[ltp] Major crash with a TP600 on RH 7.2

[Bernard DEBREIL]

Hi there,

I have been using, on an everyday basis, a TP600 (300 Mhz, 128 MB RAM,=20
3 MB of HD),  on RH 7.2 ever since mid december 2001. In spite of a=20
few things that I didn't like, it worked allright and fulfilled most=20
of my needs, and, as far as internet connexions were concerned, I was=20
making use of the internal modem, with the mwavem device driver.

Here is what happened this morning:

As I turned the system ON and watched the starting process, I noticed=20
a problem with the internal modem, which refused to start. The process=20
had stopped here, and everything seemed stuck. A CTRL-ALT-DEL brought=20
no result. I had to turn the power off and disconnect the battery, and=20
restart.

Upon restarting, I had to wait till fsck performed its job as=20
expected. One or two inodes were wrongly numbered, which was said to=20
be fixed, another 'unused' inode was deleted, and the system did=20
finally start. Modem must have started allright this time.

A this point, so far, X used to start. Automatically, without my=20
having to type 'startx' or anything. I would have preferred having to=20
do so manually, in order to be able to remain on the console whenever=20
chosen to do so... but I had so far no control on this with this=20
system as it was ; X was launched in any case, whether I wanted it or=20
not. Same thing upon disconnecting: I could not remain on console.=20

I'd better say that X was set to 'fvwm2': I don't like GNOME neither=20
KDE.

This time, though, something very strange happened. The system=20
remained on the console, and displayed the following message :

- INIT: Id "X" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.

The word 'respawning' is really the one that was displayed, not=20
'responding'. I don't happen to know what 'respawning' means.

I therefore waited for five whole minutes... at the end of which=20
another similar message did display... and then a third one...

I then moved my mouse... and saw that a cursor did show. I typed a few=20
random characters followed by [return], and the system replied: 'login=20
incorrect', which made me realize that I was, indeed in the console=20
mode, able to type a login command, which I did.=20

After login, first command that came up to my mind: 'startx' !

The X system did start, as usual. This is, up to now, the last time=20
when I was able to launch X on that system. I was then able to launch=20
StarOffice, activate internet connexion, fetch my mail, launch PAN,=20
then Netscape... I must not forget to mention that, upon trying to=20
start ppp connexion, using 'pppon' script, the system had replied:=20
'couldn't open ppp database /var/run/pppd.tdb'. Despites this warning,=20
ppp connexion had started allright. After about half an hour, I did=20
disconnect from internet, and quit X. this time, by exception, I was=20
able to remain on the console, and this is from there that I typed:

'shutdown -h now'

During shutdown process, a few abnormal things happened, but I can't=20
make an accurate account of it, since nothing remained after shutdown=20
was complete. A few thing refused to shutdown, and filesystems refused=20
to dismount, as far as I had time to quickly read.

Upon restart, a few more abnormal things appeared:

configuring of serial port for mwave modem: FAILED !

Then, again, I was left on the console. Upon calling 'startx', I got:

-xauth: error in locking authority file /home/bd/.Xauthority

This message displayed four times in a roll.

Then: Fatal server error
Can't read lock file /tmp/.X0-lock
please report problems to...
giving up
xinit: no such file or directory (errno2): unable to connect to X=20
server.
Xinit: no such process (errno3). Server error.
Xauth: error in locking up authority file /home/bd/.Xauthority.

However, this file /home/bd/.Xauthority does exist, it is 409 bytes=20
long, dated half an hour before or so. I can also notice a file=20
'.Xauthority-c', with zero bytes.=20

If I browse the ./xsession-error file, I get:

'ERROR: file '.fvwm2rc"' not found in $HOME or in /etc/X11/fvwm2.=20
Trying to read system rc file.=20

Sh: wmconfig command not found
xterm fatal Ioerror 32 (broken pipe) or KillClient or X server ":00"M

I then went into another shutdown process. Same errors as before did=20
appear. Upon restarting, I noticed the following error message, which=20
may have already existed the time before:

starting system logger /var/log/messages
syslogd: /var/log/messages
input/output error
syslogd: /var/log/messages: Input/output error.

Third shutdown. At first, for this third shutdown, the system=20
acknowledged in saying:

'system is going down for system halt NOW'.

But nothing more happenned, and the shell sign appeared as if the=20
command had been executed. Again, I typed: 'shutdown \h now', and,=20
this time, it did shutdown.

Third and fourth restarting tests have allowed me to trace a few=20
errors that I had not noticed before, even though they most likely=20
were already there:

- starting mwave manager now always fails in configuring serial port.

- Can't read lock file /tmp/./X0-lock.

At that time, I tried to re-initiate X, using Xconfigurator. But I=20
failed in doing so.

Thanks in advance for greatly expected help







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