init: Id "x" respawning too fast error

've been getting this error when trying to boot to runlevel 5.

I can resolve it by manually stopping and restarting xfs.
Originally xfs was not in the default runlevel so I added it using

chkconfig --add xfs

But that did not fix the problem.

This is what I have in my inittab (in the part pertaining to this runlevel):

# Run xdm in runlevel 5
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
bw::bootwait:/etc/rc.d/rc.rocksconfig before-rc
po:35:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.rocksconfig after-rc

As an additional note, I intend for the system to go directly into an xsession without requiring a login. So all that I have in my /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients is the folloiwing:

xset -dpms
exec wmaker

Could this be a problem?

thanks!

My suggestion would be to simulate what init goes through when you switch to runlevel 5. Basically init is telling you that the command specified on the x:5:respawn line (i.e. /etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon) is respawning too fast (most likely it dies right away as soon as init starts it, causing init to restart it and so on). Init has a built-in failsafe to prevent such infinite loops with respawn lines.

My suggestion would be to remove the x line from the inittab, switch to runlevel 5 and try to run that command manually (/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon) and check the output. Be sure to check the X server logs as well (you'd be surprised how much useful info they contain aside from what X dumps on screen).

Good luck!

I think a solution to this problem would be to stop X from exiting. You should try to reconfigure the X server so it suites your hardware. Do keep in mind that a small problem like a mouse missconfiguration can cause X to work badly.

Thanks for your helps.
This is part of a compute cluster. The head node, which has the same hardware and is where I copied the xorg.conf from works fine, so I don't think its a config problem.

I tried the above step of removing that line from inittab and trying the following:

init 3
init 5
/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

I got no output from it, nor did I find anything in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log

any other ideas?

Considering that the computer is part of a cluster do you really need X? Or do you intend to remove it?

yes I need X, we have a display wall (mural display)
thanks!

/etc/X11/prefdm is just a shell script to start X and run a user selected window manager. There are a number of things that can fail.

Turn on shell verbosity and run the script:

sh -x -v /etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon

Run X with verbose logging (different startup):

startx - -logverbose 7 -verbose 7


The output from one of those will tell you where the failure is.