Debian Multimedia :: Use Gnome2 Screen Completely Freezes
May 1, 2011
when Gnome starts my Desktop completely freezes. So I decided to reinstall and install Gnome2. When Debian is freshly installed I still need to configure and install my ATI 6950 Graphic card and the X config. Since the latest drivers from ATI I can use the --initial config from ATI. This all seems to work. But also when I use Gnome2 my screen completely freezes. I don't see any special things in my logs. I do remember that with my previous PC I had the same problem. This was the "first" reason why I left Debian for my desktop.
Sometimes, (the most when I'm making changes in something, like the pager, appearance, theme, etc), the screen freezes completely (but mouse is moving) and I have to restart the system.
By freeze, I mean that the mouse can still move, but everything else behind it is frozen entirelyI can switch to a terminal with CTRL+ALT+F1, it's ... I guess... X or gnome-shell or something that's frozen? Not the whole OS thoughThese freezes last anywhere between 5 or 10 seconds and 3-5 minutesI can't predict when they will occur, but often, after a suspend/resume, they will start occuring much more frequently. Also, they often happen after I enter my password and press ENTER on the lock screen after a resume from suspend. But not exclusively -- they can happen at any other time when I'm doing pretty much anything in GNOME...
Things I've Tried...
When frozen, I've tried to CTRL+ALT+F1, login, and run gnome-shell --replace... [*[When frozen, I can successfully CTRL+ALT+F1 and run `service gdm restart`... with the obvious downside of losing everything I have open. But the screen responds immediately and I can log back in to GNOMEI tried running `Xorg -configure` to generate an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to edit, but received an error about not being able to generate configuration for multiple screens or something (I can retry and provide the exact error if this is a useful direction to try) is it the gnome-shell freezing? Is it X? Is it a problem with the X driver I'm using?
I have a problem with garbled graphics after resuming from hibernate or logging out (when the screen blinks and goes back to the display manager). It only occurs when I do either, about half the time. What happens is the edges of everything "bleed" horizontally (left to right) in red and green colors and black text on a white background becomes entirely unreadable (but white text on a black background is readable and just looks a little bolder). If I shut down or restart the computer (softly) when the screen has garbled, then it will freeze and not even the SysRq keys work (I have enabled it in /etc/sysctl.conf). Then the only thing left is to do a hard restart (in which case there's a voice saying "System failed VGA test" before BIOS/GRUB loads) or poweroff. Powering it off and then starting it again works fine. I did a google image search and this is sort of how it looks when it freezes: link
Once the screen has garbled (but only if it hasn't frozen) I can use SysRq to issue S E S I S U O to shut it off and then power it on, and that works: then I get a non-garbled command line after sigterm and it shuts off and starts up properly. If I issue B instead of O (to restart) I get the "System failed VGA test" on boot (but it doesn't freeze when shutting down). Hibernation is easy enough to fix by just turning it off (it's not a laptop so I don't need it anyway), but it still happens sometimes when I log out. So as long as I never change users the system works perfectly and this never happens. I've tried GNOME, Xfce4, OpenBox without any DE, gdm3 and SLiM and the problem persists in all of them.
Some system details: Debian Squeeze i386 (using only software from the stable main repository) Kernel: 2.6.32-5-686 Video card: ATI Radeon 9600SE (using the preinstalled open source drivers) Motherboard: ASUS P4P 800-E
By the way: sometimes when it's in the process of shutting off (when the display hasn't been corrupted), after it kills all graphical applications, I can see that the CLI text gets the garbled look, but at that point the poweroff works without freezing. This is the most similar sounding bug that I could find: [URL]. Unfortunately I can't find a solution to it, and most people who have similar problems seem to get either the garbled graphics or the freezes, but not both. Also: how safe is it to keep shutting off with SysRq to recover from this? Can I get disk errors?
I installed squeeze on my eeepc 1015ped and downloaded the correct firmware-brcm80211 drivers but every time I scan for my network using iwconfig wlan0 scan or wicd, my computer completely freezes. I previously had a solid install running xmonad, and wicd was working like a charm (using the same broadcom driver) but i tinkered too much with it and decided to do a fresh install. I haven't quite run into a problem like this before.
Have any of you used Debian 6 Squeeze yet? Have you encountered a problem of the OS not entirely filling in the left side of the video monitor leaving approximately (19 inch monitor) a half inch vertically black non-filled part?
This happens in several Debian 6 Squeeze itterations: Net-intall, commercial intalls, etc.
It could be a hardware problem but it happens on other machines as well, so I do not lean that way. There are other machinations of video pasting during bootup such as the left hand of the screen being on the right and vice-versa, scrunched up lines of garbage taking hold of certain sections of the screen.
I installed Debian without desktop enviroment and then I aptitude installed fluxbox, everything worked fine, but I wanted to try LXDE so I purged fluxbox and installed LXDE.But my old computer is too slow now. I purged the LXDE, but it is still here and it didn`t remove as many packages as it installed them, I also removed lxde-core, but it continues to work.
How could I get back to non-desktop enviroment without reinstalling the whole system?
Dist-upgrading to debian wheezy (gnome2.30.2) prevents me using a scsi HP 6200C scanner. I tried both
startx gnome-session and startx exec ck-launch-session gnome-session
In both cases:
$ ls -l /dev/sg* crw------- 1 root root 21, 0 Jun 27 16:21 /dev/sg0 crw------- 1 root root 21, 1 Jun 27 16:21 /dev/sg1 crw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 21, 2 Jun 27 16:21 /dev/sg2 crw-rw----+ 1 root root 21, 3 Jun 27 16:21 /dev/sg3
instead of the expected "root scanner" to which affording permission (as it occurred with previous gnome in sqeeze). Incidentally, a flash card is not automatically mounted (no permission) but was solved by manual mounting as vfat.
After the unsolved problems i had with the 2.6.39 kernel update a few weeks ago, reported here, now, I've installed the updates released today, and now, on the old Kernel, my X SERVER is dead..The boot on the new kernel is still completely dead.The boot with the old kernel goes directly do command line..
I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop Lenovo T410 and I found a strange behaviour: sometime a part of the screen (small rectangle) freezes and there is no way to unfreeze it. The only way is to shutdown. I cannot use it to work Other colleagues of mine that installed the same Ubuntu version on the same laptop do not have any problem.
I am on ubuntu 11.04 and have had it since 10.10. For some reason when I am working on something whether it be on internet or listening to music after about 45 minutes of working ubuntu completely freezes and I cant do anything. Can someone please help me I really love ubuntu I just dont no any code so I tried researching the subject but dont understand the lingo and code.
Well i've been having a problem that my computer randomly completely freezes. A while ago, it happened again, but i wasnt able to log back in anymore, getting this screen when gdm tries to load URL...
Firefox grays out and doesn't unfreeze until the entire upload is complete.I can't do anything else on the internet while this is happening.This didn't bother me until now, because I need to upload some pretty high quality pictures to Flickr, and it takes about fifteen or twenty minutes to do so.I'd like if the pictures could simply upload in the background while I do other stuff, instead of completely freezing my internet usage in the process.I don't have a problem downloading files quietly in the background not even large files so why can't I upload files without freezing everything up? Is this normal, or is there a fix for this?
I have installed ubuntu server 10.04 LTS on my NAS (Thecus N5200 Pro). It runs in much points better than the original firmware (I can do a lot of things more). But I have also 2 problems remaining with configuring my NAS
1. Ubuntu freezes completely when I copy big files over smb. I first thougth it is an overheating problem, but it don't seems so.
2. My raid (raidd 5) resyncs very often. The problem is that the NAS isn't on 24/7. It is only on when I need it.
I am installing Ubuntu for the first time as a result of my Programming teacher starting me on a webserver project that will not work on windows. I dug up an older Dell, about 5 years old, and I keep getting install errors Just under halfway through. The OS will completely freeze for a few minutes then say 'errno 5'.
Very annoying problem, just build a new PC, new 500GB HDD and:
AMD Processeur Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz - 125W GSkill RipJawsX 4Go DDR3 C9 1600Mhz Carte m�re socket AM3 - Chipset AMD 880G & SB710
Installed ubuntu 11.04, and now extremely randomely, it freezes completely, cannot get to a console, ie CTRL+ALT+F1, ALT+F2, the mouse do not even move. I have to turn it off and restart. It may not happen for a whole day as it can happen 2 or three times in a row. From what I have gathered, it only happens when I use the PC as I can't remember coming to the PC and finding it frozen. From searching the forum, some people seems to have problem because of the 4 cores of the phenom, but it was very vague.
How can I know better what is happening and how to fix it. I have so little time, I really would love to avoid re-isntalling the whole thing again, as it is properly setup at last.
Acer desktop m3641 mcp73 (the motherboard?) Intel pentium dual cpu e2200 ram 2gb hdd 300gb The only os is debian and there is plenty of space on the hdd.
Symptoms: When I click on something, say Evolution or Empathy or Maps, about 1 in 5 times the screen will freeze and I have to switch the computer off and on again.
I had this problem with Wheezy and could not resolve it. In the past week I have installed Jessie 32bit and then Jessie 64bit and I get the same problem.
On downloading my copies of Jessie I have verified the md5 and sha.
I installed debian server on a custom built intel computer, with a 2.5 ghz dual core processor, 3 Gb of ram and a 500 GB sata hdd, I had originally installed debian server to use it as a web server, but for some reason after a few hours it completely freezes, mouse wont move I cannot connect to the webserver or ftp server, I restarted it and it will do it again, it isnt a specific amount of time it just does it randomly sometimes it will take 2 hours another time it will take 2 days, anyone know what could be wrong, I am quite new to linux and am not sure exactly how to view logs and such.
I am attempting to get Debian+Mate running on my laptop, with no success. I have not yet used Linux, but I do wish to climb out of the Window, and the Live session seems ideal to get a feel for Debian before finally abandoning Windows.
I got the Debian+Mate ISO file from the Debian website, and created a bootable USB stick. (Note : I have done this several times, getting new ISOs, and using Unetbootin, Universal USB Installer, and Linux Live installer; the result is always the same.)
When I boot the USB drive, all appears good at first. I get to the Debian (or Mate?) screen which is a pale jade green with a white squiggle in the middle region, with a panel at the top; this shows at left three options - applications, places, and system; and at right the correct time, a sound symbol,the wifi symbol, and a battery indicator. At the left of the screen in vertical arrangement there are 4 icons labelled computer, users home, install Debian Sid, and trash. On the bottom panel, at left there is a "button" for "click to hide all windows & show desktop", and at right 4 squares for workspaces.
There are also (temporary) windows that inform me that the battery is no good (I run on mains), and that there is no wifi connection established. These windows disappear in a minute or so.
The cursor moves ok. The only actions that it creates are the information drop-down texts that tell me what the headings mean - e.g. no connections when I hover the cursor above the wifi connections symbol.
But whatever I attempt to do - selecting any of the options - nothing happens. Everything except the cursor appears to be dead.
The machine that I am using is an old laptop that I use as a second computer. It has a SIS Mirage 3 graphics engine, which I gather may be a problem. I also tried the same procedure with my fairly modern ASUS laptop (NVidia graphics) with exactly the same results; it seems that NVidia graphics may also be problematic, judging from some posts on the web. I have also tried Debian+Cinnamon, again with the same outcome.
This started happening after I started working on the kernel image and initramfs tools configurations basically started trying to make my system work the way I wanted.I can be doing anything like playing worms or being on this forum and the screen turns black but I don't lose energy just nothing shows on the screen and my keyboard doesn't respond the num lock doesn't turn either state,
So it's a beautiful day and I'll be happily using my computer when I realise that the screen is no longer showing that I'm typing or moving my mouse (or finger across a touch-pad). I can leave my computer in this frozen/crashed state for hours. My only recourse is to drain the battery or hold down the power button until the computer shuts down. The computer is a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop/notebook. As my memory serves, it has an ATI graphics thingy. Radeon 1400, maybe. But I've had the computer for years and this behaviour has emerged only the past couple of months, with seemingly increasing frequency.
The OS is # uname -a Linux polaris 2.6.32-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Sun Jan 10 22:40:40 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux (aka Squeeze?)
Sometimes this happens within minutes of turning the computer on and logging into Gnome. Sometimes this happens only hours after I've started using the computer (mainly just surfing the web). Sometimes it is preceded by a loud boop sound and the following if I have console open, sometimes not. So maybe that's unrelated. But that happened just now so I thought I'd throw it in.
One weird thing: Usually this happens within an hour of starting to use the computer, but one occasion I noticed I had not had the problem for several hours. On that occasion, the only thing I noticed I was doing that was also unusual: I had turned on and forgotten about a kvm virtual machine. After I shut down the vm, I had about only a minute before the freeze. I'm surprised now that it hasn't frozen since I started typing thing. Maybe I should always keep this forum open in a browser window.
I am using ubuntu 10.10 on Dell Inspiron 1525 dual boot with vista. My concern is streaming online videos through websites such as BBC iplayer, sky news, ....., NDTV news channel, etc. Videos are streaming perfectly fine as long as they are not running on full screen but if I try to run them on full screen video freezes (after a few minutes, say 5). Interestingly, sound does not stop. I can still hear the latest news updates but the video does not correspond. Same videos are running fine whether full screen or not in vista.
I'm running 11.3, 64bit.It downloads everything fine, but not long after it starts installing things, my PC completely freezes. I tried giving it 20 minutes, but it didn't seem to want to come back to me.What does this mean? Is my OpenSUSE broken?
i'm using ubuntu since 8.04, and the current (9.10) is a fresh install on new hdd.the problem was the same each version (8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10) - while i'm playing the video (no matter if i use mplayer [smplayer], gstreamer [totem] or adobe flash plugin [videos]) the playback freezes randomly for about 5-10 sec. during the freeze the movie is still played, i can hear the sound is ok. if i press [space] in smplayer it pauses the playback, so the responses for keyboard actions are ok. not for the mouse clicks however. i can still move the cursor around the screen but it seems the system is not aware of it (clicking on the "pause" button doesnt pause the movie). except the cursor, nothing changes on the screen (if the im [pidgin] window was blinking because of new message, it freezes etc etc).
is there any kind of log i could look into just to try figuring out the problem?it is impossible to watch any movie on my pc (currently i don't have tv)i installed windows on external hdd once and it played videos fine so i suppose it's not hardware problem .
From time to time system freezes with no particular motive but most often when watching you tube video in full screen mode. How to diagnose freeze, hang, blocking problems in debian jessie system amd 64 gnome 3?
I installed debian 7 lxde from lxde cd. It freezes on logging in (i.e keyboard doesn't work,desktop freezes and only mouse pointer works.But,I can't select or view anything.Only mouse pointer can be moved.).
But,If I do not login with the display manager and login (my username and not root) via another terminal like tty3 or tty4 using alt+ctrl+F3 or F4,everything works fine.
I recently installed Debian Jessie, and I am fairly new to Linux. I have both IceWeasel and Chromium, and every other time I try to use either, it freezes the whole computer, the screen shows only diagonal colors, and I have to hard boot. I have another windows and linux computer on this network with no problems at all. I have run checks on the ram on this computer which found no problems. Everything else on the computer works fine.
The most immediately apparent consequence of upgrading to KDE 4.4.3 is that Krunner is very slow or freezes completely. The run command from Lancelot is still quick and responsive and launches app's immediately, unfortunately Krunner takes an age to launch the application and sometimes does nothing at all.
