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[Lancer]

There's not much worse than going to a loot of trouble documenting a problem complete with logs etc only to have LXF forum come up with the error:

[jjmac]

Howdy,

do you mean ...

Linux Format Forum Index » Linux » Help!
Post subject: Xorg versus Thinkpad Posted: Dec 28, 2006 - 06:21 AM
>>
I have an annoying problem with Fedora Core 6 on my IBM Thinkpad, model T22. It only seems to boot into X every third time or so.

Usually it begins to boot, but it stalls just when trying to change to the greeter (the part where I type in username and password).
.
.
.
>>

The saved page is just under 2 Mbs ...

Sounds curious though, and i know scrap about this really, but, the only thing that i notice there would be,

>>
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address)
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address)
drmOpenDevice: Open failed
>>

Though fails in the log don't necessarily mean that X it self wont start.

I'd try and save the logs from a failed boot, and save the /dev directory state ... then grep/compare them against a successfull boot.

8 Mbs does sound like a large drop. Deciding on whats relevant isn't easy as well ...

Maybe breifing the logs and working it up from there might help.


jm
_________________
http://counter.li.org
#313537

The FVWM wm -=- www.fvwm.org -=-

Somebody stole my air guitar, It happened just the other day,
But it's ok, 'cause i've got a spare ...

[Lancer]

Thanks for looking at that. How did you manage to get into it? I can't read my own post because of the error.

The problem, as you said is that it's very difficult cutting a log down when you're not really sure exactly where the problem might be. The minute I chop out something, someone is likely to say "hey - it's because such and such is missing".

Your idea of comparing boots is good, though once it fails I can't use anything - screen, keyboard or mouse... only hard boot and hope next one gets through. I'm not sure if X is at fault because it happens somewhere between grub / initiation and the graphical log in greeter.

It's not the first time the size limit has hit me. I thingk LXF should have a character limit on the textbox because as it is, there is no way of telling if you've overstepped the limit until you hit "submit". (no - preview does not tell you either).

[Ram]

Would be nice if they fixed the " Notify me " when a reply is posted.
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Ubuntu LXDE 12.04 running on AMD Phenom II*4; ASUS Crosshair III Formula MB; 4 GB Ram.....

[Lancer]

[jjmac]

Howdy,


I didn't have any problem reading it , but it did cut out before the Xorg.0.log was complete.

You could use a LiveCD between boots to back up the various logs, just to contain the output and make it easier to extract/compare. As long as there is a cd/dvd drive handy.

Try booting to the console instead maybe. I'd delete the xdm symlink in one of the runlevels and edit /etc/inittab to reflect that. At least it may give you some lee time to probe about a bit before starting X up.

Again, not being an expert, but ... at console prompt, you could check the /dev directory to see if anything is missing there. And maybe starting X, passing it as a cli to the 'strace' program ... and piping/redirecting the output to a text file as a kind of forensic exercise ' 2>&1 |tee out-file.log' may be revealing.

It can be surprising just how usefull 'strace' can be sometimes, it has been very usefull to me lately for tracing down the obscure font choices some programs insist on defaulting to (grin). Then aliasing those up to something that is more suitable for me.

>>
I'm not sure if X is at fault because it happens somewhere between grub / initiation and the graphical log in greeter.
>>

Good point ... also, you mention it doesn't happen every boot, but does seem to have a consistency ... Could there be a lock file involved. One that isn't being removed on a shutdown, causing X's fail on a subsequent boot, and being removed with the reboot, allowing the next attempt to succeed. That can and does happen. Something to do with the shutdown occuring before the system gets to deal with a polled system request i think, such as deleting a lock file. Another thing to look at could be the way udev is set up if your running that. Which, if it does have a hand in it, it would point to a device file not being created when it should. But that dosen't explain the 'every so many boots' part.

The size limit thing is also curious, strange too that the previw worked but the submission didn't and that you can't view that post as well.

Have you still got a copy of it, what is the actual size.


Good Luck


jm
_________________
http://counter.li.org
#313537

The FVWM wm -=- www.fvwm.org -=-

Somebody stole my air guitar, It happened just the other day,
But it's ok, 'cause i've got a spare ...

[Ram]

[Rhakios]

[Lancer]

Thanks. Yes, that's why I posted the problem in here. Unsure who to ask although I hoped they would see it. Looks like they only need to add LENGTH="xxxxx" to the reply form textbox.

[SootynSweep]

Strange, I can open the Xorg versus Thinkpad topic as anon without any problem.

But after logging in so I can send a reply I get this message:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 395143 bytes) in /var/www/html/includes/classes/Smarty/core/core.write_cache_file.php on line 39

So I logout and can open it, log back in I can't ;-(

[M-Saunders]

How bizarre. Sorry for the trouble folks -- I'll look into it when I'm back in the office, and perhaps set a limit on message size that informs you if you've gone over.

Mike