GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

martvefun · 2012-07-01 20:04:53

Hello,

Since yesterday, I have many crash in GNOME Shell. The display goes in a kind of failsafe mode (very simple graphics and effects) after some time and I am quickly enable to open new windows after the start of gdm.
I'd have posted a screenshot but I'm not able to do it.

When I try to open a new window in a terminal it fails, seems like an error with the display

$ epiphany 
No protocol specified
Failed to parse arguments: Cannot open display: 
$ echo $DISPLAY
:0
$ import MyScreenshot.png
No protocol specified
import: unable to open X server `:0' @ error/import.c/ImportImageCommand/368.

I have the Xorg or opened windows process which take way too much CPU than the usual. For example Firefox easily blocks during a few minutes and I have errors related to a script in an extension which does not run.

Here is my ~/.xsession-errors file

I have not made any configuration change lately except the usual updates. I have to restart GDM each time it happens.

Any idea what is causing that ?
Thank you

Last edited by martvefun (2012-07-01 20:13:35)

nomorewindows · 2012-07-01 22:34:37

What video are you using?

martvefun · 2012-07-02 14:37:11

You mean the graphical card ? I have a nVidia GeForce 8400M GS.
I just noticed I don't have a xorg.conf anymore, just in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ 3 files with nothing related to the screen

#
# Catch-all evdev loader for udev-based systems
# We don't simply match on any device since that also adds accelerometers
# and other devices that we don't really want to use. The list below
# matches everything but joysticks.

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev pointer catchall"
        MatchIsPointer "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
	Option        "XkbLayout"  "fr"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev tablet catchall"
        MatchIsTablet "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev touchscreen catchall"
        MatchIsTouchscreen "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

# Collection of quirks and blacklist/whitelists for specific devices.


# Accelerometer device, posts data through ABS_X/ABS_Y, making X unusable
# http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22442 
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "ThinkPad HDAPS accelerometer blacklist"
        MatchProduct "ThinkPad HDAPS accelerometer data"
        Option "Ignore" "on"
EndSection



Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Option "TapButton1" "1"
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        Option "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection

Last edited by martvefun (2012-07-02 14:41:22)

martvefun · 2012-07-03 15:58:17

Nobody knows ?
Using nvidia-xconfig generated a new xorg.conf but it didn't fixed anything

Last edited by martvefun (2012-07-03 15:58:33)

nomorewindows · 2012-07-03 22:37:48

How about a paste of the /var/log/Xorg.0.log or dmesg?

martvefun · 2012-07-04 09:03:39

Ok I have a clue of the problem. It happens when I lost my internet connexion and network manager asks me to reconnect (I don't know why it is related to xorg).

Look around the second 42000 in these logs
Xorg.log.0 dmesg

nomorewindows · 2012-07-04 13:57:34

This is what you are looking for:
gnome-settings-[2243]: segfault at 18 ip 00007f0b6c30ee40 sp 00007fffdec88dc8 error 4 in libcairo.so.2.11200.2[7f0b6c2ae000+f1000]

These lines are also of notice:
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 302.17 Tue Jun 12 16:04:53 PDT 2012
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(++) using VT number 7

You are probably using the nvidia package. From Nvidia's list this is probably the right driver.
Cairo looks to be the culprit.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2012-07-04 15:58:46)

martvefun · 2012-07-05 08:33:46

Thank you. Any idea how I can fix that ?
I can not simply remove cairo, it is used by many packages (like let say gtk)

Here is the logs for another crash
Xorg.0.log
dmesg

I don't see the cairo here in these one

Last edited by martvefun (2012-07-05 09:05:43)

nomorewindows · 2012-07-05 18:00:38

martvefun wrote:

Thank you. Any idea how I can fix that ?
I can not simply remove cairo, it is used by many packages (like let say gtk)
Here is the logs for another crash
Xorg.0.log
dmesg
I don't see the cairo here in these one

The segfault is an indication of a problem. Sometimes reinstalling affecting package will work and sometimes it's a dependency, but not always.

This message is also indicating something:
NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.

I would also try another small wm and watch it for behaviour to see if it acts any differently.

I've found I don't even need gnome for graphics acceleration. Brain damage: That video hardware acceleration slider in Windows 95 seemed so innocent, even though none of us really understood what it was there for. Now I think I know: it's beginning to be a creepy suspicion.

It seems as though I wasn't the only one having problems involving gnome and their video driver. I'm not sure what the differences are between the different graphics drivers experiencing these problems.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2012-07-05 20:13:53)

martvefun · 2012-07-06 15:04:29

I tried with xfce, the problem does not seem to appear anymore (using it for a few hours, got disconnected a few time, no problem).

So it seems it is definitely related to GNOME (xfce uses also gtk and them cairo I think).

nomorewindows · 2012-07-06 22:39:11

Can you get a framerate? I usually use stellarium, because it is affected by hardware acceleration settings. If you are only getting ~5FPS, there isn't any acceleration, but if you're getting ~20 or better, hardware acceleration is working. glxgears doesn't give a reliable reading. If worse comes to worse, make sure your user is in the video group. This seemed to make a difference for everything else besides gnome (even kde). I still haven't really figured out what has gone weird in gnome. I want to be able to tell that you can get video acceleration without using gnome.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-01 20:04:53

GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#2 2012-07-01 22:34:37

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#3 2012-07-02 14:37:11

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#4 2012-07-03 15:58:17

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#5 2012-07-03 22:37:48

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#6 2012-07-04 09:03:39

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#7 2012-07-04 13:57:34

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#8 2012-07-05 08:33:46

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#9 2012-07-05 18:00:38

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#10 2012-07-06 15:04:29

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

#11 2012-07-06 22:39:11

Re: GNOME in failsafe and unable to open new windows

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