On Saturday 28 November 2009 22:53:52 Harry Putnam wrote: > I keep having a problem where the OS becomes inaccessable after > running in X for a while. I haven't noticed a time pattern yet but it > doesn't take long sometimes. > > Today I started from an OFF machine, booted up, started X did a few > things A few minutes later I attempted to login via ssh from a remote > laptop down stairs. The os is inaccessable via ssh, or port 25 (its > also a mailhup for home lan). > > Went back to the actual machine and it is inaccessable from console as > well. > > It's happened repeatedly now for a week or two, but I've been busy with > other stuff, and if I need it running I've just left it in console > mode. > > The problem apparently does not occur in console mode. > > I see no problem when starting X and I see nothing in > /var/log/messages that gives a clue about what is happening. > > I'm running fairly up to date Desktop profile on kernel: > > (uname -a) > Linux reader 2.6.31-gentoo-r4_rdr-5 #6 SMP > Wed Nov 4 09:19:17 CST 2009 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) > CPU 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux > > I'm not sure how to track down the problem since I'm not seeing any > give away clues in /var/log/messages > > So far, once the lockup has happened it appears there is no way in > other than the reboot switch.
Looks like you need more info for a diagnosis. Unfortunately this is a hit and miss game as we don't have much clue what's going on. The lack of anything valuable in /var/log/messages seems to indicate that either a) no syslog messages were generated (common with client apps) or b) there is a message but the system locks up before it can be flushed to disk. Some ideas: Set up an ssh session to the offending machine from a different machine that is permanently on. Wait for the problem to occur and see if anything got printed on the ssh console. Set up a syslogger on a remote machine and send all your logs to it. If that produces nothing, try having the local syslogger replicate ~/.xsession-errors to the remote logger. I often find that remote logging manages to keep working after the local disk has given up. Obviously, these are long range diagnosis techniques and you have to be patient. "emerge -e world" will take around 24 hours and may well fix your problem, but not tell you what the cause was. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
