to halt a process

autophil · 06-06-2009, 04:52 AM

Is there a way to halt a process. I know you can type in ps and it gives a rather cryptic list of running processes. But say you exit a program's gui and the next time you want to start it you get an error message to say thet the program is still running. A command to exit the program rather than reboot the whole system.

druuna · 06-06-2009, 05:03 AM

Hi,

You need to find the PID (Process ID) of the program that is still running and kill it.

You can use ps -ef | grep "nameofprogram" | grep -v grep to get the PID(s) and kill <pid> to stop the program in question.

The PID can be found in the second column of the ps -ef command.

Example, kill mplayer:

Quote:

$ ps -ef | grep mplayer | grep -v grep
druuna 3837 1 1 12:02 tty1 00:00:00 /usr/bin/mplayer

$ kill 3837

Wim Sturkenboom · 06-06-2009, 05:44 AM

Be aware that some programs might catch certain signals that you provide with kill (see man kill).

So a normal kill (as used in the example above) might not always kill the process. You're last resort will be kill-9 pid_of_process. Use this, however, with care as it does not allow the process that you're killing to cleanup temporary files etc and you might have some cleaning up to do before you can start the process again.

colucix · 06-06-2009, 05:45 AM

Or simply

Code:

pkill -9 mplayer

autophil · 06-06-2009, 07:07 AM

Thanks gentlemen!

autophil · 06-12-2009, 12:19 PM

I tried all of these things but even after a reboot I get the message: Thunderbird is already running but is not responding. To open a new window you must first close the existing Thunderbird process or restart your system.
When I type in any of the ps commands I cant pick out a process name that looks like Thunderbird.

AlucardZero · 06-12-2009, 12:33 PM

It has left a lock file that you will need to remove. Consult the Thunderbird documentation.

autophil · 06-16-2009, 03:07 AM

Yeah Im still following that up. I have deleted all of the *./lock files that look anything to do with Thunderbird. But it still wont open up!
So what is the essential file to carry over to a new install that will keep the old mail available? And settings.

colucix · 06-16-2009, 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by autophil

So what is the essential file to carry over to a new install that will keep the old mail available?

You can copy the directory $HOME/.thunderbird/<random-string>/Mail, then you will pick all the files Inbox, Sent, etc. and the related index Inbox.msf, Sent.msf, etc. If you have subfolders, you will find them under Inbox.sbd, Sent.sbd, etc. Also the file msgFilterRules.dat can be useful if you have set-up some filter rules.

Here is an example on my system:

Code:

$ cd /home/colucix/.thunderbird/vk6ww3vr.default/Mail
$ ls
Local Folders  account.domain.it
$ cd account.domain.it
$ ls
Drafts      filterlog.html  Inbox.msf  msgFilterRules.dat  Sent      Sent.sbd       Trash
Drafts.msf  Inbox           Inbox.sbd  popstate.dat        Sent.msf  Templates.msf  Trash.msf