[Eug-lug] Random freezes

[Jason LaPier]

Another quick indicator for me is to hit the num lock key and see if the
light goes on or off - if the whole machine is locked, the light will be
stuck. If it's not stuck, you should be able to hit ctrl-alt-backspace
to restart X. I don't think that's a distribution specific or
WM-specific key-combo, but I really don't know - it's worked for me when
something has hung X (for example an open web-page that has some quirky
flash or other plug-in media in it). 

- Jason L.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: euglug-bounces at euglug.org 
> [mailto:euglug-bounces at euglug.org] On Behalf Of Allen Brown
> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 9:19 AM
> To: Eugene Unix and Gnu/Linux User Group
> Subject: Re: [Eug-lug] Random freezes
> 
> If you can no longer ssh in from another computer then it is 
> probably total lockup.  Otherwise it isn't clear.
> 
> Generally I've had X lockups caused by netscape or mozilla.
> Kill that app and everything clears up.  Mozilla is better 
> than netscape, but it still causes problems.
> --
> Allen Brown  abrown at peak.org  http://brown.armoredpenguin.com/~abrown/
>    I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as
>    my telephone.  My wish has come true.  I no longer know how to
>    use my telephone. --- Bjarne Stroustrup, CS prof, designer of C++
> 
> Martin Kelly wrote:
> > Nothing in /var/log/messages or dmesg... I don't think it's the 
> > kernel, thankfully.
> > 
> > Yeah, I wasn't able to do Ctrl+Alt+F6 to get to a virtual tty. Is X 
> > able to free that up?
> > 
> > I've got 512MB ram and usually my RAM usage is between 75-200 (I'm 
> > running XFCE too)... I don't think it's RAM. Also, things 
> weren't slow 
> > before the freeze, either time.
> > 
> > I just switched to amarok and I'm not getting crashes anymore. I'm 
> > thinking it might've been XMMS's fault. I'd heard it was buggy, but 
> > crashing a whole system? Also, I've been using XMMS for 
> almost a year 
> > and never had the problem... weird.
> > 
> > Martin
> > 
> > larry price wrote:
> > 
> >> /var/log/messages might have something if there were 
> kernel messages 
> >> they might show up in the output of dmesg
> >>
> >> are you sure it wasn't strictly an X freeze up? (were you able to 
> >> suspend the X session and use a tty session to talk to the box?)
> >>
> >> how much memory + swap do you have on the box? (if you are 
> trying to 
> >> cram 2GB worth of activity into 128MB ram + 512MB swap 
> that will slow 
> >> things to a crawl)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 1/8/07, Martin Kelly <aomighty at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey all,
> >>>
> >>> I have just had my computer freeze twice within 10 minutes or so.
> >>> Activities: xorg, XMMS, firefox, apache serving a 60MB or 
> so download.
> >>> Both times, the freeze happened when the person 
> downloading from me 
> >>> was at 14%... I don't know if this is a coincidence or not. Note 
> >>> these were complete frezes, not just xorg freezes... it 
> was very strange.
> >>>
> >>> My question is if anybody knows what log files I might 
> check to find 
> >>> the cause of the freeze. Also, do you think it has 
> something to do 
> >>> with the downloading?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Martin
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