[vox-tech] xdm died unprovokedly

[Karsten M. Self]

on Fri, Jan 24, 2003 at 12:42:57PM -0800, Ken Bloom (kabloom@ucdavis.edu) wrote:
> > ---ORIGINAL MESSAGE--- 
> > Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 04:39:14 +0000
> > From: "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@ix.netcom.com>
> > To: vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
> > Subject: Re: [vox-tech] xdm died unprovokedly
> > Reply-To: vox-tech@lists.lugod.org
> > 
> > on Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 08:00:46PM -0800, Ken Bloom (kabloom@ucdavis.edu) wrote:
> > > I left my computer for an hour and a half to eat dinner and attend an 
> > > important meeting and while I was gone XDM died without a trace, except 
> > > for the contents of /var/log/xdm.log, and I had to go root to restart 
> > > XDM. This has happened to me once before that I am aware of.

<...>

> > A few suggestions:
> > 
> >   - Is this a reproduceable error?  If it doesn't happen again, ignore
> >     it.  There are occasional app failures which can bring down X.
> > 
> >   - How long have you been using this configuration?  Any prior errors?
> > 
> >   - I've had bad luck with XF86v4 on some older video cards.  In
> >     particular, one box would run (the other doesn't, at least not for
> >     display results that qualify), but would crash the X server when
> >     XDMCP screen blanking cut in.  The solution was to disable this
> >     (both in XF86Config-4 and xscreensaver's config).  Note that this
> >     blanking generally occurs after 10-15 minutes of inactivity.
> > 
> >   - What app was it that crashed?  What was running on your X session at
> >     the time?
> > 
> >   - You might also investigate switching to XF86v3.

> This time that I asked about it here was the second time it occurred.
> (The other time was two weeks ago) It only seems to happen when I'm
> nowhere near the computer (so my only information about what happened
> was the log I attached), and so far it has only happened while the
> XServer has been showing the xdm login screen. I've been using the
> configuration since August, at least. Unless you can use more
> information to help troubleshoot it, I'll hope that updating from
> 4.2.1-3 to 4.2.1-5 out of unstable fixed the problem.

Check your xdm configs (should be /etc/X11/xdm/) to see what's running
with the login session.  IIRC, it's xdm and the greeter app, which I
believe is a separate standalone.  Check again to see if there are any
DPMS (not XDMCP, as I incorrectly stated earlier) setting activated --
you failed to respond to my queries on this at all.

You should be able to rule DPMS in or out by manually invoking it.  See
the xset manpage for more information.

    $ xset +dpms
    $ xset  dpms force standby
    $ xset  dpms force suspend
    $ xset  dpms force off

...if any of those commands kill your X session, you've identified _an_
issue if not the one directly associated with your problem.

Does the system typically sit at the XDM login screen for long periods
of time?  I know that for my own systems, the login typically only
displays for a few seconds as I boot the system -- it's otherwise in use
or locked via xscreensaver.

As this is a Debian system, installing another X display manager is
trivial.  You might want to try the system with wdm, gdm, or kdm, to see
if the problem persists.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    The truth behind the H-1B indentured servant scam:
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