I've seen this occasionally on various kernel versions in Debian and also on SLE.
Last time I looked at one of these cases, the log messages weren't complete gibberish, but only every second character was present. In this case the pattern of dropped characters is less regular. Matching up syslog and dmesg (with . for dropped characters): ...........9..]..X..-.. ..m..2.. ...n...n...n...j...n.. [237050.789205] EXT3-fs (dm-12): using internal journal .....5...9...6...X...f...d...2...m...t...f...s...e...i...o...r...d... ...e [237050.790426] EXT3-fs (dm-12): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode [237459.9.3863] E.T.-.s.(.m.1.). .s.n. .n.e.n.l.j.r.a.. [237459.953863] EXT3-fs (dm-12): using internal journal ......9...6...]...........................t................... [237459.946661] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds ......................r...............................n................ [237459.965601] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311354 ................e......p......e...........i...u...f...n... ...d....1... [237459.966597] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311342 ...7.......6... ...3...p..._...a...:...l...n...n...e...c...i...e...1... [237459.966614] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311340 [...4...9...2....x....r...._....n....d....i.....r....e.....i.....3..... [237459.966621] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311338 ..3.....9.....]....._.....n.....n.....e.....g.....f.....e.....d........ [237459.967046] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311298 .....5.....0.....X..... .....2.....o..... .....s.....t.. [237459.967056] EXT3-fs (dm-12): 5 orphan inodes deleted .....5.....6.....X..... .....2.....c..... .....e.. [237459.967662] EXT3-fs (dm-12): recovery complete [237712..6..3.]..j..r..l..s...t.......o...t...t...a.....e....s [237712.565835] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds ........5....5..E..3..s..d..1..:..o..t.. ..l..y..e..w..h..r..r.. ..t..m..e [237712.596995] EXT3-fs (dm-12): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way.
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