Arch Linux

MrBackhand

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2006-05-26

Posts: 33

Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

I have a Toshiba Tecra 9100 laptop that has been running Arch Linux since .72 with NO lockups or freezing ever until I did a pacman -Syu on Thursday, August 24th.  This was the first time I did a pacman -Syu in about 30-34 days.  Since then my laptop has locked up completely SIX (6) times!  I can not switch to a term screen or perform any other function and the cooling fan is running hard when I discover it has locked up.  There were 250-300 megs worth of updates and I received no errors during the download or install of the newer packages from easynews.  This laptop does not have nVidia or ATI video, so I am not running compiz or XGL or anything like that, normal X-windows with KDE.  Gnome is not installed anywhere except for the support libraries necessary for other applications.  There are no warning messages or problems in /var/log/messages indicating the problem.  I tried going to the fallback kernel and it locked up within an hour, so I went back to the current kernel which is 2.6.22-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT. 

Is anyone else having the same problem?  Is there anyway I can undo the pacman -Syu and go back to the previous packages?  Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

I've experienced a myriad of issues on my Toshiba Satellite, most of them due to the 2.6.22 kernel...

Some suggestions for you:
1) try adding "clocksource=pit" to the kernel command line
2) quite a few laptops, it seems, experience ACPI issues with 2.6.22 kernels (though it looks like it's fixed in 2.6.23).  Your lockups could be acpi related (fan spinning up - but this could also be a result of high cpu use).  You can try adding "ec_intr=0" to the kernel command line as well (this does not remove the ACPI problems, but at least seems to make them less frequent).
3) try going back to 2.6.21 kernel and see if that helps with your issues.

Now that I'm rereading your post I fear that what you're experiencing is something completely different from my problems but I guess in a situation like this anything is worth a try...

MrBackhand

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2006-05-26

Posts: 33

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

You mentioned ACPI having issues with the .22 kernel, which I seem to be running.  I remember waaaaay back when needing to add noacpi or something like that to the kernel command line on another laptop so it would work correctly, do you know if that command is still available or will work?  Do you know if noacpi is a valid kernel command I can try?

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

noacpi should work, but that's an extreme solution (you'll loose a whole lot of acpi related functionalities like the ability to software reboot, auto-controlling of fans and so on) so that should be the last resort.  You can try adding it to the kernel command line for debugging purposes though - it should enable you to determine whether your problems are acpi related.

MrBackhand

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2006-05-26

Posts: 33

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

My machine has just rebooted from being locked up again so I am now trying the noacpi option.  Some "expert" on the IRC "support" channel thinks it's memory.  He seems certain that the memory went bad in the 8 hours between the time I did a pacman -Syu on Thursday and the laptop locking up the first time.  Strange that the laptop has never locked up prior to that and it only started locking up after I did these updates on Thursday, but they are the "experts" and he thinks it is impossible that the software that was installed during those updates is the cause even though that is the ONLY think that has changed.  If the machine does not lock up for 24 hours I'll feel certain it is the acpi option that you mentioned.

I appreciate your help, this seems to be the best place to get help from people that know.

shining

Pacman Developer

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 2,043

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

My machine has just rebooted from being locked up again so I am now trying the noacpi option.  Some "expert" on the IRC "support" channel thinks it's memory.  He seems certain that the memory went bad in the 8 hours between the time I did a pacman -Syu on Thursday and the laptop locking up the first time.  Strange that the laptop has never locked up prior to that and it only started locking up after I did these updates on Thursday, but they are the "experts" and he thinks it is impossible that the software that was installed during those updates is the cause even though that is the ONLY think that has changed.  If the machine does not lock up for 24 hours I'll feel certain it is the acpi option that you mentioned.

I appreciate your help, this seems to be the best place to get help from people that know.

I checked back the log since i was curious :

21:36   bongwater >> my machine has now locked up solid 7 times since i did a pacman -Syu on friday  :(
21:36 ::: roadboy [i=roadboy@server.dincercelik.com] has quit ["Leaving"]
21:36   iamsthitha >> bongwater: -Syu again
21:36   bongwater >> already did
21:36   iamsthitha >> is it the new kernel actin up?

The first suggestion was actually a possible kernel breakage.
So it's not because another weirdo was 100 % sure that it was a hardware failure that you should think the irc channel is not a friendly and helpful place as well
But hardware failure (especially memory) might be a second good thing to check after the kernel in case of weird lockup/freeze.

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pacman roulette : pacman -S $(pacman -Slq | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))

Leigh

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2004-06-25

Posts: 533

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

This may, or may not be related, but....

Recently when trying to help someone on the irc channel who had a similar problem after a pacman syu, The problem got fixed, but it's still kind of a mystery as to what was wrong. We suspected it was a kernel issue. He could boot into his system from the install disk using it's kernel, so he reinstalled the kernel. It didn't help. He tried installing the ck kernel. it still didn't help. Finally I suggested as a last resort, to try booting the ftp install disk, mount the partitions and correct file systems without overwriting/formatting them, then run through a base install which actually just updates all the base files, then install the kernel, verify that the conf files did not change, which they didn't, then skip the set password and boot loader since it's already there. I only suggested that because it fixed my system a few times in the past when everything else I tried didn't work. Anyway, After he did all that, his system booted and everything was back to normal and the problem was fixed.

The thing is, is that when he was back into his system, and did a pacman -Syu, he found that many of the packages were newer than what was in current. So I'm thinking the initial problem was caused by updating the system from an outdated mirror, or mirror with a corrupt file. That's just a guess though.

Last edited by Leigh (2007-08-28 05:03:15)

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-- archlinux 是一个极好的 linux。

MrBackhand

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2006-05-26

Posts: 33

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

Ok, my machine has locked up twice now since I've tried the suggestions above.  Does anyone know where I can get the 2.6.21 kernel package?  I can not find it on any of the download locations and I would like to change back to this kernel to see if there is a difference.

Last edited by MrBackhand (2007-08-28 20:21:41)

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

Ok, my machine has locked up twice now since I've tried the suggestions above.  Does anyone know where I can get the kernel26-2.6.22.1-1.pkg.tar.gz package?  I can not find it on any of the download locations and I would like to change back to this kernel to see if there is a difference.

You should be able to find it in /var/cache/pacman/pkg -- unless, of course, you have a habit of clearing pacman cache.  If you don't have it post back and we'll think of an alternative solution (you can always build it by revising a PKGBUILD from ABS).

Once you find the package "pacman -U [package_file]" it, and if this doesn't work "pacman -Rd kernel26" and then "pacman -A [package_file]"

PS: Don't be too hard on the people on the IRC channel - they're just users like you and I and, I imagine, some of the suggestions you'll get from there are likely to be better than others...  Memory, like shining said, is not such a bad idea for what's wrong, even though probably unlikely given the circumstances in which the problems started to occur... I would also add that overheating might be an issue, especially if you have not used your computer for a while, and the temperatures are high right now where you live...  A lot of things could be the source of your problems and it's probably not wise to discard them right away as impossible.  Having said that - I bet it's the kernel

Edit: ooops, I gave the wrong path... fixed now.

Last edited by fwojciec (2007-08-28 20:53:21)

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrade_packages  will help you to downgrade packages

MrBackhand

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2006-05-26

Posts: 33

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

I am happy to report that my laptop has now been running perfect for 24 hours after I reinstalled the kernel26-2.6.21.3-1.pkg.tar.gz package that was in /var/cache/pacman/pkg from the help posted above.  With the kernel26-2.6.22.5-1.pkg.tar.gz kernel package my laptop was locking up twice in a 24-hour period for nearly a week.  I did have to reinstall my wireless networking packages to get that working again, but other than that everything is working perfectly.

Thank you for your help.

fwojciec

Member

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,411

Re: Lockup/Freeze since pacman-Syu on Thursday 8/24

Glad you were able to figure this out.  Make sure that you add kernel26 to "IgnorePkg" in pacman.conf, to avoid upgrading it automatically when a new version of 2.6.22 is released.  Hopefully the compatibility between the latest kernel and your hardware will be worked out in 2.6.23 kernels - I've tried running some rc versions of 2.6.23 on my laptop (which works, but not happily, under 2.6.22,) and it looks like all the problems I've been experiencing have already been taken care of there.