Has anyone else been having regular, seemigly random freezes in 10.10? Please post if

[migel_wimtore]

Hi. I am interested to know if, as i am, many people out there using Ubuntu 10.10 (or 10.4) have been experiencing seemingly random freezes. Whereby the system freezes and responds to absolutely no input.

If you have been having a similar issue perhaps you could post in this thread and we could try and establish some commonalities.

Or maybe, you have some suggestions on how you have dealt with a similar issue.

Perhaps its hardware, software, drivers or some combination.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1300, with a Pentium M 2.10ghz CPU.

I have experienced freezes with and without Compiz running and even in Openbox sessions.

So anybody?

[mikewhatever]

I've seen several threads on random freezes and even a mega-thread, but seemingly, nothing apparent connected them. Hardware, software, drivers, all can be the cause of freezing. Try running memtest to check the RAM, also, do you have a 8xx Intel GPU?

[HermanAB]

Yup, judging by the forum posts, Ubuntu 10.10 is one of the most unstable Linux distros in many a year. It depends on your hardware. If it crashes for you, then a good solution is to switch distros and try Fedora or OpenSuse.

[prshah]

have been experiencing seemingly random freezes. Whereby the system freezes and responds to absolutely no input.

Well, I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 on a mix of desktops and laptops, 32bit/64bit, and don't have a single problem. All 10.10s are upgraded from 10.04s.

The only time I was facing problems similar to what you describe was with 8.10, which I finally figured out to the fact that I had both Kubuntu and Ubuntu desktops installed in the same installation. Everything went back to normal after I removed most kde related stuff.

Basic steps to try:
a) When next your system freezes, check if HDD lights and/or optical drive lights are active.
b) Does the system recover by itself, or are you forced to reset?
c) Can you switch to a virtual terminal using Ctrl+Alt_F1..F6?
d) Does using the magic sysreq keys have any effect?
e) Force a diskcheck on the next reboot with the command

sudo touch /forcefsck

f) Have you recently added any hardware such as a PCI wireless card, USB daughter card or Modem card?

If you install ssh-server you can check if the system is internally responsive when frozen by attempting to login in with another computer from the network.

Summary: I think it's an issue related to your machine, not Ubuntu in general.

[migel_wimtore]

Hi. Thanks for the feedback.

In response to mike whatever, yes it is an 8xx series cpu. I have memtested the ram quite recently and it checked out.

To HermanAB, i have also recently installed both arch and debian and they did not suffer the problem, but i came back to ubuntu, for reasons explained in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1703976

Where i also give more specifics regarding my case.

And to prshah, i currently have black electrical tape over all my flashing lights as they annoy me when watching video, but i will take it off next time i get a freeze to check. What exactly would active hd or optical drive lights indicate?

And no, it most definitely does not recover by itself, and needs to be hard reset, neither does it respond to console change commands, ctrl alt backspace, or sysrq alt gr REISUB, is there anything else i should try?

Also, i am quite sure it is not the disk as it has been recently upgraded, the previous one having bad sectors, which i thought might be the cause. The new disk passes checks perfectly.

I would tentatively conclude that it is not my machine, per se (though perhaps something to do with my configuration) as i have tried other distros and they work fine. And, as HermanAB and mikewhatever mention, im am far from alone in reporting similar issues.

That being the case, perhaps il stick it out until 11.4 and see if that fixes the issue. Still, it would be great if anyone suffering a similar issue and who has any possible pointers, or just wants to ad their mark to the tally could do so.

Thanks all.

[prshah]

What exactly would active hd or optical drive lights indicate?

definitely does not recover by itself, and needs to be hard reset, neither does it respond to console change commands,

Flashing HDD activity lights are normal. However, if you have a SOLID light (no or minimal flashing) for a minimal I/O operation, it may indicate a problem; eg, in the case of an HDD, possibly bad sectors; but from what you say, that is possibly not a cause.

I had a Samsung cheapo DVD drive in which, when a CD/DVD was inserted, the whole system froze until the DVD drive had finished recognizing whatever disk was installed. However it would recover fine and continue working properly once recognized; so I don't believe this is your problem.

Memtesting has eliminated memory problems.

So that leaves graphics or kernel problems.

A kernel freeze (panic) will be indicated by flashing caps lock and scroll lock lights on the keyboard. This can be caused by bad memory, hardware conflicts with legacy internal cards etc.

A graphics based problem should allow you to switch terminals and/or magic sysrq and/or ssh access, so I don't think this is possible either.

Have you considered a thermal issue? In intermittent, random hangs, this would probably be the first thing I would eliminate; are your case fans working properly?

[Hedgehog1]

Hi. I am interested to know if, as i am, many people out there using Ubuntu 10.10 (or 10.4) have been experiencing seemingly random freezes. Whereby the system freezes and responds to absolutely no input.

Perhaps its hardware, software, drivers or some combination.

migel_wimtore,

I have been working by Ubuntu 10.10 very hard. I have never had as solid an OS as this before. However, I am running more modern hardware and lots of RAM to support multiple Vbox images running at once.

The majority of the instabilities (outside of viruses) on our MS windows PCs are because of drivers, not the OS. I expect you are suffering from driver based instabilities.

The Hedge

[migel_wimtore]

Hedghog1: Interesting.

Any suggestions on how i might isolate the culprit? Perhaps by selectively using alternate drivers one by one to narrow it down?

I am not sure with video driver i am using, how can i find that out (amatuer i know)?

When i installed Arch i selected "xf86-video-intel", which seemed to be the only appropriate one in the list then provided (and was def. compatible, as i researched its applicability).

Is it likely to be the same one in ubuntu, or would ubuntu install have given me a generic video driver, and could this be the problem?

Thanks for the feedback. And yes ubuntu used to be really stable for me to, when i used the powerpc edition, and yes, you are right, it is no doubt something to do with my setup, i just want to find out what.

My system isnt at all new, but it is (in my estimation) quite capable for my needs: Intel Pentium M Processor 740 (1.73GHz/2MB Cache/400MHz FSB), 2 Gig DDR2 RAM, Intel integrated Media Accelerator 900 graphics card.

I just browse mainly, and she really does load dem pages quick, by gum.

[Kramtoad]

I started having a similar a few weeks ago. When it happened today I SSHed in from another machine. Found the load to be 1.00 and compiz sucking cpu time like crazy. Killed and restarted compiz. That fixed the current screen freeze.

Guess who has never been a fan of compiz?

-K

[migel_wimtore]

Hi thanks for replying. I had considered compiz might be the problem, so had disabled it when running GNOME, however this did not solve the issue. I hadnt expected it to, as most of the time i was running Openbox and the freeze problem was occurring.

Have moved to Debian now, so wont be able comment here about Ubuntu specifically.

I have been running Debian now for two weeks or so, and have experienced one freeze in that time. I suppose this might suggest that the problem is my hardware, or perhaps the video driver (i am using the intel driver). Whatever the case, if this freeze is related, or caused by the same issue, Debian's famed stability seems to contain it more effectively.

Cheers.