Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 15:39:45 +0000 From: David Southwell <david@vizion2000.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Hi - identifying cause of crash - a how to please Message-ID: <201003021539.45537.david@vizion2000.net> In-Reply-To: <hmiobb$p1b$1@dough.gmane.org> References: <201003020938.33503.david@vizion2000.net> <hmiobb$p1b$1@dough.gmane.org>
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> David Southwell wrote: > > Hi > > > > I have a specific situation which causes a system crash on freebsd 7.2 p3 > > amd64 on intel quad core. Can someone teach me how to trace the cause? > > > > The crash is repeatable in the following circumstances: > > > > > > (a) User logs in > > (b) % startx > > (c) kde4 loads and works the session > > (d) user logs out x session terminates. > > (e) user attempts to start a new x session with: > > (f) % startx > > (g) system crashes immediately > > > > System requires rebooting to single user mode. Run fsck -y and then go > > multiuser. Whereupon the cycle can be repeated. > > > > > > This event did not occur until kde was upgraded to kde 4.3.5. > > > > The video card is a winfast PX7800GT providing openGL with dual DVI. The > > crash problem was not present before upgrading to 3.4.5 so whilst not > > ruling out the card I am not assuming it is the video card. > > > > It would be helpful if the procedure could be identified clearly. I will > > post the results available on the web so someone who knows how to > > interpret them could take a look. > > > > Finally should I be asking this question on another maillist? > > This is a good place to start, and if someone knows a better spot it will > probably be indicated. I can't give you an in depth response, but maybe > something to start with. The Kernel Debugging section of the Developer's > Handbook may serve as an introduction to a few basics: > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/ > > You can also start right away by examining the .xsession-errors file you > will find in the users home directory. Also, in /var/log look for the > Xorg.0.log and Xorg.0.log.old. After restarting from a crash, if you startx > the first one will only contain info on that startup; the second one (.old) > may contain some info on what happened at the time of the previous crash, > if it is indeed the X server crashing. Sometimes any errors to stdout may > appear in /var/log/messages. > > Sometimes there may be informative error messages present which can be > Googled, and other times nothing useful. The same with the .xsession-errors > file - it usually contains information relevant to the applications which > were running on top of X. > > If you are running the nvidia driver and see some evidence that it may be > responsible for the crash, you could try substituting the nv driver as a > test. This might help isolate the problem to the nvidia driver. But where > to go from here is a good question. Sometimes if there is some problem wrt > the nvidia driver after some kind of upgrade doing a make, make deinstall, > and make reinstall of the nvidia driver port occasionally fixes something, > but this is a long shot. > > Nvidia also has a web forum you might hunt around in. Also, if you are > doing startx to start KDE with a .xinitrc file in the users home dir (with > startkde in here), try it without so the default TWM window manager comes > up instead of KDE. Then do the restart test and see if it crashes. This > is a good way to separate the problem from being X related and/or KDE > related. > > -Mike > Thanks mike Will give all that a go. Incidentally found no.xsession-errors in user's directory. Photographic Artist Permanent Installations & Design Creative Imagery and Advanced Digital Techniques High Dynamic Range Photography & Official Portraiture Combined darkroom & digital creations & Systems Adminstrator for the vizion2000.net network
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