Launchpad insanity runs rampant

[gene heskett]

On Thursday, August 11, 2011 08:18:37 PM Nils Kassube did opine:

> gene heskett wrote:
> > My cnc milling machine out in the shop in the back yard, keeps
> > throwing ntp errors at about the same rate Orville Redenbacher pops
> > corn.  But no errors are in dmesg or /var/log/messages, they are
> > purely a figment of the package tools imagination gone wild.
> > 
> > One of the utilities put an icon up that said I had a crash, which
> > was news to me since the machine was still working very nicely.
> > 
> > This ntp error has been bugging me for about 6 months on a 32 bit
> > ubuntu 10.04 LTS install on a Mach Speed Mobo carrying 2GB and an
> > Xp1400 athlon processor.
> 
> This is only a wild guess, but I suppose there are some files in
> /var/crash as the result of a previous ntpd crash from about the time
> when the error report started to show up. If you don't intend to report
> that error, you could remove the files.

I am looking as I type, and you are absolutely correct.  Now nuked.

> > But to report the error, I have to create an account on launchpad,
> > which I attempted to do, but when it said a confirming email had
> > been sent, that meant I had to come to the house since this is the
> > only machine on my local net that collects the email.
> > 
> > Eventually, say about 15 minutes, the email showed up, and I made 2
> > passes at giving it a password, a very long one but it has no caps
> > or numbers in it, so I used another shorter one I might stand a
> > snowballs chance in hell of remembering this time tomorrow.
> > 
> > It bought that, but then bounced me because I wasn't (I presume) on
> > the same machine that I initiated the account request from.  And a
> > repeat click on the message got me bounced again like a white
> > mouthed mule.  Mind you this whole home network is behind a dd-wrt
> > install with just one IP address.
> 
> Launchpad doesn't care about the machine you are using.

I think it does, at one point it reported an identity error.

> Could it be that
> you had your caps-lock key activated (either when you created the
> password or when you tried to use it)?

Not impossible, but not very likely either.  I have been known to extract 
that keytop as it is such a pain in the ass.

> > There is no error, but any time the updater software even checks for
> > updates, I have another popup that takes manual closing by grabbing
> > focus & refusing to allow a click away, advising me that ntp is
> > miss-behaving.
> 
> Can you tell us what _exactly_ the error message is? Maybe that helps to
> find out the real reason for the popup.

it says error 1 in the popup.

From the crash file before I nuked it:
SourcePackage: ntp
ErrorMessage:
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

> > If that pops up on top of the emc control screen,
> > stealing the focus so I have to clear it before I can even hit the
> > emergency stop and save a $500 part from being trashed, I am going
> > to be more than this amount of upset.
> 
> IMHO the emergency stop should be a real switch, not a button on the
> screen.

No argument there, but if tripped at high speed, then all axis's will need 
rehomed, destroying the present calibration.  The button on the screen, or 
the esc key, does a graceful stop using the programed accel/decel rates so 
it doesn't lose position.

> I would never rely on the software to work correctly in case of
> an emergency. But of course it is your machine and you probably know
> what you are doing.

Sometimes I wonder, emc needs more math than I ever got in my 8 years in 
school back in the '40's.  OTOH, as a retired broadcast engineer and a 
C.E.T., I have done fairly well.

> Furthermore I would suggest that you disable automatic updates so you
> can manually start updates when your machine isn't running and popups
> can't cause damage.

Not automatic, just the advisory that its needed, a different problem, but 
I may have it go ahead and do it in the background while I am doing other 
work on the emc screen.  A relatively safe operation until the last couple 
or 3 months.  Now, with 4x as much memory in that box, it may not happen 
again.

Thank you very much Nils, I expect this has solved my problem.  And I 
learned something at the same time, so a tip of my University of Hard 
Knocks baseball cap is sent in your direction.  ;-)

> 
> Nils


Cheers, gene
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