Xorg freezes, crashes, locks, shoots and leaves

Andrea Giuliano a.giuliano at iccu.sbn.it
Tue Sep 7 08:09:08 UTC 2004


Dear Gene,

the C-A-K* and C-A-K-/ sequence are slightly different from 
C-A-Backspace. They should not kill the X server, but just force an 
application to release X resources in case it is blocked for some 
reason. I'm sorry, I don't have any further details (they're to much 
complex for me), but I found those sequence useful in some cases.

By the way, I would really appreciate if you told me wheter this had 
helped you or not: this is an issue that I ciclycally run across, and 
every time I forget how I solved it!

Best regards.

Gene Smith wrote:

> Andrea Giuliano wrote, On 09/06/2004 04:26 AM:
>
>> Dear Gene,
>>
>> I know your problem very well! Anyway, after having X freezing the 
>> system for several months, at present it doesn't happen any more. 
>> It's hard to say way.
>>
>> I only can suggest you to add the following lines to xorg.conf:
>>
>> Section "ServerFlags"
>>    Option        "AllowDeactivateGrabs" "true"
>>    Option        "AllowClosedownGrabs" "true"
>> EndSection
>>
>> They allow you to use C-A-K-* and C-A-K-/ to try to unlock X in some 
>> situations (see man xorg.conf for a few detail). To avoid 
>> misunderstandings, please note that C-A-K-* means "Control, Alt, 
>> Keypad *" pressed together.
>
>
> Ctrl-alt-backspace, I thought, was supposed to kill X by default 
> (unless disabled somehow). Have not tried ctrl-alt-bspace with working 
> fc2 system. Perhap it is different with new xorg and you need the 
> above Section?
>
> I will read the man put these in my file and see what happens. Thanks.
>
>>
>> This could be a start to investigate what is happening to your 
>> system. I would not be very optimistic, but at least you can try, 
>> it's very easy. Remember to restart your X server after the changes 
>> above.
>>
>> Best regards... and good luck!!!
>>
>> Gene Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe there is something wrong with my computer, I don't know, but 
>>> it passes the overnight test of memtest86 from the fc 2 cd and fsck.
>>>
>>> The problem is that X seems to just freeze up at random times. 
>>> Sometimes it goes for days with no problem. Sometimes it is twice in 
>>> one day, like today. It also seems to be more frequent (possibly) 
>>> with the latest kernel 2.6.8-1.521 (and I have kept completely 
>>> updated with yum).
>>>
>>> My driver is the default nvidia for a GeForce3 Ti 200 card and 
>>> system is 500Mhz Athlon with 384M memory. It has run other linux 
>>> systems for years with no problem, e.g., RH 7.2, Debian.
>>>
>>> By "freeze" I mean the keyboard and mouses button do nothing, only 
>>> the mouse cursor moves. The system does not really crash. The freeze 
>>> is never associated with doing any particular thing, AFAICT.
>>>
>>> I can go run vncviewer from another box and it comes up and works 
>>> fine. After "killall -9 X" I can then login again and it goes again. 
>>> I have seen this with KDE and GNOME (but I typically just run KDE).
>>>
>>> I have been having this problem during fc2 test and after clean 
>>> install of fc2. See my previous message on this list, Subject "X 
>>> lock / crash + slowdowns - fc2" and possibly others where I have 
>>> mentioned this.
>>>
>>> I have no screen saver active.
>>>
>>> Any idea what could be causing this or how I can troubleshoot it? Or 
>>> is it a continuing bug in fc2 or Xorg?
>>>
>>> Tks,
>>> -gene
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Andrea Giuliano, Ph. D.
ICCU - Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico
Viale Castro Pretorio 105, Rome - ITALY
Tel. +39064989509, Fax +39064059302





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