Fedora10 freezes at some random time. wireless problem? alsa bug? must dump f10?

fritz_p · 01-17-2010, 08:33 PM

I am running Fedora 10 on a Dell Vostro with 1GB ram in a small partition (8GB, 1 - 2 GB free space).

[UPDATE:
It seems that I have a problem with alsa.
In short, the /var/log/messages part says

Jan 18 22:25:29 fpfedora ntpd[2348]: synchronized to 200.80.32.172, stratum 2
Jan 18 22:44:56 fpfedora ntpd[2348]: synchronized to 200.11.116.1, stratum 2
Jan 19 00:44:05 fpfedora kernel: CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 22500 nsec
Jan 19 03:47:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 292440 bytes (1657 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:47:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 337080 bytes (1910 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:47:05 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms
Jan 19 03:47:38 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms
Jan 19 03:48:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 199864 bytes (1133 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:48:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms

and so it kept doing until I turned the laptop out, the hard way.

I also find that there are some bugs which could resemble this one, like
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472339

I actually update my system regularly.
Shouldn't this be fixed by the updates?
Or does it mean that, since fedora10 reached its end of life, as I just learned, that I should manually look for fixes?
I liked fedora, but it now looks more like the old ms software (except that its free).
]

The system just freezes for no reason.
I can see the screen but if I move the mouse, it reacts about 10 seconds later, and I cannot change screen,
and it sounds like it is swapping, i.e., that hard disc sound it makes when booting.

I think every time I was running Firefox and have open some pdf file with Acrobat Reader. But this, I have most of the time anyway.

I would like to know two things (unless you have the solution).
1.
Where should I look for usefull information?
I looked at my /var/log/messages file. Anywhere else? I transcribe the relevant part at the bottom of this post.
2.
In my older linux systems I could almost always go to another session without graphics typing Ctrl-F1 to F7, if I remember correctly.
There I could type 'top' and know what the system was doing.

/var/log/messages tells me that I have a wireless problem:

Jan 17 02:31:53 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> Wireless now disabled by radio killswitch
Jan 17 02:32:30 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 8 -> 2
Jan 17 02:32:30 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 0).
Jan 17 02:32:34 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> wlan0: canceled DHCP transaction, dhcp client pid 7843
Jan 17 02:35:43 fpfedora NetworkManager: <WARN> check_one_route(): (wlan0) error -34 returned from rtnl_route_del(): Sucess#012
Jan 17 02:35:44 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.105 on wlan0.
Jan 17 02:35:44 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: sendto(200.80.32.172) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: sendto(200.11.116.1) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.105.
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Interface wlan0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Jan 17 02:35:55 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: Deleting interface #5 wlan0, 192.168.1.105#123, interface stats: received=158, sent=161, dropped=2, activ
e_time=7760 secs
Jan 17 02:36:19 fpfedora kernel: iwl3945 0000:0c:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
Jan 17 02:36:23 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Withdrawing address record for fe80::21c:bfff:fe8c:83e7 on wlan0.
Jan 17 02:36:28 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: Deleting interface #4 wlan0, fe80::21c:bfff:fe8c:83e7#123, interface stats: received=0, sent=0, dropped=0
, active_time=7799 secs
...................................

I don't see anything telling me about the swapping.
In this case I had opened the lid and I think I typed my password to unlock it, and then it was frozen (until I pressed the botton to turn it off).

Any help is wellcome. Should I give more information?

I could of course enlarge my partition, but I am not confortable enough playing around with partitions. That would be stuff for other posts.

Bye
Fritz

pmauguin · 01-29-2010, 07:47 AM

Hi
got this problem when I ran under F10, after upgrade from F8 (around 1.5 y ago).
Only way I found was a full backup and install F11, and then F12. I think there has been a bad handling during upgrade F8-> F10 in my case, that caused unstability in X11.
BR,
PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fritz_p

I am running Fedora 10 on a Dell Vostro with 1GB ram in a small partition (8GB, 1 - 2 GB free space).

[UPDATE:
It seems that I have a problem with alsa.
In short, the /var/log/messages part says

Jan 18 22:25:29 fpfedora ntpd[2348]: synchronized to 200.80.32.172, stratum 2
Jan 18 22:44:56 fpfedora ntpd[2348]: synchronized to 200.11.116.1, stratum 2
Jan 19 00:44:05 fpfedora kernel: CE: hpet increasing min_delta_ns to 22500 nsec
Jan 19 03:47:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 292440 bytes (1657 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:47:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 337080 bytes (1910 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:47:05 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms
Jan 19 03:47:38 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms
Jan 19 03:48:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: alsa-util.c: snd_pcm_avail_update() returned a value that is exceptionally large: 199864 bytes (1133 ms) Most
likely this is an ALSA driver bug. Please report this issue to the PulseAudio developers.
Jan 19 03:48:04 fpfedora pulseaudio[6206]: module-alsa-sink.c: Increasing wakeup watermark to 34.01 ms

and so it kept doing until I turned the laptop out, the hard way.

I also find that there are some bugs which could resemble this one, like
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=472339

I actually update my system regularly.
Shouldn't this be fixed by the updates?
Or does it mean that, since fedora10 reached its end of life, as I just learned, that I should manually look for fixes?
I liked fedora, but it now looks more like the old ms software (except that its free).
]

The system just freezes for no reason.
I can see the screen but if I move the mouse, it reacts about 10 seconds later, and I cannot change screen,
and it sounds like it is swapping, i.e., that hard disc sound it makes when booting.

I think every time I was running Firefox and have open some pdf file with Acrobat Reader. But this, I have most of the time anyway.

I would like to know two things (unless you have the solution).
1.
Where should I look for usefull information?
I looked at my /var/log/messages file. Anywhere else? I transcribe the relevant part at the bottom of this post.
2.
In my older linux systems I could almost always go to another session without graphics typing Ctrl-F1 to F7, if I remember correctly.
There I could type 'top' and know what the system was doing.

/var/log/messages tells me that I have a wireless problem:

Jan 17 02:31:53 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> Wireless now disabled by radio killswitch
Jan 17 02:32:30 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 8 -> 2
Jan 17 02:32:30 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 0).
Jan 17 02:32:34 fpfedora NetworkManager: <info> wlan0: canceled DHCP transaction, dhcp client pid 7843
Jan 17 02:35:43 fpfedora NetworkManager: <WARN> check_one_route(): (wlan0) error -34 returned from rtnl_route_del(): Sucess#012
Jan 17 02:35:44 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.1.105 on wlan0.
Jan 17 02:35:44 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: sendto(200.80.32.172) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: sendto(200.11.116.1) (fd=22): Invalid argument
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address 192.168.1.105.
Jan 17 02:35:50 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Interface wlan0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Jan 17 02:35:55 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: Deleting interface #5 wlan0, 192.168.1.105#123, interface stats: received=158, sent=161, dropped=2, activ
e_time=7760 secs
Jan 17 02:36:19 fpfedora kernel: iwl3945 0000:0c:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
Jan 17 02:36:23 fpfedora avahi-daemon[2399]: Withdrawing address record for fe80::21c:bfff:fe8c:83e7 on wlan0.
Jan 17 02:36:28 fpfedora ntpd[7831]: Deleting interface #4 wlan0, fe80::21c:bfff:fe8c:83e7#123, interface stats: received=0, sent=0, dropped=0
, active_time=7799 secs
...................................

I don't see anything telling me about the swapping.
In this case I had opened the lid and I think I typed my password to unlock it, and then it was frozen (until I pressed the botton to turn it off).

Any help is wellcome. Should I give more information?

I could of course enlarge my partition, but I am not confortable enough playing around with partitions. That would be stuff for other posts.

Bye
Fritz

fritz_p · 02-01-2010, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pmauguin

Hi
got this problem when I ran under F10, after upgrade from F8 (around 1.5 y ago).
Only way I found was a full backup and install F11, and then F12. I think there has been a bad handling during upgrade F8-> F10 in my case, that caused unstability in X11.
BR,
PM

Thanks, basically you are telling me that f10 is now rubbish.
I now understand that pulseaudio gets some time sync wrong and stants to write huge cache files larger than my swap space. This brings my system to freeze. It is a shame that I cannot get some kind of control of my computer. Feels like windows95!
If I could at least leave my X environment like in the good old times!
Its a pitty because I quite liked fedora but I guess thats it, especially after they stop supporting versions without much notice.

FP.