how do I find out what's hanging me up?

[Mark Peveto]

It's not perfect by any means, but brother when you don't have a pair of eyes handy it's better than nothin.  I haven't bought knfb yet, although my
fiance, Alicia, has it.

Mark Peveto
Registered Linux user number 600552
Sent from sonar using alpine 2.20.13


On Mon, 4 Jul 2016, John G. Heim wrote:

> If you can configure a serial console, you would be able to read those
> messages. But I still say it's a process in an uninterrruptable sleep which
> means the kernel can't kill it during a normal shutdown. That, in turn,
> implies that it is a kernel bug in a device driver. In fact, I will wager it's
> the driver for your sound card and the process that is in an uninterruptable
> sleep is pulse. That's just a guess though.
> If the machine is kind of old, it is very likely to have a serial port. Then
> you need another computer and a null modem cable to configure a serial
> console.  There is a really good serial console howto on the web. No point in
> me reiterating all that. If you have never configured a serial console before,
> you are not likely to have a null modem cable lying around. But setting up a
> serial console is a valuable skill for a blind linux sysadmin to have. You can
> even do a serial console install of VMware ESXI.
>
> PS: Thanks for the tip on tap tap see. I'd never heard of it before. I am
> going to try it today. When I need to have a screen read to me by my phone, I
> have been using the knfbReader app.
>
> On 07/03/2016 01:08 PM, Mark Peveto wrote:
> > I've been working on this more today, pulling out all the tools I've got.
> > To the point i'm using tap tap see to try and get an idea of what's on my
> > screen when reboot hangs.  The most i can
> > get  is a message about bus socket display, and a command prompt.
> > Not real helpful, but I guess it's a start.
> >
> > Mark Peveto
> > Registered Linux user number 600552
> > Sent from sonar using alpine 2.20.13
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Tony Baechler wrote:
> >
> > > On 7/2/2016 1:54 AM, Mark Peveto wrote:
> > > > The short version of a long story.  I've just installed sonar on a dell
> > > > pc.
> > > > I've also got it installed on a compaq/hp machine, where the followig
> > > > problem doesn't exist.  On the dell, sudo reboot seems to hang.  Sudo
> > > > shutdown works fine.  I've tried sudo shutdown -r now, sudo systemctl
> > > > reboot, and
> > > > other options.  How, without sighted help, can I find out what's causing
> > > > this machine to hang when I reboot.  What's strange is this...why does
> > > > it
> > > > shut
> > > > down just fine, but not reboot?
> > > I'm not familiar with Sonar, so consider these random guesses. First, have
> > > you
> > > looked in /var/log/syslog and kern.log? There might be a process not
> > > shutting
> > > down properly. If you halt the system, all processes are killed and all
> > > filesystems are unmounted. A reboot only resets the system, so I suppose
> > > it's
> > > possible that a process is behaving badly or the kernel can't unmount a
> > > filesystem. I see this sometimes with slow USB devices, like if I copy a
> > > ton
> > > of files to my SD card. A more likely explanation is an ACPI or power
> > > management issue. You didn't say how old the machines are, but it could be
> > > a
> > > BIOS bug. Recent kernels should work around this. Without knowing the age
> > > of
> > > the machine and the kernel version, I can only guess.
> > >
> > > Also, the machine isn't a laptop, right? Laptops usually have power
> > > management
> > > issues. On Debian, there is a package called acpi-tools. Try installing it
> > > if
> > > it isn't there or purging it if it's there. I have better luck without it
> > > installed. I would bet syslog and kern.log would have clues to your
> > > problem. I
> > > would check those first. Make note of the time you reboot the machine and
> > > look
> > > at those files with less. You could try booting a live CD to avoid adding
> > > all
> > > of the boot messages to the logs. You didn't say if that happens on a live
> > > CD,
> > > booting from the hard drive, other distros, etc. I''ve noticed most live
> > > CDs
> > > have strange shutdown problems. You might have to pass a parameter on the
> > > kernel command line. Both HP and Dell have issues with Linux.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tony Baechler, founder, Baechler Access Technology Services
> > > Putting accessibility at the forefront of technology
> > > mailto:bats at batsupport.com
> > > Phone: 1-619-746-8310  SMS text: 1-619-375-2545
> > >
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