[gdm-list] gdm freezes occasionally and locks the entire machine

[Mertens Bram <bram-mertens linux be>]

Hi

I have been using GDM for several years and until recently did not
experience any problems.

Recently however GDM occasionally freezes up when a user quits a
session (either Gnome or Enlightenment).  The screen becomes "garbled"
and will not respond to anything.  Sometimes CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE can be
used to kill the X session so GDM can be restarted from the command
line.

However after switching back to the console (using CTRL+ALT+F1) to log
out switching back to the X-session (using ALT+F7) results in a
complete (graphical) system freeze.  Nothing but a couple of
"weird" ascii characters is displayed on the screen.
At this point all I can do is log in through ssh from another machine
to stop and start the GDM.

I have enabled debugging (added 'Enabled=true' to /etc/gdm/gdm.conf)
but the only thing I see in the syslog when it happens is:
Nov 14 15:10:01 localhost gdmgreeter[12000]: Sending command: 'CLOSE'
Nov 14 15:10:01 localhost gdm[11827]: Handling user message: 'CLOSE'
Nov 14 15:10:01 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_slave_wait_for_login: In loop

[ I believe this is the point where I issues /etc/init.d/gdm stop ]

Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11827]: mainloop_sig_callback: Got signal 15
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11827]: mainloop_sig_callback: Got TERM/INT. Going down!
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11827]: gdm_final_cleanup
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11827]: gdm_display_unmanage: Stopping :0 (slave pid: 11986)
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: term_quit: Final cleanup
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_slave_quick_exit: Will kill everything from the display
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: Running gdm_verify_cleanup and pamh != NULL
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_server_stop: Server for :0 going down!
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_server_stop: Killing server pid 11989
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_server_stop: Server pid 11989 dead
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11986]: gdm_slave_quick_exit: Killed everything from the display
Nov 14 15:10:40 localhost gdm[11827]: gdm_display_unmanage: Display stopped

I have also tried to disabled dri in /etc/X11/xorg.conf but the problem
remained.  (It looks like I may need to disable it anyway.)

I have found this in /var/log/gdm/:0.log.3:
[...]
(EE) RADEON(0): [agp] AGP failed to initialize. Disabling the DRI.
[...]
(**) RADEON(0): RADEONScreenInit finished

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x84) [0x80c4354]
1: [0xffffe420]
2: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so [0xa7cb40ff]
3: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so(__glXInitScreens+0xac) [0xa7c91c6c]
4: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so(GlxExtensionInit+0x183) [0xa7c90c73]
5: /usr/bin/X(InitExtensions+0xa2) [0x80f0672]
6: /usr/bin/X(main+0x2aa) [0x806e4ba]
7: /lib/tls/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xc8) [0xa7dd3ea8]
8: /usr/bin/X(FontFileCompleteXLFD+0xa9) [0x806d9d1]

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11.  Server aborting

(**) RADEON(0): RADEONLeaveVT

I am running debian testing and my graphics card is an ATI Radeon
9200SE 5964.

gdm is now at version, but it happed with previous versions as well.
ii  gdm            2.16.1-1       GNOME Display Manager

Any information on how to resolve this issue would be greatly
appreciated.

Regards

Bram

-- 
# Mertens Bram "M8ram"   <bram-mertens linux be>   Linux User #349737 #
# debian testing            kernel 2.6.17-2-686    i686    1024MB RAM #
# 15:54:26 up 18 days,  5:27,  5 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00 #