HAL Crashes on Ubuntu 6.10

Wed Dec 6 14:27:49 UTC 2006

Dear Ubuntu Users,

I hope that someone out there can help me, I am all out of ideas......

I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 6.10 on a Dell Optiplex GX270. I had to
install from the Alternate CD because the Desktop CD would get to the
point in the installation where is was detecting hardware (90%) and it
would just sit there until I cycled power.

The alternate CD got me all the way through the installation without
problems, but I noticed that when I log in to gnome , I get the "Failed
to initialize HAL" error message that I see regularly in the mailing
lists. I do not have autologin enabled and I do not have any samba
shares in my fstab. I also noticed that the system will not power down
or restart properly, it just sits at a blinking cursor, I need to cycle
power to get it to reboot. Also not working and probably related are the
gnome device manager (crashes immediately) and any sort of USB key
devices. However, my keyboard and mouse are USB and they work just fine.

I also noticed that when logging into gnome as root, I do not get the
"Failed to Initialize HAL" , however all the other problems listed above
are still there.

Upon further investigation of dmesg, it looks like when hald starts up,
it crashes on me. Here is the output from a dbus restart:

The kernel is 2.6.17-10-generic.

testuser at testbox:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart
Password:
  * Stopping System Tools Backends system-tools-backends 

                                                 [ ok ]
  * Stopping Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Daemon: avahi-daemon 

                                                 [fail]
  * Stopping Hardware abstraction layer hald 

                                                 [ ok ]
  * Stopping system message bus dbus 

                                                 [ ok ]
  * Starting system message bus dbus 

                                                 [ ok ]
  * Starting Hardware abstraction layer hald 

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] Oops: 0000 [#2]

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] SMP

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] CPU:    0

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] EIP is at sysfs_follow_link+0x139/0x250

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] eax: 00000000   ebx: 00000001   ecx: 
ffffffff   edx: ffffffff

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] esi: 00000000   edi: 30383d44   ebp: 
00000001   esp: e8a53ec0

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] Process hald (pid: 6029, 
threadinfo=e8a52000 task=e725aa90)

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] Stack: c1bae4bc e8a53ef4 e93a8000 
ffffffea c1bae58c c1bae4bc 00000001 c0372a80

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]        f7e81198 00000100 080a4028 
c01785f3 f7d5766c fffffff7 080a2e84 e59c3a40

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]        00000000 e8a52000 e8a53f50 
4576d1e2 00000000 00000100 c018e92c 00000001

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] Call Trace:

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]  <c01785f3> generic_readlink+0x33/0x90 
  <c018e92c> __mark_inode_dirty+0x5c/0x190

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]  <c01743b3> sys_readlinkat+0x93/0xd0 
<c017d990> filldir64+0x0/0xe0

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]  <c017d990> filldir64+0x0/0xe0 
<c017dbb5> vfs_readdir+0x85/0xb0

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000]  <c0174417> sys_readlink+0x27/0x30 
<c0102fbb> sysenter_past_esp+0x54/0x79

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] Code: 31 ed 8b 40 24 83 c5 01 85 c0 75 
f6 8b 54 24 14 bb 01 00 00 00 31 f6 89 14 24 ba ff ff ff ff 8d 76 00 8b 
0c 24 89 f0 8b 39 89 d1 <f2> ae f7 d1 49 8d 5c 19 01 8b 0c 24 8b 49 24 
85 c9 89 0c 24 75

Message from syslogd at testbox at Wed Dec  6 09:21:22 2006 ...
testbox kernel: [17179880.152000] EIP: [sysfs_follow_link+313/592] 
sysfs_follow_link+0x139/0x250 SS:ESP 0068:e8a53ec0
run-parts: /etc/dbus-1/event.d/20hal exited with return code 1
  * Starting System Tools Backends system-tools-backends

This is from dmesg from startup:

[17179607.892000] apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
[17179607.892000] apm: overridden by ACPI.
[17179608.156000] BUG: unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual 
address 30383d44
[17179608.156000]  printing eip:
[17179608.156000] c01ad9d9
[17179608.156000] *pde = 00000000
[17179608.156000] Oops: 0000 [#1]
[17179608.156000] SMP
[17179608.156000] Modules linked in: speedstep_lib cpufreq_userspace 
cpufreq_stats freq_table cpufreq_powersave cpufreq_ondemand 
cpufreq_conservative video tc1100_wmi sbs sony_acpi pcc_acpi i2c_ec 
hotkey dev_acpi button battery container ac asus_acpi lp tsdev 
snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec snd_ac97_bus snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss sg 
e1000 usbhid pcilynx ieee1394 i2c_algo_bit i2c_core sd_mod snd_pcm 
snd_timer snd soundcore snd_page_alloc pcspkr psmouse serio_raw 
intel_agp agpgart evdev shpchp pci_hotplug floppy parport_pc parport 
ide_floppy ext3 jbd ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore ide_generic aic7xxx 
scsi_transport_spi ata_piix libata scsi_mod ide_disk piix generic 
thermal processor fan fbcon tileblit font bitblit softcursor vesafb 
capability commoncap
[17179608.156000] CPU:    0
[17179608.156000] EIP:    0060:[<c01ad9d9>]    Not tainted VLI
[17179608.156000] EFLAGS: 00010246   (2.6.17-10-generic #2)
[17179608.156000] EIP is at sysfs_follow_link+0x139/0x250
[17179608.156000] eax: 00000000   ebx: 00000001   ecx: ffffffff   edx: 
ffffffff
[17179608.156000] esi: 00000000   edi: 30383d44   ebp: 00000001   esp: 
f7ff5ec0
[17179608.156000] ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
[17179608.156000] Process hald (pid: 4048, threadinfo=f7ff4000 
task=c195aa90)
[17179608.156000] Stack: c1bae4bc f7ff5ef4 f7e82000 ffffffea c1bae58c 
c1bae4bc 00000001 c0372a80
[17179608.156000]        f7e81198 00000100 080a4028 c01785f3 f7d5766c 
fffffff7 080a2e84 df8db9c0
[17179608.156000]        00000000 f7ff4000 f7ff5f50 4576d0d3 00000000 
00000100 c01276f0 00000001
[17179608.156000] Call Trace:
[17179608.156000]  <c01785f3> generic_readlink+0x33/0x90  <c01276f0> 
current_fs_time+0x50/0x60
[17179608.156000]  <c018585d> touch_atime+0x5d/0xb0  <c01743b3> 
sys_readlinkat+0x93/0xd0
[17179608.156000]  <c017d990> filldir64+0x0/0xe0  <c017d990> 
filldir64+0x0/0xe0
[17179608.156000]  <c017dbb5> vfs_readdir+0x85/0xb0  <c0174417> 
sys_readlink+0x27/0x30
[17179608.156000]  <c0102fbb> sysenter_past_esp+0x54/0x79
[17179608.156000] Code: 31 ed 8b 40 24 83 c5 01 85 c0 75 f6 8b 54 24 14 
bb 01 00 00 00 31 f6 89 14 24 ba ff ff ff ff 8d 76 00 8b 0c 24 89 f0 8b 
39 89 d1 <f2> ae f7 d1 49 8d 5c 19 01 8b 0c 24 8b 49 24 85 c9 89 0c 24 75
[17179608.156000] EIP: [<c01ad9d9>] sysfs_follow_link+0x139/0x250 SS:ESP 
0068:f7ff5ec0
[17179608.156000]  <6>NET: Registered protocol family 10
[17179608.488000] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[17179608.492000] IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
[17179608.752000] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[17179608.824000] Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
[17179608.840000] ip_conntrack version 2.4 (8187 buckets, 65496 max) - 
224 bytes per conntrack
[17179619.284000] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
[17179700.872000] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[17179701.128000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 185
[17179701.128000] NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 Kernel Module  1.0-9631 
  Thu Nov  9 17:38:10 PST 2006
[17179759.944000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, 
low) -> IRQ 185
[17179759.944000] NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 Kernel Module  1.0-9631 
  Thu Nov  9 17:38:10 PST 2006
[17179760.004000] agpgart: Found an AGP 3.0 compliant device at 
0000:00:00.0.
[17179760.004000] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 8x 
mode
[17179760.004000] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 8x 
mode

There is no special hardware in this machine except for the Nvidia
GeForce FX 5200 AGP graphics card. I am running the latest version of
the Nvidia driver directly from Nvidia. The problem is there regardless
of what version of nvidia driver I use.

I have tried all of the ubuntu 2.6.17 kernels and I am currently running
a 2.6.19 kernel that was built against the 2.6.17-generic config file 
and the behavior is the same.

I am not sure what else to try. Does anyone have any suggestions or 
hopefully a solution?

Thanks!

Sam