Frozen mouse/keyboard on login screen and crash of applications right after login

uwe09 · 02-23-2016, 04:10 AM

Hi all,

I've got two problems with my Linux Mint installation. I am using 17.3 Rosa with XFCE but the problems have been there already in the previous versions. Not sure if they are related:

1) Every now and then the keyboard/mouse isn't working on the login screen. However touchscreen is and after a reboot usually everything is fine.

2) It's weird but the first application (usually Firefox or Thunderbird) I open after login seems to crash after around 10 seconds without any warning

Any ideas?

Best, UWE

Emerson · 02-23-2016, 08:53 PM

Welcome to LQ!

In my experience there can be two reasons. Corrupted installation (bad sectors on hard drive, etc) or hardware failure (bad RAM, etc). I'd start with running long smartctl test.

TxLonghorn · 02-24-2016, 07:11 AM

Is this an old computer?
With Mint, you have an option on the Grub menu for "Memory Test". Run that. Let it run for a long time.

Emerson · 02-24-2016, 12:56 PM

FYI, memory tests are not conclusive, I. E. if it tells you the memory is bad then bad it is. OTOH, if your RAM passes the test it can still be bad.

uwe09 · 02-27-2016, 05:28 AM

Thanks a lot for the replies. I checked RAM and HD but that seems fine. It's a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga (2 years old)... Sure it is not related to the installation? Windows is running pretty smooth

Emerson · 02-27-2016, 08:51 AM

Windows uses different memory region to load operating system, if there is a RAM error it may affect Linux only.

But you can run Firefox or Thunderbird from a terminal window, there may be useful error messages when they crash.

uwe09 · 02-27-2016, 07:46 PM

Thanks again for the reply. I tried it but all I got from Thunderbird was a plain "Killed"... Any idea? Likely to be the RAM?

Emerson · 02-27-2016, 08:39 PM

Killed? This usually means you are running out of resources and OOM killer kicks in. How much RAM you have got and how big is your swap?