From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 2 10:13:12 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08F3F106566B for ; Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:13:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions@m.gmane.org) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A33B8FC18 for ; Tue, 2 Mar 2010 10:13:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NmP6E-0002R9-LJ for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:13:10 +0100 Received: from pool-68-239-67-130.res.east.verizon.net ([68.239.67.130]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:13:10 +0100 Received: from nightrecon by pool-68-239-67-130.res.east.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:13:10 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Michael Powell Followup-To: gmane.os.freebsd.questions Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:12:24 -0500 Lines: 72 Message-ID: References: <201003020938.33503.david@vizion2000.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: pool-68-239-67-130.res.east.verizon.net Subject: Re: Hi - identifying cause of crash - a how to please X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:13:12 -0000 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