program launcher going wild

Tue Jul 3 04:06:11 UTC 2012

On Monday 02 July 2012 23:40:13 Amedee Van Gasse did opine:

> On 29/06/2012 17:43, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > A more kerosene on the fire PS:
> > 
> > Its done that 4 more times since I posted the above, and each time I
> > reboot, things change.  Once I even got the default users gui setup
> > which I was unable to change.  No keyboard response to even open a
> > terminal screen.
> > 
> > When I reboot, long before the login screen appears, I get an error
> > advisory popup, center screen, that says it "Could not update
> > /var/lib/gdm/.ICEauthority"
> > 
> > If I sit and wait long enough I will finally get the big Xservers X
> > mouse pointer so I can click on the close button.  Eventually.
> > 
> > The instant I close that, it is replaced by another error window
> > advising me that "There is a problem with the config server -
> > (/var/lib/libgconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check exited with status 256)
> > 
> > But if I re-execute that file right now, it gives a null return
> > ANAICT.
> 
> I had something similar once when I had a mounting problem. Don't
> remember what exactly, /home wasn't mounted or was mounted read-only.
> This may be a long shot, but could you show your /etc/fstab?

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=ec677e9c-6be6-4311-b97b-3889d42ce6ef /               ext4    
errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/sda1       /boot           ext3    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=edc2880e-257d-4521-8220-0df5b57dcae4 none            swap    sw              
0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdb2 during installation
UUID=685a3b96-ee1b-4987-8e73-6ecf8c5177d8 none            swap    sw              
0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdc2 during installation
UUID=1e5d265b-0097-4699-b2f9-47e75ec2f95c none            swap    sw              
0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0
shop.coyote.den:/		/net/shop	nfs	defaults 	
ext3	0	0
lathe.coyote.den:/		/net/lathe	nfs	defaults	
ext3	0	0
gene at coyote:~$ 

My nsf mounts aren't working either.

I just had to do a warn reboot to get 'me' back again, but this is the 
first power the machine has seen since about 19:30 Friday night.  I am in 
WV, USA one of 11 eastern states who had their power knocked out for an 
extended period of time I a freak storm that featured a little rain, and a 
lot 80-110 mph winds.  70 foot trees nearly that old went for long rides, 
taking miles of power line along for the ride.  My 5500 watt generator 
didn't have what it takes to run the A/C, so we've been sweltering in 90+ F 
heat that might have gotten down to 78 around 5:00.  Tonight, we'll have aC 
for the first time since Last Friday.  To top that off, the state has 
issued a statewide boil water advisory A/O about 3 hours ago.

> And when you have login problems again, press CTRL+ALT+F1 to drop into a
> text-based terminal. You *should* be able to login.
> Then do "mount" to see what was mounted where and how.

AIR, there is no keyboard to respond to at that point.  If I wave the mouse 
around, I can see the right hand button unghost occasionally and eventually 
the big X pointer will pop into visibility, at which point I can click on 
the right hand button, which may be 10-30 seconds being acknowledged (the 
button stays down though), and when that message clears, then the 2nd one 
is behind it.  By then the BIG X has been replaced with the usual mouse 
pointer.  Clicking on that to make it go away, sets the button down, but 
actually clearing it to get the login screen may take another 10-30 
seconds.

So tonight, I have around 2k unread messages, so of which might never get 
read.

> I know, it's a long shot. It's like the proverbial lupus in House MD.
> They still have to test for it, just to rule it out.

Ok, so what did we rule out with the fstab?

> > Also, while on this reboot I did get some (not all, only that set I
> > normally keep in workspace 5 of 10) of my terminal screens restored,
> > it took several minutes after the boot was (theoretically) completed
> > before those screens had a cursor, so I was either typing blind, or
> > searching thru the shell cli history to find the command I normally
> > run in that terminal/tab and re-execute it.
> > 
> > FWIW, memtest86 was run a full cycle earlier this morning, no errors.
> > 
> > This is turning into a right PIMA folks, what can I do?
> > 
> > Thanks all.
> > 
> > Cheers, Gene

Thanks you very much for the reply, and I apologize that my response is 
slow, but its a bit hard to find a network when 11 states are doing a fair 
job of imitating a black hole!

Cheers, Gene
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
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