System locked overnight on 12.2

no.guru · 03-17-2009, 07:43 AM

Overnight my system locked and even Ctrl-Alt-Backspace would not escape from xfce. It required a power off from the surge protector. I reboot very seldom and it had almost 30 days of uptime. I leave a browser and email running overnight but close liferea.

A check of /var/log/messages tells me something happened after 4:59 this morning:

Mar 17 03:59:38 slackware -- MARK --
Mar 17 04:19:38 slackware -- MARK --
Mar 17 04:32:03 slackware ntpd[2827]: kernel time sync status change 4001
Mar 17 04:49:07 slackware ntpd[2827]: kernel time sync status change 0001
Mar 17 04:59:39 slackware -- MARK --
Mar 17 06:28:12 slackware syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

I have now installed rkhunter from SlackBuilds just in case.

I am running 12.2 and I keep up with all security updates. Maybe a recent update required a reboot I missed? Is it possible Amarok somehow caused a problem? I often leave it playing overnight.

Suggestions, comments, and criticisms welcome.

mlangdn · 03-17-2009, 08:46 AM

I have had similar instances, and in each case it was Firefox that locked everything. It barfed on something and I never did have a clue as to why. Thankfully, the incidents are very rare.

piete · 03-17-2009, 09:45 AM

If you can, always try to SSH into a locked box, to have a poke around.

I have had, in the past with certain video drivers, X completely lock the system (no mouse, no ctrl-alt-backspace) but been able to shell in, kill X remotely, and start it back up locally.

no.guru · 03-17-2009, 11:41 AM

For security reasons - also because I wouldn't use it except for rare situations like this - I don't have ssh installed. But that's a great idea.

H_TeXMeX_H · 03-17-2009, 02:07 PM

If there's nothing in the logs then it's hard to say what caused it. But, if you're using the nvidia drivers, I can bet those are the cause. For a long time I used the regular nv drivers on my laptop and it could leave it on for as long as I wanted and it was perfectly stable. But, with the nvidia drivers I got all sorts of weird crashes and lockups and many actually did not report anything in the logs.

Of course it could also be a bug in Xorg or some other program.

no.guru · 03-17-2009, 02:39 PM

I am using nvidia drivers, so that could be it.

mlangdn, I think you're right that it could also very well be Firefox. I've had trouble with it shutting down in 12.2. Often I have to kill two PIDs to shut it down, so I usually leave it up as long as possible. Closing it nightly is probably the better approach.

no.guru · 03-17-2009, 09:00 PM

Thank you all for your replies.

H_TeXMeX_H · 03-18-2009, 05:41 AM

No problem, make sure to post back if you find a solution.

molafish · 03-19-2009, 05:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by no.guru

For security reasons - also because I wouldn't use it except for rare situations like this - I don't have ssh installed. But that's a great idea.

Man... ssh with key files required is... the most secure way I can think of to talk to a computer... You can specify the key length! What more do you want?

guanx · 03-22-2009, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by piete

If you can, always try to SSH into a locked box, to have a poke around.

I have had, in the past with certain video drivers, X completely lock the system (no mouse, no ctrl-alt-backspace) but been able to shell in, kill X remotely, and start it back up locally.

No much chance. Because syslog show it to be locked, sshd can do nothing, I bet. It's a true lock-up. I have this kind of lock-ups everyday when I run my wireless network card at txpower=27dBm. When I don't use wireless (wlan0 is up but with no IP address) or when I set the txpower to 21dBm, it does not lock. Seems like EMC problems. Fortunately, most not-very-old chipsets have built-in watchdogs.