Bug 263371 – gnome-base/gdm-2.20.9-r1 does sometimes not start

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Albert Zeyer 2009-03-22 15:22:39 UTC]

Sometimes (mostly after a fast restart of GDM), I get this error:

The greeter application appears to be crashing. Attempting to use a different one.

Once I get this, when I click Ok, I get the error again in almost all cases. When waiting for a minute or so and then clicking Ok, it mostly starts again correctly.

[Comment 1 Albert Zeyer 2009-03-22 15:22:53 UTC]

acompneu ~ # emerge --inf
Portage 2.2_rc25 (default/linux/x86/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.2, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r1, 2.6.27-gentoo-r8 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-2.6.27-gentoo-r8-i686-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_CPU_E8500_@_3.16GHz-with-glibc2.0
Timestamp of tree: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:00:01 +0000
distcc 3.0 i686-pc-linux-gnu [disabled]
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p39
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7-r1, 2.1.7
dev-lang/python:     2.5.2-r7
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r8
dev-util/cmake:      2.6.3
sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1-r2
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.63
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2
sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r3
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.26
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.27-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=nocona -ggdb -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=nocona -ggdb -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="candy distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms splitdebug unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1"
LINGUAS="de"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/portage/local/layman/mpd /usr/portage/local/private"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="7zip GAPING_SECURITY_HOLE X X509 a52 aac aalib acl acpi acpi4linux adns agg aiglx aim alsa amarok amd amr amuled ao applet aqua_theme archive ares asf asm async asyncns atm auctex audioscrobbler automount avahi bash-completion berkdb bidi binary binary-drivers bindist bittorrent bl bonjour bookmarks bootsplash branding bzip2 bzlib cairo captury cdda cddb cdio cdparanoia cdr cdrom cgi cli clisp clucene cmake codecs corba cracklib crypt cups curl custreloc d daap dbus dedicated dga dhcp dirac disk-partition divx4linux dlopen dmi dnd dri dts dv dvd dvdnav dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode esd evo exif faad fam fame ffmpeg firefox flac flash font-server foomaticdb fortran fpx freetype ftp fuse galago gcj gcl gd gdbm gedit ggi gif gimp gl glib glitz glslideshow glut gnome gnutls gphoto2 gpm gprof graphviz gs gsm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gzip h323 hal haskell howl howl-compat html httpd hyperestraier icc iconv icq id3 id3tag imagemagick imap imlib imlib2 inotify insecure-drivers ipv6 isdnlog ithreads jack java jbig jikes jit jpeg jpeg2k kde kde4 kerberos kqemu lame latex lcms ldap libcaca libffi libnotify libssh2 libwww linuxthreads-tls live lzma lzo mad matroska mbox mdnsresponder-compat midi mikmod mjpeg mmx mmxext mng mod modplug mozbranding mozcalendar mozilla mp2 mp3 mp4 mp4live mpeg mpeg2 mpeg4 mplayer mppe-mppc mudflap multislot musepack musicbrainz mysql nautilus ncurses nemesi nepomuk net network njb nls nntp nptl nptlonly nsplugin ntfs objc offensive ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openmp oss pam pascal pch pcre pdf perl php plasma png pop posix ppds pppd prebuilt-system pthreads pulseaudio python qt qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime rar rdesktop readline realmedia reflection rogue rplay rtc rtsp ruby samba sasl schroedinger screen sdl semantic-desktop server session shorten shout silvercity silverxp skins slp sndfile sockets socks5 solver speedo speex spell spl sqlite srt sse sse2 ssh ssl ssse3 startup-notification stream subversion svg sysfs tagwriting tcltk tcpd teamarena teletext tetex tga themes theora threads threadsafe thumbnail tiff transcode truetype type1 unicode unzip urandom usb v4l v4l2 vcd vdr vidix visualization vlm vorbis win32codecs wma wmf wxwindows x264 x86 xanim xatrix xattr xcb xcomposite xext xface xforms xine xml xorg xosd xpm xprint xrandr xrender xscreensaver xsettings xterm xulrunner xv xvid xvmc zeroconf zip zlib zvbi" ALSA_CARDS="emu10k1" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="de" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia nv apm"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 2 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-03-22 17:51:01 UTC]

Having a backtrace if it is crashing or the logs could be helpful.

[Comment 3 Albert Zeyer 2009-03-22 18:01:55 UTC]

No, it is not crashing.

Which logs?

[Comment 4 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-03-29 18:40:03 UTC]

/var/log/gdm/:0.log
/var/log/Xorg.0.log

Might be useful:
dmesg |tail

[Comment 5 Albert Zeyer 2009-03-31 19:48:57 UTC]

Created attachment 186887 [details]
gdm log

[Comment 6 Albert Zeyer 2009-03-31 19:49:12 UTC]

Created attachment 186888 [details]
xorg log

[Comment 7 Albert Zeyer 2009-03-31 19:51:07 UTC]

Note that this is very easy to reproduce:

Just press ctrl+alt+backspace right at the startup of GDM and I got this behaviour. When GDM restarts, it shows this error (and then also like described, if I don't wait and just press Ok, the error again shows up; I have to wait at least a minute or so and then press Ok, then it loads GDM correct again).

[Comment 8 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-04-05 20:41:44 UTC]

please try with nv driver.

[Comment 9 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-04-23 22:40:12 UTC]

please get back to us.

[Comment 10 Albert Zeyer 2009-04-23 23:31:59 UTC]

Sorry, I was lately mostly at another PC.

I now tried with nv driver (exactly the same way as described: just pressing ctrl+alt+backspace just after the start) and have exactly the same behaviour.

[Comment 11 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-05-01 10:48:00 UTC]

hum, the logs doesn't seem to correspond to when gdm actually didn't start since I can't see any errors besides the usual xkbcomp message.

[Comment 12 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2009-06-03 21:34:57 UTC]

closing needinfo since the logs do not seem to correspond to the described situation.