weird freezing problem

perfect_circle · 02-10-2005, 10:42 AM

I'm experiencing a weird problem after i reinstalled slackware 10.
Sometimes when am using KDE the computer freezes for 3-5 seconds and then works again. The only thing I changed from my last install is that i did not install gnome (It took my ages to uninstall gnome the last time) and that i added some windows fat partitions in fstab. What should i do? reinstall slackware? I've got 1 Gb of RAM and 500MB of swap, and this happend without the RAM beeing full.

CoolAJ86 · 02-10-2005, 11:11 AM

right after a freeze happens
# tail /var/log/messages

See if you can't find some kernel message that might hint at the problem.

slackaddict · 02-10-2005, 11:27 AM

I remember I used to get that on Slack 10 too, but never on 9.1.

If its the same problem I had then I think its something to do with Konqueror. I've haven't used it for months but last night I fired up Konqueror under Fluxbox on Slack 10.1 and got the same deal. Try and go without Konqueror for a day and see if its still happening, I never did find a solution

CoolAJ86 · 02-10-2005, 11:48 AM

Try firing up the ol' xterm and copying? I'm doubtful that konquerer is the problem, but it's definitely possible. Let me know what you find.

;-)

perfect_circle · 02-12-2005, 05:02 PM

Well i found the problem. The problem was Konqueror's Audio CD Browser. To be able to use this, to rip ogg, wav or mp3 if lame is installed, you need to have permission to the cd device, /dev/sr0 in my case and the coresponding sg device, /dev/sg0 in my case. The sr devices belong to cdrom group. When i first used slackware i decided to respect most out of the box permission and just added my default user in the cdrom group. The problem is that the sg devices are in the group root. When you open the konquerer file management profile (the home button) the services left tab is enabled, in which is the Audio CD Browser. The system tries to make use of the Audio CD Browser and if you have a audio cd in the drive, the cd starts spinning. My spindown time is long in my cd-drive and my drive is making a lot of noise , which is irritating. To bypass this I saved my file management profile, with the "devices" as a left tab open, which is the most useful tab. SO the Audio CD Browser wont activate my cd-drive. After reinstalling slackware i did not change the permission in /dev/sg0, and just edited my default profile. I don't rip CD's anyway. The problem was that by default konqueror is configured to detect the device automatically, without having the services tab open and without having a Audio cd in the drive. SO it tries to find a pair of sr,sd to use as a cd device, and after testing all sr,sg pairs it starts over again and never stops. I don't know what will happen if i change this and specify a device, but i think it will just test the specified device, over and over again. Under some conditions this caused the weird freezing symptom I was talking about. When I changes the sg0 permission the symptom was gone. I Had this in daily bases and now the last 3 days I fixed this it never occurs.
I found this out after doing a startx &> startx_log command. After 5 minutes of KDE use, the startx_log file contained 1200 lines of testing/failing sr,sg devices. Now i only get 45 lines in startx_log.

P.S. Another thing I did those last 3 days was to clean my screen surface. I haven't cleaned it for years, but it's hard for me to believe that this was KDE's way to tell me that my monitor is really dirty full of stains and fingerprints...

slackaddict · 02-12-2005, 05:32 PM

Congratulations on finding that one, I think it would have been beyond me to discover that

I've actually started using KDE again after being on fluxbox for a while, so this will come in handy if I start getting those pauses. Its always good when someone manages to solve their own problem then still posts back with the solution to help the rest of us.

The KDE 3.3.2 setup in Slack10.1 is awesome

perfect_circle · 02-12-2005, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by slackaddict
I remember I used to get that on Slack 10 too, but never on 9.1.

If its the same problem I had then I think its something to do with Konqueror. I've haven't used it for months but last night I fired up Konqueror under Fluxbox on Slack 10.1 and got the same deal. Try and go without Konqueror for a day and see if its still happening, I never did find a solution

This message:

Code:

checking /dev/cdrom for cdrom...
        Testing /dev/cdrom for cooked ioctl() interface
                /dev/sr0 is not a cooked ioctl CDROM.
        Testing /dev/cdrom for SCSI interface
                generic device: /dev/sg0
                ioctl device: /dev/sr0

Found an accessible SCSI CDROM drive.
Looking at revision of the SG interface in use...
        SG interface version 3.1.25; OK.

CDROM model sensed sensed: PIONEER DVD-ROM DVD-106 1.22

is only displayed after launching konqueror, so the sg/sr testing part was done only after launching conqueror. I get the same message if i launch conqueror from xfce, as long as I open, the service tab. SO it could be a konqueror bug.