Seemingly random logouts

thelynx · 10-19-2016, 09:23 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm running Apricity OS, an Arch-based distro on a Lenovo T420. About two weeks ago, I started getting random logouts with no warning. I thought this was caused by a glitch in Virtual Box, as it seemed to happen whenever I was running Windows 10 as a guest. I'll be doing some transcription job and suddenly, I'm logged out from Apricity. Windows, of course, gets shut off as a consequence. But more recently, this has happened without running VirtualBox. I think, and this is only a possibility, the cause has something to do with playing videos, as Video Player or VLC have been open when the logouts occur. I believe this has also happened when I've been watching YouTube in my browser, as well.

I'd be happy to provide any information that you may require to help me troubleshoot this problem.

Thank you in advance.

syg00 · 10-19-2016, 09:40 PM

Some detail would be appropriate. What is a "random logout" ?.
- you lose your user session and get thrown back to the logon greeter ?.
- your GUI (X or wayland ?) fails and you are thrown back to a non-GUI screen. Is this session still useable or not ?.
- the machine powers off.

What do your logs have to say about the incident(s).

thelynx · 10-19-2016, 10:18 PM

Hi Syg00,

Thanks for your reply. I get logged out of my session and back to the GUI login screen (with no warning), as if I've just booted the computer. The session is completely lost.

Which logs would be most helpful to check?

jpollard · 10-19-2016, 10:25 PM

You might be having a memory failure. Might check the logs to see if anything got recorded.

Start looking at syslog. for the GUI login to terminate requires the process the GUI display manager forked/execed after login to terminate(a window manager usually, but it depends on which desktop you are using as to what the exact process is).

If it was a memory error, you might have that logged.

syg00 · 10-19-2016, 10:51 PM

Try this - last 20 lines of systemd journal; adjust number as required.

Code:

journalctl -n 20

thelynx · 10-20-2016, 02:05 AM

Okay, it just happened a minute or two ago.

syg00: I logged in again and got this output from

Code:

journalctl -n 20

:

Code:

-- Logs begin at Thu 2016-10-20 13:38:35 ICT, end at Thu 2016-10-20 13:52:54 ICT. --
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:370
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:370
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:370
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:375
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:375
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:375
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:376
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:389
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:390
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc gnome-terminal-[2642]: Theme parsing error: gtk-dark.css:390
Oct 20 13:52:32 xxxx-pc dbus-daemon[1031]: Successfully activated service 'org.gnome
Oct 20 13:52:40 xxxx-pc systemd[1]: bumblebeed.service: Service hold-off time over, 
Oct 20 13:52:40 xxxx-pc systemd[1]: Stopped Bumblebee C Daemon.
Oct 20 13:52:40 xxxx-pc systemd[1]: Started Bumblebee C Daemon.
Oct 20 13:52:40 xxxx-pc bumblebeed[2671]: [ 848.415422] [ERROR]No discrete video ca
Oct 20 13:52:40 xxxx-pc systemd[1]: bumblebeed.se

I've uninstalled bumblebee and will see if that makes any difference. I'll write back.

jpollard: I'm using Gnome3. If you wouldn't mind, can you be a bit more specific as to where to exactly find the logs you mentioned? I found some syslog but could not find anything usable.

Thank you for your help.

thelynx · 10-20-2016, 02:26 AM

Just happened again. Would those themeparsing errors (see previous post) have anything to do with it? The thing is that journalctl seems to only give info since the current login session began. How can I view logs that would provide info from the past two days, for example?

Any suggestions at all would be most welcome, as it's causing a major slowdown in productivity.

Thank you.

keefaz · 10-20-2016, 03:34 AM

Does it happen whith high CPU usage, does it get too hot?

thelynx · 10-20-2016, 03:54 AM

keefaz, thanks for your reply. While I have had issues with overheating in the past with "Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled" showing up in dmesg, this doesn't seem to be the case here. I could always tell when the temp was rising as response time would slow. I also have a temperature sensor on my panel. I remedied that by cleaning the fan, installing thinkfan, and underclocking the CPU. The CPU has not overheated in quite some time and even when it did in the past, it shut the computer down completely, not just logged me out.

jpollard · 10-20-2016, 04:07 AM

Ah... a systemd.

Harder to tell.

You can try using journalctl and dump everything for the last couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with gnome3 (quit using gnome3 long ago) so I don't know what it considers to be the session. For all I know, it may be using systemd, in which case if it aborts/terminates you may have nothing recorded.

The log I was thinking about was the system log though. To get that I think you have to be root to run the journalctl command to extract the log.

JJJCR · 10-20-2016, 04:22 AM

Try updating Virtualbox,what's your graphic card?

I'm not sure whether this link below will help:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/t...er-/?offset=10

erik2282 · 10-20-2016, 08:26 AM

Does your laptop have a separate video card, or uses Intel integrated graphics?

thelynx · 10-21-2016, 03:53 AM

These are the steps I've undertaken so far:

1. I've just updated Virtualbox.

2. I reverted to Gnome Classic and set Theme appearance settings to default Advaita after reading this: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=215255 (This action seems to have eliminated another problem I had. Certain programs like Abiword and Uncomplicated Firewall would not open. I always got "Aborted: Core dumped error" or something like that.) I'm not sure if these issues are related but we'll see.

3. I have an NVIDIA Optimus video card, but it is not enabled. I've uninstalled Bumblebee and Primus.

4. I've changed journalctl from "volatile" to "persistent" in

Code:

 /etc/systemd/journald.conf

so that I view logs from previous sessions. Next time it happens, I'll have more info.

I've had Virtualbox open for quite some time now and have not been logged out . . . fingers are crossed. I will update in a few days.

JJJCR: If these actions fail, I'll try setting up a new user as suggested in the link you sent.

Thanks for all your suggestions.