0
Ogg file format detected.

Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 96.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 12000->88200)
Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis decoder)

AO: [oss] 44100Hz 1ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback…
QObject: Do not delete object, ‘unnamed’, during its event handler!
X Error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) 3
Major opcode: 20
Minor opcode: 0
Resource id: 0x3a00001
A: 0.4 (00.3) of 0.6 (00.6) 0.2%

Exiting… (End of file)
MPlayer 1.0rc2-SUSE Linux 11.0 (x86_64)-Packman-4.3 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz (Family: 6, Model: 15, Stepping: 13)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2
Can’t open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can’t init input joystick
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

Playing /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Window-Close.ogg.
[Ogg] stream 0: audio (Vorbis), -aid 0
Ogg file format detected.

Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 1 ch, s16le, 96.0 kbit/13.61% (ratio: 12000->88200)
Selected audio codec: [ffvorbis] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg Vorbis decoder)

AO: [oss] 44100Hz 1ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback…
A: 0.4 (00.3) of 0.6 (00.6) 0.2%

Exiting… (End of file)
kwin: X Error (error: <unknown>[DAMAGE+0], request: XDamageDestroy[DAMAGE+2], resource: 0x1801ea4)
kwin: X Error (error: <unknown>[DAMAGE+0], request: XDamageDestroy[DAMAGE+2], resource: 0x1801fd5)
kwin: X Error (error: <unknown>[DAMAGE+0], request: XDamageDestroy[DAMAGE+2], resource: 0x1801fde)
kwin: X Error (error: <unknown>[DAMAGE+0], request: XDamageDestroy[DAMAGE+2], resource: 0x1801fe1)
QObject::startTimer: QTimer cannot have a negative interval
kwin: X Error (error: <unknown>[DAMAGE+0], request: XDamageDestroy[DAMAGE+2], resource: 0x1801fe7)
++++ END OF 50 LINES ++++

Unfortunately I don’t know how to resolve these errors as I don’t know what they mean.

With respect to possibility of cron kicking something off I don’t think that is the case as I have doen a crontab command as both myself and root and nothing is listed. Also if it were cron the it should presumably also effect in the same way when I logged in as a different user - but it didn’t.

The only other thing I can do is start to try and do a compare of the different kde configs for the two users to try and spot whatever it is that might be causing this problem.

7

Haven’t a clue to a solution to your problem, only a curious observation.

Looking over the structure of managing AppArmor, I noticed that in the AppArmor Reports section, the time daily that it generates reports is … guess what? 23:59

I believe that by default the actually writing of a logfile is disabled, but there may be something triggered associated with it.

May be a snipe hunt, but it came to my mind when I saw this post. :slight_smile:

8

Thanks for info xavier, but don’t think it apparmor that is that causing the problem, as apparmor is system wide isn’t it. And the problem would then happen whichever user I logged on with.

Anyway something very wierd has happened. I logged into my machine today ready to do more tests and my KDE desktop appears to have changed - gone was the green suse backdrop I normally have and in its place was a plane blue background.

So back into desktop configuration to select the green one, applied it and things look different on my taskbar - sharper and clearer. In addition the two buttons on right to lock the window and to exit, logoff etc are now much smaller one above the other instead of being next to each other as they were previously and on the far right a little toolbar configuration widget thingy has appeared which wasn’t there before.

The best bit is didn’t freeze at 23.59. No idea what has happened but hey must be my Christmas miracle. Thanks everyone for the help and info offered.

9

I am getting the same thing - IBM x40 laptop. Seems to be alleviated when I disable “desktop effects”. Mouse moves - no other function available. I think its Compiz related.