Fatal X server error

[ddaupert]

Brand new zareason strata 3660 laptop, ATI HD4650 graphics, Kubuntu 10.04.

About once every 5 or 6 boots, X would freeze, hang. I'd get the Kubuntu splash screen with the progress dots, then blank screen with blinking cursor, then splash screen again, then blank, and no more progress. For awhile, I found that I could power the machine off, reboot, and get the login screen, and login successfully.

But now, the machine just hangs. I started a Live-CD session, retrieved some logs, and found this entry in Xorg.failsafe.log:

Fatal server error:
xf86OpenConsole: VT_WAITACTIVE failed: Interrupted system call

There's no mention of any problem before that message. No EE entries, and only one WW entry (no cyrillic font directory).

When I search on that error on http://wiki.x.org, I get no hits.

Any suggestions?


/dennis

[Fintan]

Re: Fatal X server error

I am something similar after putting my HD's on to another machine due to this:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...;topicseen#new

I even did a new install of lucid.

where did you find:
Xorg.failsafe.log ?

[ddaupert]

Re: Fatal X server error

Additional Info:

I found a huge thread of posts on this same issue on launchpad.net. It seems this issue has hit on a wide range of machines, graphics cards, and ubuntu and kubuntu alike:

This link is somewhere in the middle of the post stream:

https://lists.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/msg72029.html

I almost missed that. I had googled earlier, and found an old post by Linus Torvalds with this same error message dated 2007. The bug was fixed then. It seems to be back.

/dennis

[ddaupert]

Re: Fatal X server error

I am something similar after putting my HD's on to another machine due to this:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...;topicseen#new

I even did a new install of lucid.

where did you find:
Xorg.failsafe.log ?

I found Xorg.failsafe.log in the /var/log directory

[Fintan]

Re: Fatal X server error

I looked there but only found a Xorg.0.log file which didn't mean much to me.

[ddaupert]

Re: Fatal X server error

Maybe a bit early to declare [solved] but I found a post with a possible workaround.
I am trying this out:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/441653

The workaround is very simple, adds a sleep command to kdm.conf file.
If this works, it may lend support to a theory I saw in someone's post
about a race condition.

/dennis