First ever unexplained hardlock with Slackware in almost 20 years.
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Seen this couple of years ago, but only with VFS and that thing file managers use to auto-mount usb drives.
Never happened to me in runlevel 3 where I mount everything manually.
Guess "I safely ejected the drive and went out" doesn't say much, OP. Maybe specify how did you mount/umount the drive, what commands?
It could be something broke in the kernel but I doubt it. Probably a bug in dbus, udisks, udisks2. Or someone might have accessed it while you weren't around.
I got this too, several times since the last kernel update in -stable. Always the same, I'm closing the X apps (usually one or two xterms and firefox) before closing the WM (openbox), all with the keyboard shortcuts, and everything freezes suddenly before I complete. I suspect firefox has something to do with this, because it occurs always after I closed it, and I loose its usual dimensions and the menu bar once it is restarted next, which means the window disappeared but the application in fact did not properly exit. A conflict between firefox and the WM wouldn't surprise me, as the first is the only application I can move by just left-clicking on its window, which obviously cheats my openbox config. What I can't explain is why the heck it would prevent the power button to trigger init 0 as it normally does. The system logs sadly don't enlighten me much.
When you experience hardlock can you try to get some output from the magic Sysrq function to check what is causing this?
Code:
AltGr-Sysrq-r (Turns off keyboard raw mode)
AltGr-Sysrq-t (Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your console)
AltGr-Sysrq-m (Will dump current memory info to your console)
When you experience hardlock can you try to get some output from the magic Sysrq function to check what is causing this?
Unfortunately, I'm jailed in X, and can't access a console.
Some news, though. I first tried to update my BIOS, and get things horribly worse. Closing firefox then systematically caused a general freeze. I tried to switch to fluxbox but it didn't help. I therefore downgraded the kernel to the original -stable 4.4.14, along with the firmware it came with. Everything worked back. So, I upgraded the firmware to the version in patches/ to see if the issue was there, but did not notice any change. Finally I upgraded the kernel to the 4.14.74 and everything is currently working like a charm. There's clearly something in the 4.4.157 allowing firefox to wreck the system which has since then been fixed, but I don't know what it was.
Last edited by NonNonBa; 10-13-2018 at 05:05 AM.
Reason: Fluxbox switching test
Unfortunately, I'm jailed in X, and can't access a console.
Some news, though. I first tried to update my BIOS, and get things horribly worse. Closing firefox then systematically caused a general freeze. I tried to switch to fluxbox but it didn't help. I therefore downgraded the kernel to the original -stable 4.4.14, along with the firmware it came with. Everything worked back. So, I upgraded the firmware to the version in patches/ to see if the issue was there, but did not notice any change. Finally I upgraded the kernel to the 4.14.74 and everything is currently working like a charm. There's clearly something in the 4.4.157 allowing firefox to wreck the system which has since then been fixed, but I don't know what it was.
I'm glad you were able to solve the problem. In my experience, the kernel is always a likely culprit for these kinds of problems. In my case, something happened between 4.4.115 and 4.14 that caused lockups on one machine. It went away with 4.15 once I started building minimal kernels.
I'm seeing lock-ups on Slackware64 14.2 after using slackpkg to upgrade to kernel 4.4.157 (huge kernel). This is on an old Dell Optiplex 7010 desktop. I'm using xfce4 as desktop environment.
I can reproduce the lock-up by simply plugging in a large external backup drive (usb, ntfs formatted) and then ejecting the drive by clicking on the icon in Thunar. The drive shows the 'data being written to...' notification, and if I move the Thunar window around, the desktop freezes.
I logged in to the desktop from the laptop using ssh and ran top until it froze, nothing dramatic just shows Thunar on 7% of cpu with load factor around 0.6.
Before I change the kernel, is there a way of monitoring the relevant logs over the ssh connection? like a way of tailing each of the logs once a second or something?
(Laptop is X61s running 32 bit with generic kernel and initrd as I've encrypted the ssd, no sign of anything yet)
I'm seeing lock-ups on Slackware64 14.2 after using slackpkg to upgrade to kernel 4.4.157 (huge kernel). This is on an old Dell Optiplex 7010 desktop. I'm using xfce4 as desktop environment.
My computer is also a Dell, Latitude E6400. The reboot has always been somewhat erratic, as long as I remember. Could all of this be related to the acpi?
Quote:
Originally Posted by keithpeter
Before I change the kernel, is there a way of monitoring the relevant logs over the ssh connection? like a way of tailing each of the logs once a second or something?
My computer is also a Dell, Latitude E6400. The reboot has always been somewhat erratic, as long as I remember. Could all of this be related to the acpi?
Maybe with tail -f?
Hello NonNonBa and all
Below is the /var/log/syslog extract from the Dell when I provoked a freeze by unmounting an external hard drive from Thunar
The first line in the code block below is the last line that I got from the tail -f command on the monitoring laptop, all the later lines were written to the log *after* the ssh session froze and after (I assume) the X session on the Dell froze.
It certainly looks as if the kernel is throwing its dummy about something. Anyone see anything useful here?
If it's about an USB3 storage device (adapter as in the OP) connected to an USB2 port, then the following might be related, although it's been observed in 4.17 and patched some months ago: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10394653/
I experienced hardlocks because of kernels, at least for me, newer kernels like 4.9 or 4.14 series makes my desktop to make a hardlock, this kind of hardlocks rarely left something written in the logs (at least for me, nothing was written in the logs, so I don't know what caused them), maybe it will get fixed if you change the kernel to a 4.4 series.
Is there a ntfs on the drive?
By the way, has anyone been able to trigger the lockup without X running?
Yup, it is an ntfs formatted external usb hard drive. The PC has USB3 and USB2 hubs detected, I'll try to work out which socket is which. The external hard drive is USB2
I'll try reverting to run level 3 and using mount to mount the drive and see if I can reproduce.
I'm guessing that I can compile the huge kernel from the slackbuild in /patches/source to enable the two configuration settings mentioned, but I'll have to read up on how to do that that. I have reverted to the very old 4.4.14 kernel from the DVD but I would like to have a patched updated kernel on this PC, and I'm learning stuff so all fine.
Thanks for replies: UK timezone and I tend to have time to try things in the evening.
Is there a ntfs on the drive?
By the way, has anyone been able to trigger the lockup without X running?
Mine were on a server not running X. No idea if it was the same cause as these other reports, though. Thanks for the tip on the kernel config. I will try that if I encounter the issue again.
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