KDE freezing during "restoring session"
 

Using a Compaq laptop with Mandrake 10 Official.
I boot, select the default linux from the lilo menu.
Graphical login comes up, I log in(doesn't matter which user).
KDE loads up, gets to the "restoring session" screen, and stops going anywhere.
The splash logo disappears, but nothing happens.
Here's the end of the syslog after this happens:
Buuuut...

If I start up, choose "failsafe" from the lilo menu.
I get dropped to a prompt, and if I type "exit", I get the graphical login.
I log in, and it's successful, and the end of the syslog is almost entirely the same. The only significant difference is a line a fair ways up:
Update:
Oops. The following line appears during failed logins, not successful ones:

Hmm... when it appears to stop, could you try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and with a bit of luck, it'll close down X and drop you into the console. Usually on the first console (might have to hit Ctrl+Alt+F1) you can see the debug from X and KDE. Anything of interest there?

It's interesting that you can get in using failsafe - which is a single user mode. It might indicate there's a problem with the config files inside your home directories.

You could always doing:

mv /home/user_name/.kde /home/user_name/.kde_old

Which will let KDE recreate a new profile - if it works then we know there's a problem in your current config.

As for the MTRR, I'm not a kernel specialist, but browsing through Google Groups seems to reveal that maybe not enough memory is being allocated for your video card (which may be Mandrake's failsafe mode). I think it's unrelated with the main problem and probably because you're dropping into failsafe.

Regards,

This is reported somewhere as a problem of cooperation xmms+any other programm in Mandrake10/KDE. No problemwith GNOME. Unfortunately I do not know the solution.
PL5

Thanks for the help so far.
The "MTRR" line actually occurs in the unsuccessful logins, not the successful ones. I should have proofread a little more.
I will attempt the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, though it might not work very well, as the laptop does not like to change video modes. Switching sessions with Ctrl-Alt-FX renders the display unusable.
I will also try moving the .kde directory.

Oh, it's an Athlon 64 laptop, which I'm realizing may have something to do with it.
I installed the standard version of Mandrake, however.

Ok, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace drops me back to the graphical login. It seems like it shuts down X for a second, and then brings it back. Other than that, the only effect is that once I have pressed it once, when I try to log in again it gets stuck doing something with panels, rather than restoring the session.
Moving .kde didn't seem to have any effect.
I'm going to see if there are any syslog options I can change to get more info on what is going on here.

Oh, and finally, I can load up ICEWM instead of KDE, and everything works fine.

I had the same problem on Celeron 2.8 Ghz, so probably it's not a question of the processor. Both IceWM and Gnome run fine. I noticed I have no ".kde" directory in my home folder at all, should I create it?

Hmm... don't create it, it's your KDE configuration directory - when KDE starts, it'll create the directory itself.

I was going to suggest it being a video card problem but if IceWM + Gnome run fine... do you know if your sound is working ok in Gnome?

One link I just saw suggests that there's a problem with the Nvidia cards and KDE some times - for X, there's a default "nv" module that covers Nvidia cards but I can't say I've used it. I use the official Nvidia module that provides full 3D support.

Also, try hitting Ctrl+Alt+F1 when it freezes - usually X starts on console 7 (Ctrl+Alt+F7) and you can actually read the text it's launching from console one - just a thought. Not sure how Mandrake does it though.

It is possible to recompile a kernel without MTRR support but I've no experience with compiling Mandrake kernels - you might have to ask in the Mandrake section of LQ to find someone who has before. A lot of distros have custom patches and bits that have to be put on.

Regards,

Hi guys. I'm a complete Linux Virgin just installed Mandrake 10 on a dual boot Win Xp Celeron 2.2 and I'm getting exactly the same problem. Of course I haven't a clue what to do now! the whole point of installing Linux was to start learning but I can't even get that far. I can use failsafe to get to a command line prompt so how (in simple terms) can I either resolve this or perhaps replace KDE with something else. Any advice welcome!

Solved! I think
 

Uninstall XMMS.
I just did this, and I've had two reboots with no stalling whatsoever.

I simply used the mandrake remove packages tool, and removed everything related to XMMS. For the record, that is the xmms-lib, xmms itself, and the alsa plugin. I don't know if maybe it was just the plug in (I've gotten notices in the past of arts having problems starting, maybe there was a conflict).
Let me know if this works for the rest of you.

not so fast
 

It seems I was a little presumptuous.
My 3rd time rebooting, and KDE stopped at 42%.
Upon restarting X, I got the little window telling me that KNotify had stalled on a previous start up, and did I want to disable arts, and it stopped at 85%, reloading panels. I restarted X a couple of times and it always stopped at 85%.
I get the feeling that there's something weird going on with the sound, but I have no idea how to solve it.

Sorry to hear you've not solved it. I've searched the net and posted a usenet posting and it appears that this is not uncommon. I am posting below the reply I got to my newsgroup posting as it may help. In my case there is also a problem with the ethernet card configuration so ignore those bits!

Of course I still have to work out what this all means. I also found another reference to deleting the user's kde directory here

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=181852

to allow it to rebuild the directory. So when I've worked out how to do it I may give it a go.


Usually caused because of a misconfigured nic (network interface card)
It would help if you gave the vendor/model information of card and what
the nic is connected to (switch, router, *dsl, cable modem,....)
nic BOOTPROTO set as static, dhcp,.....

/var/log/messages may have error messages of failure.

> then when it gets to KDE it hangs at restoring session 82% and I have
> to turn the computer off. I did manage to get to a desktop on about
> the second attempt but not since.

Could be caused by sound card, node name problem, kde trying to restore
desktop to one which ran, corrupt files because of your rebooting,...

You may find error messages in /var/log/XFree86.*.log

You can make file changed is failsafe mode
If it was me I would set default run level to 3 not 5.
change id:5:initdefault: to id:3:initdefault: in /etc/inittab

stop eth0 on boot

cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.1.10
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
ONBOOT=yes <====== set to no
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes
WIRELESS_ENC_KEY=""
NEEDHOSTNAME=no <======== add this line with a carriage return

hardcode the node's name

cat /etc/sysconfig/network
HOSTNAME=wb.home.invalid <======== you pick something
NETWORKING=yes <=====
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
GATEWAYDEV=eth0 <========== add line with carriage return

Place an entry in /etc/hosts, example
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 wb.home.invalid wb <======= add this line
<=== and a carriage return


remove the KDE directory in your user account not root's account

cd ~user_account_name_here
pwd to verify you are in correct directory.
/bin/rm -r .kde/*

Now, change to runlevel 3 to see what happens.
init 3

You should be able to login to your user account, not root, and do a
startx
to bring up your kde window. It will take an extra minute or so to
rebuild the .kde directory.


Next, clear the restore desktop feature.

Click the mandrake star icon in the task bar,
pick System, Configure, your destop, Component, Session Manager and
set Start with an empty session in the On Login session.

Now you should be able to click up a terminal and login as root with
su -l root

now rmove the 127.0.0.1 wb.home.invalid wb in /etc/hosts
and set onboot=yes in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Click up another terminal and do
su -l root
tail -f /var/log/messages
and try bringing up the network, in the other terminal, with
service network restart

look at /var/log/messages in the other terminal for failure messges if one.

you can use the vi editor with the command
vi filename_here
i places you in the insert mode.
up/down arrows for navigation.
backspace key to delete

To save your changes hit the escape key a colon and w. Example:
Esc:w

To quit
Esc:q

Yeah, the window appeared in my case as well, I forgot to mention it. I disabled it, and the window does not appear anymore, but kde still hangs at 85%.
I had trouble with sound too -- it hangs and plays the first one or two seconds of the file over and over again. It doesn't matter whether I use Totem or e.g. mpg123 for this. :(

Ok I finally sorted it. It was the ethernet card in my case failing to be found. After much stumbling about at the command line and not getting anywhere (told you I was a virgin) I discovered that there is a way of forcing the boot routine to ask you to confirm if you want each item loaded (you press 'I' at a certain stage) by disabling the line where the network card was failing it enabled everything to proceed ok. Once it had loaded correctly I then used the Mandrake system tool to stop it booting at every boot up. So it may be worth trying a similar method if you suspect a particular device or whatever is causing the problem.