gam_server causes all manner of issues
 

I've googled all over the web but no one else seems to be having gam_server issues after 2008. Mine appear to have started with the 3.4.x kernel.

I'm not 100% sure what causes it, but something causes gam_server to go into disk sleep. Once this happens I cannot kill it. Also:

• I cannot su to root
• I cannot CD to my nfs directories
• I cannot use anything in kde that uses a file dialog window or dolphin (however whatever file dialog toolkit is used by Firefox is unaffected)
• kontact gets frozen
• I cannot login to root at the alt-f2 prompt
• a reboot or shutdown takes forever as network manager is unable to connect to dbus and crond and imapd refuse to die

This is really, really annoying and I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for any help.

- Which distribution, release, exact kernel and Gamin versions?
- Any kernel version and or Gamin version combo this worked OK in?
- Any errors or anomalies in ~/.xsession-error*, /var/log/Xorg* or other /var/log/*?

Fedora 16 kernel: any 3.4.x kernel

Seemed to work perfectly fine with a 3.3.x kernel

xsession-error is full of nepomuk errors - not sure if any of those matter

For the /var/logs - I wouldn't know what to look for.

I've not 100% pinpointed the cause - it doesn't happen all the time. Yesterday with file transfers, choqok, ktorrent, gpodder, yakuake, xbmc, and Firefox running - it didn't happen. I've got a suspicion that it either involves Amarok 2.5.x or Kontact, but I'm not 100% sure yet. I'll report back if using one of those seems to definitively cause it.

And do search Fedora's bug tracker for similar tickets, chances are somebody already filed one. If nobody did then you should.

filed a ticket on Fedora around the time I put this into LQ.org, but no movement on the ticket.

Last night I was running a VM in virt-manager and this morning gam_server was in disk sleep. So that's at least one thing that appears to cause it.

WD/OK but give triage some time please.

Today ran amarok and that didn't seem to affect it. I noticed it went into disk sleep after using kget although something may have happened between when I checked and when I used kget. I wasn't careful enough to check before and after. I'll have to do that next time I reboot.

Also, when it's in disk sleep, crontab freezes up

Also, my remember the milk plasmoid doesn't have data when disk sleep