Ubuntu, 11.04 (fully updated)
sa0836561663
Posts: 9
My main PC seem to have caught galloping bit-rot.
It's been working perfectly for two months but, in the last week or so it's started spontaneously hanging. I was just filing some emails in gmail (via Chrome browser - v13.0.782.218) and the whole system just hung; not even mouse movement. I haven't added any hardware recently. the hardware is only a couple of months old and I'm not running anything particularly weird except (maybe) VirtualBox (non OSE version).
There's nothing I can see in the logs (kern.log and syslog - excerpts below) and I can't find anything on the Ubuntu bug list which might affect me.
Any ideas about where I can look trace-wise and/or if some of the latest updates have caused any grief? 
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kern.log (excerpt)
Aug 30 13:17:45 Silver-Streak2 kernel: [ 217.244605] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
Aug 30 13:23:26 Silver-Streak2 kernel: [ 547.393520] exe (2370): /proc/2370/oom_adj is deprecated, please use /proc/2370/oom_score_adj instead.
Aug 30 21:16:37 Silver-Streak2 kernel: [28857.348446] warning: `VirtualBox' uses 32-bit capabilities (legacy support in use)
/* crashed here */ (at 10:24)
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 kernel: imklog 4.6.4, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
=====================
=====================
syslog (excerpt)
Aug 31 09:17:01 Silver-Streak2 CRON[5384]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Aug 31 10:17:01 Silver-Streak2 CRON[5538]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
/* crashed here */ (at 10:24)
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 kernel: imklog 4.6.4, log source = /proc/kmsg started.
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.6.4" x-pid="426" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] (re)start
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 103
Aug 31 10:25:58 Silver-Streak2 rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101
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Comments
Apologies for the delay in replying. The site outage precluded any reply.
Yes, I've checked the RAM and it's (allegedly) fine. The problem is fairly sporadic but always seems to happen around 13:00 which, in South Africa, usually means it's pretty hot. However, I've checked the CPU and board temperature and, if the values reported are correct, they're well within the operating limits.
I doubt if it's running out of memory, the unit has 16GB on board on I don't think its ever gone higher than 10GB in use even when I'm running 2 or 3 VMs.
It may be hardware but, if so, it's a weird problem. The only thing I can think of is that the board or one of the RAM chips has a microscopic crack which opens up when the system warms up. What is VERY odd is that, when it hangs, the mouse just stops moving and whatever was on the screen just prior to the crash remains there. I even tried to ssh into the unit after it had crashed to see if there was still any life behind the frozen display. Nothin'!
I think I'll just unplug everything inside and out and stick it back in again. Might just be a loose SATA cable or an intermittent short somewhere.
The reason I reported it is because I've NEVER seen a Linux installation do anything like this. Although I've had crashes in the past they've usually been picked up by the kernel and reported. Never had a straight 'freeze' like this.
But thanks anyway.
I must confess I didn't check the MD5 and I seem to have lost the disk I cut the ISO to. That said, I'd be surprised if it was a corruption of the installation as it worked perfectly for about 2 months without a problem. Still, I've seen weirder things so it's certainly possible.
I've got a bit too much work on at the moment but, when I've got a spare hour or two, I'll scrape the box and re-install it. If that doesn't rectify it, I'll swap out the RAM, motherboard etc. until the issue is resolved.
All that aside, I'm starting to suspect it's something to do with the sound module or driver. I use Banshee and I noticed the other day that the latter is a bit erratic (spontaneously exits with no error condition on a fairly regular basis). So it may be a prob with the sound hardware or driver.
I'll keep plugging away though.
TTFN.
As for your issue with the sound, if may just be a fault with pulse-audio. Pulse audio has been in beta for a long time and was finally released as stable on 9-27-11, so it is likely that the installed version is a beta that did not fit the expectations of the true developers.
However since the latest ubuntu is being released, it should have the updated version of pulse and other necessary application, so it might be a good idea to try it out. Just make sure to check the md5sum of the downloaded ISO and verify the disk when you burn it to make sure there is no corruption.
I'll give it a go.
Thanks for the input.
To cut a long story short, I scraped the drive and installed Linux Mint. Everything's running perfectly again.
Shame about Ubuntu though. Used it since it first came out; loved it to bits as desktop platform for development but, sadly, it seems to have gone for eye-candy in preference to functionality.
in the terminal you type
sudo apt-get install KDE
or
sudo apt-get install gnome3(Might just be gnome, not sure)
or if you like the lightweight lxde you could do it this way for that:
sudo apt-get install lxde
Give it a try you just might end up liking it more then Linux Mint.
Just liked the old faithful Gnome IF.
Unity I don't mind although I hated it like you do in the beginning, but KDE is just a lot more productive of an environment in my opinion and just as nice if not nicer to look at.
Thanks for all the assistance though.