Re: [Ltsp-discuss] LTSP crashing ~1minute after start: Xorg.0.0.log?

[Joe B. <joe...@dc...>]

Tom Allison wrote:

> I have a "new" problem that is rather persistent.
>
> I went on a trip and came back.  No one was around to fiddle with the 
> computers so I am assuming that nothing has changed since I was last 
> using LTSP at home.
>
> But today the xserver crashes about 1 minutes into the session.
>
> Fairly consistent.
>
> The errors I was able to get one or two times where definitely the 
> Xorg server.  But LTSP hasn't been updated for months, nor the debian 
> installation it's depending upon, so I am at a real loss.
>
> There is supposed to be a file /var/log/Xorg.0.0.log that will give me 
> more information.  But where might I find this file?  I am running 
> XFree86 on the server and there doesn't seem to be anything there by 
> that name.  And there just isn't anything useful on the LTSP client 
> after these crashes.
>
> From a forensic perspective, where do I look for the logs I need so I 
> can come up with some intelligent clues about the problem?
>
Hi Tom,
My workstation exhibits this behavior early some mornings, but I haven't 
had any other users mention it so I've just figured that it had to do 
with my video card running 1284 x 1024 screen resolution on a 4MB video 
card with 16 bit depth and a special horizontal resolution range 
specification in my ltsp.conf file.
It's quirky.  It only happens once in a while and it seems to happen 
only at the beginning of the day when powering up.  Often I'll type my 
credentials into the login screen, hit enter and it starts to launch my 
desktop then fails and I come back to the XDMCP login screen.  We are 
using a version of KDM modified by Mandrake.  One other thing to mention 
is that I have a varying thing that happens with the screen background.  
I have a picture that sometimes shows up and other times the standard 
blue image with Mandrake's name shows up (on the KDM login screen).  
I've been meaning to rework the kdmrc file because I've noticed some 
error messages about some of the parameters not being valid.  You know 
how on rpm systems when you upgrade a package they let you keep your old 
configuration file, but they write the new stock config file as 
kdmrc.rpmsave.  I suspect I need to re-enter my customizations into a 
fresh kdmrc file.

This morning I had to kickstart my workstation a couple of times.  The 
last time I turned the power off on my workstation and went through the 
whole LTSP boot process again.  One other thing that seems to help... I 
have a SCREEN03=shell statement in lts.conf for the default stanza so 
that any thin client lets me access a local shell by performing 
ctrl-alt-F3.  I find this useful to see the log file  
/var/log/Xorg.0.0.log.  Sometimes I perceive that it helps if I switch 
to the shell before I login on F1 (the default X-Windows Screen).  I'm 
guessing it has something to do with video ram on the card.

Anyway, I hope these experiences and hearsay help.

I'm running Mandrake 10.1  KDE 3.2  LTSP 4.1.1  (Similar things happened 
on LTSP 4.1 as well)
Once I get a stable session it seems to hold for the rest of the day (7 
hours more or so).

Tom, what screen resolution is your problematic workstation running.  
Are there other workstations affected as well?  On the server check 
/var/log/messages to see if processes are being killed.  Maybe you are 
running up against # of open files/process limitations (that can be 
configured higher).
Cheers!  And good luck with it today.
-Joe Baker