[clue] troubleshooting X suggestions?

[Jim Ockers]

Hi Mike,

Mike Bean wrote:
> So, I've been getting some X hangs lately.  I didn't think much of the 
> first two, but I'm starting to think I need to pay attention.   I 
> suspect it's browser/flash issue, but I don't know how I'll ever prove 
> that. 
>
> Anyway - I have a couple questions.
>
> 1. Is there a better way to recover from application hang then just 
> zapping the X server?  cntrl-alt-backspace?
> I know that if I've got a working terminal window I can theorhetically 
> kill the offending process, but what if I don't have a working terminal?
> 2. I wonder if there's a log somewhere I need to be reading when these 
> happen so I can avoid setting off the same landmine twice?   It's a 
> system hang, (unresponsive to mouse and keyboard), I suspect X, I 
> could go to /etc/X11, but I don't see a logs directory; besides, 
> logically speaking X could be innocent.  I see this kind of behavior 
> in windows, you usually just respond with the 3 finger salute and kill 
> the "not responding" process in task manager.
>
> Anyway, guidance/suggestions are appreciated.
> My distro is:
> DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
> DISTRIB_RELEASE=11
> DISTRIB_CODENAME=katya
> DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 11 Katya"
>
> thanks and regards,
>
> Mike Bean
Are you sure your video card/GPU and PC hardware are all solid?

When your box stops responding on the tty running the X server, do the 
NumLock and other keyboard lights still work?  Can you ping & ssh into 
the box?  If you can ssh in (or use a serial console, if you're old 
school and have one set up) can you use the chvt command to change 
virtual consoles?  chvt # at any shell command prompt does the same 
system call as if you could press CTRL-ALT-F# on the keyboard.  Also 
obviously as others have stated you could kill X when logged in via ssh 
or another terminal.

If you want to debug it you could try starting X with authentication 
off, or else before it crashes type "xhost +" then you can try to 
connect to the X server with other X clients and see if it is responding 
or what the nature of the problem might be.  X is a complicated beast 
and can be hard to troubleshoot so good luck.

Jim

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: http://www.ockers.net/msi.html


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