INIT: "x" respawning too fast

Dear all,

I recently updated my Redhat 7.3 using yum, however after rebooting the new kernel I get the following error message:

INIT: ID "x" respawning too fast

if I use the old kernel image, it just works fine. Has anyone had the same problem?
Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

cap_ahab

This message is very common and is given by /sbin/init, which is the parent of all processes.

/sbin/init reads /etc/inittab.

You should post the line containing the string initdefault.
like:

id:5:initdefault:

given this id (5) , post the line for this runlevel.
like:

x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

Here for example, init is instructed to launch X and respawn it if fails. If X respawns too fast, you will be unable to do anything so init detects that and gives you this message.
Respawning too fast.

So depending of your default runlevel, the application launched has a problem.
If I guess your are using a graphical environment, there are chances that X is badly configured for your new kernel (missing video driver,...)

Dear nx5000,

at the beginning, the file /etc/inittab reads:

id:5:initdefault:

Then for runlevel 5, just as you posted:

# Run xdm in runlevel 5
# xdm is now a separate service
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

Do you have an idea how to solve this?

Thank you very much.

After some more modifications, I also realized that the system is not rebooting, logging out, nor shutting down properly. It just hangs and I have to hard reset the computer. However this might be a separat problem.

Thanks again for helping.

Dear all,

I fixed the problem with the kernel. I have quit the respawning message and got so access to the konsole. Prior to this, I downloaded the NVIDIA driver for my graphics card, and installed it then while locked in as root. Solved completely the problem. Also the hanging screen is solved, however I do not know what exactly solved that problem:
either the driver, or simply because its another kernel image I am using now.

Hope this useful to someone else.

Cheers,

Ahab