Random Crashes

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-16 22:40:11

For some reason, Arch keeps randomly crashing. I will be using Fluxbox, maybe surfing the web, when my keyboard'll stop working. Then I have about two seconds to get out of Flux before my mouse stops working and I have to do a whole reboot. I have no other window managers on the system, so I don't know if it happens just with Fluxbox. Any ideas?

contrasutra · 2003-11-17 01:40:56

Ive been having these issues too, but not with Fluxbox.

I thought it had to me using the 2.6 test kernel, but it may be another package messing it up.

sarah31 · 2003-11-17 03:25:09

well i had these issues before with fluxbox before coming to arch. for me i started using another wm and that worked but ultimately i believe it was a buggy nvidia card.

andy · 2003-11-17 08:10:44

Just a counter-example : I am using fluxbox, too. I tend to stay logged in for days but I never experience anything like you described.

I'm running 2.4.X kernel and NO nvidia card.

esel · 2003-11-17 13:33:42

Same thing happened to me, but I was using kde and twm. In my case the reason was some mouse settings in XF86Config.

zen_guerrilla · 2003-11-17 15:02:23

If you have nvidia video card & use nvidia's drivers, check the agpgart option for xf86config on nvidia's drivers docs. A friend of mine had the same problem with his via kt266 mobo.
Also consider using version 1.0-4363 of nvidia's drivers. The current version is really unstable IMHO.

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-19 22:05:39

I don't have an nVidia card, I have a Radeon 9000. I've never had issues like this with other distros. I ended up just reinstalling Slack, but maybe when .6 comes out I'll come back to Arch, I really liked pacman.

sarah31 · 2003-11-19 22:13:19

maybe slack is more forgiving on hardware problems. from the sounds of it you do have a hardware issue somewhere. myself and others have told you our experiences. in my case it was a bad video card. trust me if you have this issue on arch you will have it on other distros. maybe not slack but slack does not cover the range.

it is too late to cry over it now but it would have been nice if you could have stuck around to solve this issue. perhaps it was software and if that is the case then the problem will persist to .6 because we have no other person to trouble shoot this.

i don't suppose you email the head developer or other official repo maintainers?

not trying to make you feel bad it is completely your choice to move back to slack and i really have nio issues with that i am just wishing that you could have help us localize the issue.

see you for .6

dariball · 2003-11-20 00:00:35

i think the problem is as long as it is not really repeatable it sounds for me like a hardware issue.... i am one more counterexample, i use flux too and remain logged in for months, without any problems....

did u try an older/newer ati driver, maybe the one used by slackware was another one, because i would guess this has something to do with the gfx card...

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-20 02:33:59

I've never had this issue with Slack, RedHat, SuSE, Sourcemage, or Gentoo. All handled my card perfectly. As I said, I can't wait to try Arch .6 when it comes out, but for now I'm going to be sticking with Slack. It *may* be a hardware issue - I'm getting a new video card around the holiday's anyway so maybe I'll give it a try then.

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-25 22:25:09

Alright, I decided to give Arch a try again. I really liked it, and Slack just doesn't feel as good . So I reinstalled. Now, it freezes even when I'm not in X. I haven't even had time to start installing drivers and stuff. What steps can I take to get this thing up and running. Keep in mind I only have about thirty seconds logged in before the whole thing freezes and I have to reboot .

sarah31 · 2003-11-26 00:23:16

ok well lets see....

what sort of install did you do? Iso? FTP?

did you just install a based system then build from there or did you install more?

can you give us an idea of what you may have installed outside of the base catagory. (ie trying to determine if it is a package problem or potential hardware and given that most base systems are similar so perhaps it is issues outside of base)

if you can can you install just a base system (no X or gui packages what soever) and play around a bit to see if you get any freezes. perhaps even get some console apps running and you can post use some of your logs or other stuff.

while i still am convince this may be hardware related it may not be dying hardware. rather it could just be a bug in the system that only arch seems to be able to bring out. (you should know that some hardware is flakey in certain circumstances and by no fault of the user or his/her OS.)

i am hoping we all will have the patience to work this out. i personally want to see this issue resolved so that arch, or your computer, can be fixed.

Xentac · 2003-11-26 00:25:26

i am hoping we all will have the patience to work this out. i personally want to see this issue resolved so that arch, or your computer, can be fixed.

Here, here.

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-26 02:41:27

Well after talking on IRC for a little while, I found out it was that I installed from a bad CD. I reinstalled and now it works great. I couldn't be happier. Thank you all for trying, though!

sarah31 · 2003-11-26 03:49:50

:evil: bad bad bad cd.....bad :evil:

great news btw

undeadpenguin · 2003-11-26 13:48:18

Yup. I love it now! This really is a great distro. I've been using source-based distros for a while just because I liked the fact the package management was automagic and everything was fast. I didn't want to sacrifice speed. But since everything is i686 optimized on Arch, I won't loose speed by not compiling, and I can still have my automagic package management. Plus, I don't have to spend 3 days to get a fully working system .

undeadpenguin · 2003-12-01 03:16:02

Well, they're back :cry: . I had to reinstall Slack today :cry: . I don't know why it's doing this... I really want Arch, not Slackware.

[edit]
I think it's being caused by Firebird. It only happens when I'm running Firebird, and for some reason I can't get Firebird to work correctly. I won't be able to type, then in two seconds I can't move my mouse. I've tried reinstalling Firebird - even reinstalling Arch, but it doesn't work still for some reason...

hApy · 2003-12-02 01:45:00

make sure you have your "lo" interface up. (/etc/rc.conf) or turn off "search as you type" or something like that. search the forum for more detailed discussion.

Hapy.

undeadpenguin · 2003-12-04 02:02:57

Well I'm still having the crashes, so maybe it's the lo thing. I thought I had it set up right (I left it the default way in /etc/rc.conf).
It looks like this:
lo "lo 127.0.0.1"

undeadpenguin · 2003-12-31 23:54:16

Sorry to bring this back to life, but it's starting to make the system unusable and I'd really like to stay with Arch. It only happens when I print stuff now. I have a2ps, gimp-print, cups, hotplug, and hpijs installed. I've noticed when it is shutting down that network and esound always [fail].
My rc.conf looks like this:

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#

#
# Localization
#
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime"
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: fount in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-us)
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
#
HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
TIMEZONE=US/Eastern
KEYMAP=us
CONSOLEFONT=
USECOLOR="yes"

#
# Networking
#
HOSTNAME="undead"

#
# Module to load at boot-up (in this order)
#   (prefix a module with a ! to disable it)
#
MODULES=(!usbserial ide-scsi mii sundance i810_audio usb-ohci usb-storage)
#
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
#   (prefix an interface in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it)
#
# Note: to use DHCP, set your interface to be "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
#
lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo eth0)

#
# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
#   (prefix a route in ROUTES with a ! to disable it)
#
gateway="default gw 192.168.0.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)

#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   (prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it)
#
DAEMONS=(syslogd klogd !pcmcia network crond esd cups hotplug)

# End of file

What else could be causing this?

zen_guerrilla · 2004-01-01 11:49:50

Hello,
3 suggestions:
*) put '!' in front of every module in your MODULES list, since you're using hotplug & move hotplug in the 3rd place (right after klogd) in DAEMONS list.
*) Are you really using dhcp on your lan ? 'ifconfig' s output is correct ?
*) Check /var/log/cups/* for the errors about your printing problem. (have 'tail -f /var/log/cups/FILE' running in a console & do 'echo "test" | lpr' on another to see the log before it crashes).

ps. I can't help you with esd, I've never used it myself .

andy · 2004-01-01 19:31:54

Here is my opinion on modules : If you should decide to not use hotplug, then I would still uncomment at least mii and sundance and use /etc/modeuls.conf instead and add a line

alias eth0 sundance

into /etc/modules.conf. That's how I prefer configuring the network. And you can do similar things for audio. That way the order of mii and sundance (and possible other dependencies) should be correct.

undeadpenguin · 2004-01-01 21:41:48

Actually I think something's wrong with my system :? . CRUX didn't work right either, it would freeze in the console. I just installed Gentoo, and it's freezing in the console as well. I think it's my hard drive because I've noticed when it freezes the light's on full activity, not even flickering.

Xentac · 2004-01-01 21:47:08

It might also be overheating... make sure that you have proper cooling to all the components.

undeadpenguin · 2004-01-02 00:20:15

That's another big possibility; I only have two case fans.

Arch Linux

#1 2003-11-16 22:40:11

Random Crashes

#2 2003-11-17 01:40:56

Re: Random Crashes

#3 2003-11-17 03:25:09

Re: Random Crashes

#4 2003-11-17 08:10:44

Re: Random Crashes

#5 2003-11-17 13:33:42

Re: Random Crashes

#6 2003-11-17 15:02:23

Re: Random Crashes

#7 2003-11-19 22:05:39

Re: Random Crashes

#8 2003-11-19 22:13:19

Re: Random Crashes

#9 2003-11-20 00:00:35

Re: Random Crashes

#10 2003-11-20 02:33:59

Re: Random Crashes

#11 2003-11-25 22:25:09

Re: Random Crashes

#12 2003-11-26 00:23:16

Re: Random Crashes

#13 2003-11-26 00:25:26

Re: Random Crashes

#14 2003-11-26 02:41:27

Re: Random Crashes

#15 2003-11-26 03:49:50

Re: Random Crashes

#16 2003-11-26 13:48:18

Re: Random Crashes

#17 2003-12-01 03:16:02

Re: Random Crashes

#18 2003-12-02 01:45:00

Re: Random Crashes

#19 2003-12-04 02:02:57

Re: Random Crashes

#20 2003-12-31 23:54:16

Re: Random Crashes

#21 2004-01-01 11:49:50

Re: Random Crashes

#22 2004-01-01 19:31:54

Re: Random Crashes

#23 2004-01-01 21:41:48

Re: Random Crashes

#24 2004-01-01 21:47:08

Re: Random Crashes

#25 2004-01-02 00:20:15

Re: Random Crashes

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