[lug] debugging workstation issue

Fri Apr 10 07:46:47 MDT 2020

Thanks Maxwell and Michael,

The video card is of this machine is older than the rest of the box. It's
an ATI dual-monitor DVI (details below). There is no 3D enabled. One of the
first things I tried when this was happening was indeed trying
CONTROL-ALT-Fn and that did not work. I say "did" because I recently
changed keyboard with a more ergonomic Apple one (or I had my hands chopped
off with the inordinate amount of time I now have to spend there....) and
on such keyboard the Fn keys are not recognized, so this test is a moot
point.
Yet, I think the key point here is the fact that the box does not respond
to ssh attempts, so it must go in some weird status, not just a "broken
display mode" one.

Maxwell, I am sorry to hear that even you have to suffer these things. Sigh.

Thanks,
Davide

VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV370 GL
[FireMV 2200] (rev 80)
Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV370 GL [FireMV
2200] (Secondary) (rev 80)

On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 9:17 PM Maxwell Spangler <lists at maxwellspangler.com>
wrote:

> Sometimes on my intel based laptop with integrated Intel GMA drivers, the
> GUI display will lock up.
>
> Can you CONTROL-ALT-F2 (or f3, f4, etc) to get to an alternate console?
>
> If so, you can then login on a text console and use 'dmesg' and
> 'journalctl -f' to see what's going on.
>
> Due to bugs in X-windows/Gnome/intel drivers/whatever this happens to me a
> lot and for all my love for Linux I have to reboot it a lot to get back to
> a normal GUI display.
>
> M
>
> On Thu, 2020-04-09 at 16:45 -0600, Davide Del Vento wrote:
>
> Thanks to both of you.
>
> Zan: it is indeed a systemd system and "journalctl -b -1" provides what I
> was looking for. I don't see anything suspicious other than perhaps
>
> Apr 09 13:23:43 buzzicone systemd[1]: Starting Message of the Day...
> Apr 09 13:23:43 buzzicone systemd[1]: Started Message of the Day.
>
> (and then the log ends). The time is around when the problem occurred and
> I tried to trigger that live by e.g. opening a new shell, starting bash
> with -l option, ssh'ing to localhost, triggering the screensaver. Nothing
> cause it to happen.... so that is weird.
>
> D Stimits: ssh'ing prior to the failure assumes that I have a spare system
> to do that, which unfortunately at the moment I haven't (plus as I said it
> sometimes happens at boot before I get a chance to ssh into it). Thanks for
> the tip about unplugging and replugging USB devices, I will try that next
> time!
>
> Cheers,
> Davide
>
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 3:10 PM D. Stimits <stimits at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> On April 9, 2020 at 2:14 PM Davide Del Vento <davide.del.vento at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> My workstation, a desktop-sized server computer used as a desktop, is
> having a very annoying problem, which is even more severe these days that I
> have to rely to it for basically everything (so far the only thing I don't
> use it for is for when I use the restroom, but that may change soon)...
>
> Anyway, the problem is that sometimes at boot and sometimes after the
> screensaver is engaged the machine goes into a "dead" status. I suspect it
> can be an hybernation mode or something like that, which does not awake
> when I hit the keyboard, mouse or power button. A long press on the power
> button does trigger a reboot, with all the usual consequences of such a
> thing (possible files not closed, filesystem checks, loss of not-saved
> data, etc). When it is in this status, trying to ssh into it from another
> machine hangs with no response.
>
> It's been a long time since I debugged something like this and dmesg shows
> only messages since last reboot, which are clearly useless. Any clues on
> how to look at the logs immediately BEFORE that? Bonus points if you have
> any ideas on what might be going on or specifically what to look for.
>
>
>  Ssh in and run "dmesg --follow" prior to the failure. The computer which
> is displaying this will still be running.
>
> Tip: Often USB devices do not correctly handle or respond to low power
> mode events. If this is the case, then when mouse/keyboard fails to wake up
> the system, you might try to unplug and replug the mouse/keyboard and test
> again if you can now resume.
>
> PS: If I were more motivated I'd edit my window manager and display
> manager code and remove the option to manually sleep/suspend. I hate
> accidentally clicking that instead of log out or shut down or reboot.
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> --
>
> Maxwell Spangler
> ===================================================================
> Denver, Colorado, USA
> maxwellspangler.com <http://www.maxwellspangler.com>
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