Arch Linux

AquaBoogie

Member

Registered: 2010-08-09

Posts: 20

Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

I installed Arch for the third time about a month ago, the longest I've stuck with this distro. I think Arch is here to stay. The first two times I tried Arch, I went running back to Ubuntu or Fedora. However, thats not to say that I don't have some bugs to still work out.

I'm running kernel26-lts if it matters, and I believe I'm running 32 bit flash rather than the 64 bit driver. I'm almost certain, but I'm unsure of how to double check the version of flash I'm running. After upgrading flash a week or so ago, flash video has been causing intermittent crashes. Is there a known issue with the new version of flash? Should I roll back to the previous version of flash, or perhaps try the 64 bit version?

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

Why are you running the -lts kernel?
'pacman -Q flashplugin' should be enough to check the version.

Last edited by karol (2010-12-30 21:21:56)

AquaBoogie

Member

Registered: 2010-08-09

Posts: 20

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

Why are you running the -lts kernel?
'pacman -Q flashplugin' should be enough to check the version.

For some reason with kernel26, the usb ports on this laptop do not work. That was the case everytime I've installed Arch on this laptop (Dell Inspiron). I haven't got around to figuring out why it doesn't work yet, but for now, kernel26-lts works.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

Why are you running the -lts kernel?
'pacman -Q flashplugin' should be enough to check the version.

For some reason with kernel26, the usb ports on this laptop do not work. That was the case everytime I've installed Arch on this laptop (Dell Inspiron). I haven't got around to figuring out why it doesn't work yet, but for now, kernel26-lts works.

Ah, OK then.
Do you have any interesting errors in the logs?

AquaBoogie

Member

Registered: 2010-08-09

Posts: 20

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

I'm still kind of n00b with Arch. I can install it, but I'm not great at maintaining it or diagnosing problems through logs. Which logs do you suggest I look through?

Also, is there a page somewhere in the wiki that explains in detail how to troubleshoot by searching for errors in logs? Possibly a required reading list for being a proficient Arch user?

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

The logs are in /var/log. We can start with /var/log/Xorg.0.log - just post it here using [ code] tags https://bbs.archlinux.org/help.php#bbcode or use pastebin.
I use

grep -E '\((WW|EE)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

to search for warnings and errors.

I don't think there's any definite list or guide to all the possible errors you can encounter. You have to read e.g. troubleshooting sections of the relevant articles in the wiki.

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

Yeah, flash has become weird recently. flashplayer10_2_p2_32bit_linux_111710 likes to crash on me, and leave a remainder on the screen, which I have to stop xorg to remove!

Which presumably is a bug in xorg or nvidia.

Anyway, it made me use privoxy again, which has a very handy filter{shockwave-flash} option, which I've enabled by default, so my web pages don't have so much crap on them.

Hope that helps, though it's just a workaround.

Edit: So, this is the horrendously crashy version:
$ strings libflashplayer.so | grep FlashPlayer_
FlashPlayer_10_2_151_49_FlashPlayer

And this version seems OK:
$ strings libflashplayer.so | grep FlashPlayer_
FlashPlayer_10_1_102_65_FlashPlayer

Last edited by brebs (2011-01-01 04:07:10)

AquaBoogie

Member

Registered: 2010-08-09

Posts: 20

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

Sorry I took so long to respond. I checked Xorg.0.log, and nothing looks particularly interesting. What do you think?

grep -E '\((WW|EE)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[    16.093] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF/" does not exist.
[    16.137] (WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
[    16.360] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
[    16.360] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
[    16.509] (WW) RADEON(0): LVDS Info:
[    17.805] (WW) RADEON(0): DRI init changed memory map, adjusting ...
[    17.805] (WW) RADEON(0):   MC_FB_LOCATION  was: 0x00ff00e0 is: 0x00ff00e0 

I have a hunch that replacing the open source drivers with catalyst might help the problem. Thoughts?

I was trying build and install catalyst last night with no luck. Isn't there a wiki page devoted to catalyst? I could have sworn I've seen it in the past.

AquaBoogie

Member

Registered: 2010-08-09

Posts: 20

Re: Flash Causes Entire System to Crash

So I installed catalyst and removed xf86-video-ati. Flash seems to work MUCH  better, haven't had a crash yet today and I've been testing it with long videos and fullscreen. I'm fairly certain that I'm running flgrx and not the fallback video drivers (mesa or something?). How should I confirm this?

Also, the following warnings appear now in my Xorg log. Is this anything to be concerned about?

grep -E '\((WW|EE)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[    15.976] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF/" does not exist.
[    16.071] (WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
[    16.463] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:17:0) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:18:0) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:18:1) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:18:2) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:19:0) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:19:1) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:19:2) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:20:0) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:20:2) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:20:3) found
[    16.527] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:20:4) found
[    16.634] (WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported
[    17.134] (WW) fglrx(0): Option "VendorName" is not used
[    17.134] (WW) fglrx(0): Option "ModelName" is not used 

Thanks for your help