Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Random Freeze / Hang-up

[dave2001]

yes agreed i do not use ps2 and ive had these freezes - fifth day since removing window panel at the bottom of the screen no freezes..im starting to believe this has solved the problem. id like to know whether anyone else who has tried this solves the problem for them too.

This makes me think you may have a fault/problem in compiz or gnome. Have you tried a LiveCD to see if you get the same behavior?

[georgezenios]

hi dave, i agree this is certainly a problem with gnome, although i dont use compiz or anything like that. just wondering if anyone else finds this as a solution. im still up and running, had this problem for months and couldnt work confidently without one of these freezes. Now it seems to have vanished since deleting that window bar. i could try a live CD, but again its so random its hard to know when it will happen during normal work. i cant do that on a live cd.

[dave2001]

hi dave, i agree this is certainly a problem with gnome, although i dont use compiz or anything like that.

I haven't had any problems with 10.04 freezing myself. I think they've fixed some of the issues that were causing it for other people though... is your system updated? You could also try re-installing the gnome components just in case that solves the problem.

sudo apt-get reinstall ubuntu-desktop

[georgezenios]

thank you dave, hmm im really tempted to try it, but its working so well right now i fear to touch it - actually getting some work done without having to pull my teeth out. 8 days now no crash.....

[dave2001]

thank you dave, hmm im really tempted to try it, but its working so well right now i fear to touch it - actually getting some work done without having to pull my teeth out. 8 days now no crash.....

From your comments here I'm guessing you don't do OS backups. I find this a handy habit to get into with Linux. You never know when an update, modification, etc, is going to mess your system up beyond your ability to recover. There are a lot of free utilities out there that will make a disk image of your OS partition with a liveCD. I prefer to use Paragon Backup and Recovery... but you need a windows system to run the initial Paragon program to burn the liveCD.

[georgezenios]

hi dave just done one using the script posted by another user earlier really easy to do

#!/bin/bash
S1='b'
S2='y'
echo "Please enter b for backup or r for restore:"
read action

if [ $action = $S1 ]; then

echo "These Directories will be excluded:"
echo -e "\033[1m\033[32m /proc /lost+found */backup.tgz /mnt /sys /dev /media"
echo -e "\033[0m"
echo "To chance these values edit this shell"
echo "continue (y/n):"

read action
if [ $action = $S2 ]; then
echo "Backing up PC ~ timestamp " ;date
tar cpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=*/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys --exclude=/media /
fi
else
echo -e "\033[1m\033[31mWARNING: this will overwrite every single file on your partition with the one in the archive!"
echo -e "\033[0m"
echo "Please enter name and location of the archive to restore:"
read fileName
echo "You are about to restore $fileName do you want to continue?(y/n)"
read action
echo -e "\033[1m\033[47mJust sit back and watch the fireworks.This might take a while. When it is done, you have a fully restored Ubuntu system!"
sleep 5
echo "start"
if [ $action = $S2 ]; then
tar xvpfz $fileName -C /
echo "Creating excluded directories"
#Just to make sure that all excluded directories are re-created
mkdir /proc
mkdir /lost+found
mkdir /mnt
mkdir /sys
mkdir /media

fi
fi
echo -e "\033[0m"

[georgezenios]

btw still no crashes since taskbar removal - must be three weeks or so now..........

[kn2013]

had a similar issue on a Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook using the ATI RS482 Radeon Xpress 200M graphics driver, where the gnome desktop - well, both the bottom and top panel - would stop responding - and you could only shutdown or restart using the top panel on the top right. This would bring dialog boxes to allow to save all open gedit, openoffice files.

The error logs had many XID collision errors. The issue would occur especially when the notebook had been on for 2-3 days, then when switching between windows - using alt-tab - or by clicking on the bottom panel. However, it occured more often depending on the applications running.

To resolve - I changed the setting in 'system' --> ''preferences' -->'Appearance' from 'Normal' to 'none' - simple desktop. No random freeze - hang-up since then and the notebook works with many applications running and switching between applications is really smooth and quick, even when the notebook has been 'on' constantly.

this fix may be specific to this particular model of notebook - graphics driver - using ubuntu 10.04 LTS, but worth a try on other hardware that has similar behaviour. Went through all the power management fixes before making this simple tweak and Voilà.

[Chele1004]

I would like to contribute by telling my experience of Random Freeze.

I never get a Freeze during several months after I cleanly installed Ubuntu 10.04. I left the system unattended during the week-end. On monday, it was frozen and Freezes occurred since. The system also fail to restart after reset and display the BIOS screen.

The fact I like to put in relief is that I do not update the system nor add anything to it before the system get mad. Freeze seems to be completely independent from application level.

So, I like to ask if this troubles are not strongly related to hardware and power managment. Thank you!