Having To Restart Ubuntu Several Times A Day! = FAIL!
 

Hey Guys,

I hope someone can help me. Been using Ubuntu for over a month now (My first foray into Linux) and I love it...BUT....

I'm having an intermittent problem that seems to be getting worse:

Ubuntu will be working fine....then I'll go to open a program (like Chromium or Thunderbird) and it won't open. If I already have Chromium open, it might become unresponsive. If I'm downloading something, it will start acting weird (Like last night- I was downloading c.600MB file and Ubuntu went into dysfunctional mode- and said it was downloading a 2006453 GB file!)

Also, when it goes into dysfunctional mode, any dialogue boxes that come up (like the shut-down confirmation box) will be blank- just pure white- with no text or buttons visible.

I can't even run any terminal commands when this happens, to try and diagnose the problem, because either terminal won't open, or if it does, it will be blank like the dialogue boxes- i.e. the purple background will just be replaced by pure white, with no cursor or text).

I'll then restart the computer when these things happen, and then I'll get the "The disk for /tmp is not ready yet or not present" and have to press "f: to fix it- then it will boot up and work fine- sometimes for the rest of the day...sometimes for 5 minutes.

Since I don't see anyone else complaining about such behavior, I assume the problem is with my 'puter or my installation? If anyone has any ideas, please help. I really don't want to have to switch to a different distro- as I love Ubuntu///and I don't want to have to reinstall - as I have it configured the way I want it and plus it's on a partition (Still need to keep Win-D'ohs around just for when I want to use Magicjack)

This is starting to happen several times a day...HELP...can't. Go. On like this!

[My 'puter's specs: Compaq Presario SR2170NX P4 3.0Ghz 1G Ram 150GB HD -all I usually do these days is email and the web]

I am having similar problems on my Acer netbook with 10.10 Alpha 3 (and I blame it on BTRFS, as it has slow performance) but let me ask this: What Ubuntu version do you have?

this was from the launchpad... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ll/+bug/571682 thats ur tmp issue

do u have a swap partition of atleast a gigabyte....

I KNEW I forgot something! I have 10.04 LTS

Sadly, the problem went from being a once-every-few-days thing to a several-times-per-day thing- it's getting worse. I'm actually using Win-D'ohs right now, as Ubuntu gave me this problem 2 times within ten minutes of turning my 'puter on today!


I'm kind of lost on what you quoted. Think I have seen similar on the web- but in my case, it's not just the /tmp issue, it's the performance issues, too.

How do I see the size of my swap partition? (The Ubuntu installer configured that)-

Sorry if I seem stupid...but I'm still a noob.

O-K, a issued the "top" command and found that my swap file is: 2623480k with 0k being used at the moment. (This does not seem right to me - ???)

Also: Upon booting up Ubuntu, instead of pressing "f" , I tried "m" for manual recovery- and while I didn't have clue of what to do there...I did see that it said "File system check failed".

I always tell newbies who choose Ubuntu (and anything based on Ubuntu) never to use the newest release. This is especially true of version 10.04 with all it's buggy experimental stuff. It takes several months to work out these big show-stopping bugs in every release of this distro, always rushed to market to meet a deadline and released ready or not.

The new bootloader in 10.04 is called Plymouth. But in Ubuntu 10.04 it's more than just a bootloader. It's evil tentacles reach into every corner of the system, so much so that attempting to remove it drags half the system with it! And all just to gain a fraction of a second faster boot time.

And they're too busy working on the next release to fix the bugs in the current one! It's just too bad they picked a long-term-support version for this kind of experimentation.

-Robin

Wow! Kinda sounds like they're emulating Microsoft! And here I thought I was doing good by going with a non-beta LTS.

And what kills me, is that the update manager wants to install a ton of garbage- updates for programs I don't even have....but there seems to be precious little to actually do with the actual OS- so I assume that even if they do fix some bugs, I'd have to reinstall a new version, rather than it being corrected via an update?

I'm going to play with the power-saving/display turn-off settings and the I've already turned off the screensaver- I'm thinking they might have something to do with the problem I'm experiencing (I had the foresight to never enable hibernation....)

If I can't get this straightened out...I guess I'll have to try Mint.....

Just to let you know, Plymouth isn't a bootloader. It's a splash screen to get a GUI while booting. GRUB 2 is the bootloader.

You might want to update your video drivers. Ubuntu, through Administration, can check for updated drivers.

Jim

I was just looking through my log files and found this:

" radeon 0000:01:05.0: DVI-D-1: EDID invalid"

Does that have to do with the video card?

Hi,

when I first installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS I experienced similiar problems. E. g. the system would freeze while a download was active. However, it got better after I installed the first 2 or 3 updates. So if I understood a previous post of yours correctly
You skipped updating?
Based on this assumption here is some general advice:

1) Did you do a fresh install or did you upgrade to 10.04 LTS? By fresh install I really mean fresh. Not upgrading from another version like 9.10 and not even upgrading from a beta-release to the stable version. If you upgraded then do a fresh install with the latest stable version.

2) After your system is installed do NOT skip the updates. Even if they seem to you like they would install stuff that you do not want/need.

There might still be the possibility that you do have some unsupported hardware. As I see, you have an ati card. Please post the exact model. The drivers from ati might be deprecated. If this is the case the OS won't give you the option to install them as proprietary drivers. Do not attempt to "fix" this by installing them manually or anything else.

Hello!

Yes, I did do a fresh install of 10.04- dual booted with Win-D'ohs (Ubuntu is the only other OS I've ever had on this computer).

As for updating....I did update, but selectively- i.e. I unchecked 90% of the stuff that I'd have no use for- such as: update for Evolution Mail (I deleted Evolution mail long ago); update for the IM client (I don't use IM) etc.

I tried searching around as to how to check for updates for the video card- but had no luck yet as to how to do it- so any advice would be appreciated with that. I'll try and ascertain exactly what card I have.

Tinkering around last night, I did see that no proprietary drivers are installed- if that helps.

What kills me, is that the problem seems to be intermittent. Yesterday, the trouble occurred twice within a few minutes of booting the computer- Now so far today,l I booted up and it's been fine- and may or may not give me trouble- even if I do nothing differently than yesterday. Weird....

Thanks

EDIT: O-K, I'm installing most of the updates right now- at this point, I guess it can't hurt any...... (I guess I'm still stuck in Windows mentality- where I'd virtually never update- and I had the best-running system of anyone I know)

Yes, but it almost certainly has nothing to do with the problems you are experiencing. All that should really do is limit what resolutions you are able to use.

Adam

Ah! O-K, thanks. I have no problem with video or display.

Hmmm... This actually caught my attention the second time I read your original post:

Do you have desktop effects enabled? Though I really doubt the other problems you describe have to do with your video card, it might be worth disabling desktop effects to see if it makes any difference.

I doubt it- as I don't use any of the fancy eye-candy stuff. Went to check, but I'm having the problem again...so I can't see anything.

This is getting ridiculous- I feel like I'm back in Windows- spending half of my time doing maintenance and fixing stuff.

I installed the updates...and now I'm screwed. About 2 dozen of them wouldn't install- and when I rebooted my 'puter, everything looks completely different now! Tried to run update manager again, but it couldn't do anything because the previous updates didn't install right and it now says the software index is broken. Ran the terminal command it suggested to fix the problem, and got this notice at the end:

Lesson: NEVER install updates except for specific items/problems!!!

I guess I'll be trying Mint.... as, between the initial problem that prompted me to start this thread, and these new problems now....it's probably easier to just start from scratch than to try and fix all this.

I had hoped that at the very least, I could hang on until 10.10 was released- as, like a previous poster stated, that version would likely have the bugs worked out.

If you deleted Evolution, why is it presenting you with updates? I am beginning to wonder just how Evolution was deleted? Did you use aptitude or synaptic to do so or did you just delete things manually? The latter would be an excellent way to break any system that has a package manager...

Edit: from the above messages, I do get the impression that it is a case of incorrect software management. Just a warning: any system is going to break if you don't follow the rules.

U-10.10 may have the bugs from 10.04 fixed, but there will be a slug of new ones :cry: Ubuntu may not be as bleeding edge as Fedora, but it's apparently out there far enough to to be problematic on occasion. One thing I've learned (but not very well, as I have to relearn it all too often) with both Fedora and Ubuntu, is to apply updates in small batches. Seems like there are fewer failed updates that way, and I know I'm not going to be left with several hundred MB of half-installed packages.

I deleted Evolution through Synaptic. Have to check on the next system I install and see if I can't just keep it from installing all the crap that I don't want/need. (Thought I read somewhere that 10.10 was going to come with Thunderbird and Chromium....it should!)

I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to break the system- as I really don't fool with things- and the problem actually started before I deleted Evolution.

That makes sense to me. Quite frankly, I think I'm better off with my old Windows mentality of "If it ain't broke...don't fix it"- and just skipping the updates unless it's something I know I really need. (Although in this case, it was broke....but now it's even "broker"[sic] :D)

I may just try a fresh install of Ubuntu. What about the Ubuntu recovery mode? Can I do that without losing my data?

First of all, in Synaptic you may have to uninstall Evolution completely, as in the equivalent of 'autoremove --purge' in apt-get. To do that, select "Completely remove including configuration files". See what that does.

Or, do it the traditional way:

Every now and again I get frustrated at having to do something manually in Slackware and I consider installing Ubuntu on one of my machines again....... And then I read a thread like this. LOL. Not a dig at Ubuntu, just a +1 for manual configuration, updates, etc. At least I have a pretty good idea of what went wrong when it breaks and it's usually my own fault anyway.

Oy! Just tried that- and I now get a message saying "Dpkg was interrupted....need to manually configure...." -which is what I tried to do before, which generated the error message I had posted. I think I'm screwed- that update attempt really ruined everything.

You should see what happened: It even changed my fonts....the color of my toolbars; my icons- it removed the majority of themes from the appearance
folder, and broke it, so that I can't go back to the look I had before....

It's a mess.....


I wish I had the know-how.....as that's the way I like it- for the same reason I prefer a manual transmission in a car (If you could do everything via GUI, it'd be great- but I assume it's all CLI?)

+1 on the manual transmission. Same goes for manual windows and locks too.

As far as Slackware goes..........
It's some CLI, some editing of text files, some GUI. It's not as bad as a lot of people make it sound, but it does take some effort up front. On the plus side, config files are usually more intuitive than the GUI if you have access to google, and troubleshooting is more straightforward when you are used to reading the files and on the stability front, there just aren't many updates in the stable branch anyway and it's a manual exercise in the first place so your system doesn't really break itself. Slackware is one of those things that when you are getting used to it seems entirely backwards, but one day you realize it makes perfect sense and most everything else seems rather awkward. It took me about a month before I formatted all my disks and went full time slack, although from time to time I do install something that sounds interesting on a spare partition.

Slackware does have an extremely helpful community, and lots of tutorials for new Slackers. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people just dying to reveal their inner-geek!;)

Right, if anything works it should be this: sudo fsck -a, let it do its work, then reboot.

Btw, if you removed evolution, di you remove evolution-data-server, too? It has a hook in quite a few parts of gnome (including gnome-panel); remove it and you break lots of dependencies (then again, you'd get a warning in red if you tried - but the system could never prevent you from doing it anyway).

You're really tempting me to give Slack a try.....

As long as there are people out there willing to help and capable of dumbing it down for a beginner like me, what would I have to lose? (Except perhaps my sanity)

As long as I can figure out/be told what to do, I don't mind editing files...in fact, from the little I have done...I like it! Simple...direct...and you can always undo it!

I'll look that one up in man, and then give it a try....

Thanks.

Ooooo-K...just tried the fsck and received this:

"The file system is mounted. If you continue you WILL cause severe damage..."

Seems EVERYTHING I try to do through the terminal either encounters an error or something like this- sheesh- this is worse than having a virus!

My mistake. I should have specified you were supposed to do that from a livecd. fsck accesses your drive as a raw device, which can lead to a mess on a partition that is still mounted.

As a quick alternative, do this:
sudo touch /forcefsck
and reboot. This will force a full file system check when the system is booting up again.

O-K...just tried that- it took about 3 seconds for it to check the disk...then it booted up.....

Apparently...no new info there.....

Good. Have you tried the update again in the meantime? Still the same error?

DING DING DING DING DING!!!!!!!!!! [5 bells] You da man!!

I was able to do a partial upgrade.......and after rebooting, the system looks to be back to normal! The proper icons and fonts, etc. are back, and all the new problems caused by trying to update seem to be resolved!

And I was just about to give up!

You're a genius!

I have a feeling that I'm at least back to square one, with just the initial problem (the original subject of this thread) to deal with.

As for that: What will happen if I try booting into the "recovery" mode at the grub menu? Could that be a way to possibly restore/fix whatever is causing my initial problem, without losing my data???

Thank you so much for getting me back to at least where i was when I started this thread-

And thanks to everyone else for all the advice and help. (And I WILL try and keep up-to-date on the updates)

One other question: If I install all the updates, is that the same as upgrading to 10.10?

(Sorry for the never-ending questions- but I like to pick the brains of knowledgable people- even though I realize that this simplistic newbie stuff must be a bore to you all- Thanks for putting up with me!)

I would say: don't do anything for now. The problem may have been solved by the updates or by the file system check.

No. And frankly, hoping that an alpha release will solve your problems is always a risky bet. If you need a stable system you should look back rather than forward (unless you have brand new hardware that is poorly supported by a newer release). I'm not saying you should revert to 9.10 or check out the 10.4.1 revision (yet). Just wait and see whether the problem reappears.

Ya know what? I tried the recovery mode (before you posted the above) and there was an option to "repair broken packages"- so I chose that, and it downloaded and installed all the updates that the Update Manager wasn't able to.

After that it returned to a command prompt- and trying "esc", e and q would not get me out of terminal mode- so I had to shut off the computer via the power button. Then it didn't boot up properly- so I shut it down again...and tried yet again, and now it's up and running.

Will my problem be solved? I doubt it- but I'm sure hoping.

So 10.04 LTS is different from 10.04.1?

Maybe reverting to 9.10 would be a good idea- my 'puter is about 3 years old, with no new hardware.....

You should have used "exit" or "reboot now". Watch out with simply cutting the power; it can lead to file system corruption.

Gee...I wonder what THAT would be like ;)

I THINK it may be fixed! I tried to run the update manager yet again- and got the same error as before ("File system broken"). It said to run

But when I tried that, I got another error message and it said that I had to run something else (forget exactly what) to fix THAT.......[sigh]

So I ran the something else

But instead of it generating another error message as described in post #16

it actually worked this time!

Then I did the

And IT worked!

I then ran the update manager again, half expecting it to crash the system again....

But it came up and said "Your system is up to date"!!!!!! Woo-hoo!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed- I do think that what was causing my update manager problem was also causing the other problem (initial subject of this thread) - or visa-versa...

So we shall see- but I am more confident now- as it seems like something significant was actually accomplished- finally.

I'll keep you all posted-

Thanks again, and good night!!

UPDATE: Here it is, after noon, and so far, so good!

I noticed upon booting up this morning, I now (since the update) have more options in the Grub menu.

The default option is now Ubuntu(generic) 2.6.32. 24
instead of the 2.6.32. 21

Can I now go into the disk utility and delete the 2.6.32. 21 ?

Anywhay...I'll give it another day, and I think I can mark this thread "SOLVED"!

Ironically, my new monitor and ps/2 optical mouse arrived today, and I just installed them without a hitch!

I'm back to loving Ubuntu! (Good thing, because returning to Win-D'ohs is not an option, and I had no intentions of buying a Mac!) - Ubuntu or bust!

Unless you are running out of space, there is no real need to remove older kernels. You can, though (use synaptic or aptitude, not disk utility). Once you have verified that the newer kernel isn't causing any issues, that should be perfectly fine.

Thanks. I'll let it go for a few days and then if no problems arise, I'll give it a try.

Thanks for all your help.

Hi,

I generally do not remove older kernels. It is always good to something to fall back to, just in case there *might* occur some problem with the latest kernel. One never knows.

Hello!

The way that old kernel weas [not]working......I don't know how good it would be to fall back on. Maybe I'll try booting it up and seeing if it has the previous problems. If it does, I'll delete it...if it doesn't, I'll keep it around.