[3438] in Athena Bugs
Re: strange "crash"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Oct 18 00:27:41 1989
From: probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 89 00:27:20 -0400
To: saeed@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, raeburn@ATHENA.MIT.EDU, beth@ATHENA.MIT.EDU,
In-Reply-To: 's message of Tue, 17 Oct 89 15:38:25 -0400,
Reply-To: Richard Basch <probe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
From: saeed@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 89 15:38:25 -0400
For the past two weeks I have been having the exact same problem that
the user lishu has been having. I am pretty positive it is not a
panic or some kind of automatic reboot. My station does dump core
either.
Basically what happens is that when I login under my customized files
(I have a .path, .environment, .cshrc.mine, .startup.X), everything
goes fine until the machine (X server) tries to put up my windows. It
usually gets about halfway through my .startup.X file and then
suddenly, my cursor freezes for about 3 seconds, then the screen goes
absolutely blank. About 5 seconds later the toehold prompt comes up:
"Hit any key to start."
I thought this happened because of certain workstations, but not at
all. I have not been able to log onto ANY workstation with my files.
For the past two weeks I have been logging under System. Even PVAXen
do the same thing with me.
Yes, yes, I have reported this to bugs and hotline. I have received 3
responses. Two helpful responses and one telling me to mind my own
business, use my brain to fix the problem myself, and not to tell bugs
about my problem. I have tried to follow up on the two helpful ones,
but have been pretty slow at it myself. I apologize for this -- I
just do not have the time. Ken Raeburn has offered me help, and when
I get the chance I will go over to his office and display my problem.
I know this is a serious bug we have here (now that another user has
confirmed it, I know it might not be just my dotfile configuration),
but I have been very wrapped up in academics recently.
Now the logistics of the problem exactly:
<i am logging into the PVAX COPILOT.MIT.EDU to try this>
i login.
sipb mounted
athenadoc mounted
consult mounted
bjaspan mounted
"Starting Mwm . . "
"Running Standard Startup Activities . . "
[here the cursor changes]
.Xresources sourced (i know this cause i have an somthing that tells
me this)
[Mwm starts -- border change noticeable on console window]
"Running standard startup activities . . "
"Running custom startup activites listed in ~/.startup.X"
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
(notice I still have a few more background processes to go in my
.startup.X file)
[windows start popping up: xterms (3), emacs (1), etc.]
[moving cursor to make sure it works -- suddenly it freezes completely
-- really i mean this]
[screen blanks out]
[toehold prompt comes up]
Notice -- no error messages were sent to the console window -- it just
ended me. But that's the scary part -- it really didn't.
I relogin under control-p. I "ps aux" and get that my session_gate
and Xsession are still active (if that's the terminaology). It did
not end my session.
I'm cc'ing this to bugs, raeburn, beth, carla,
Saeed
Another thing: Copilot has been noted to be crashing -- but this DOES
happen on EVERY machine (even on RT's) for me -- not just copilot.
If anybody wishes me to demonstrate, I'll be glad to show them.
Saeed Jaffer
Project Athena Consultant
saeed@athena.mit.edu
Baker House 105
225-7105 (x5-7105)
First guess... look at /core... I bet it is a new file and that it is a
core dump of the X server. There are several known problems with R3,
and it would be interesting to see if this is one of them.
Unfortunately, I do not have solutions to any of these problems, and I
do know that most of them will be fixed when R4 comes out (but we can't
take the code from the R4 server, because many of the internal
structures and argument passing changed).
-Richard
