Re: [gdm-list] GDM crashes ubuntu 10.04

[Brian Cameron <brian cameron oracle com>]

David:

> >    From your description it sounds like your system is crashing at random
> > times, which I assume means that sometimes your system crashes after
> > authentication and after your user session starts.  GDM does very little
> > after the user session starts, and it is very rare for crashes after the
> > user session starts to be related to GDM at all.  There are some
> > exceptions (such as when using a multi-display environment such as a
> > terminal server when a crash when logging into one display can cause
> > other displays to crash, but such problems tend to be very isolated to
> > particular and unusual configurations).
>
> I understand. Interestingly, at the time of one of my crashes from
> yesterday I happened to have two thin clients logged on to me (I'm the
> server) and they continued along without noticing. It would seem that
> the crash just affects my own desktop (and apparently keyboard/mouse
> too) but not the core system.

Do you notice any errors in your Xserver logs?  Is it possible your 
Xserver is crashing?  Try checking the /var/log/Xorg* logs and also
the log files in /var/lib/gdm that correspond with the crashing display.

It sounds like you do have a unique setup.  Can you try setting up your
system so it isn't running in a multi-display environment and see if
the problem happens in general on your console?  Or does the problem
only happen when your system is configured as a terminal server?

By the way, what version of GDM are you using?  You can run one of
these commands to check:

$ gdmflexiserver --command=VERSION
$ gdmflexiserver --version

Note if you are using GDM 2.21 or later, that it does not support
multi-display environments very well unless you are using a version
of GDM that is patched with the currently experimental MultiDisplay
patches that are available via bugzilla and in a separate GIT branch.
I assume you are likely using a version older than GDM 2.20 if
MultiDisplay is working since I have not heard that Ubuntu is shipping
with the MultiDisplay patches.

> Either way, do you suggest that I head over to
> http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users for more help?

It is hard to say.  When exactly are you noticing the crash?  Does the
crash happen when the login screen is displaying (or before), after
authentication but before showing the user session, or at random times
during the user session operation?

This list is the proper place to seek help if the problem is, in fact,
a GDM bug.  However, it doesn't seem like we have narrowed down the
problem to a particular module yet.  Seeking help on other lists to
try and track down the problem seems a reasonable route to take if
the help provided on this list doesn't help to narrow down the problem
well enough.  If the problem turns out to be an Ubuntu kernel or a
driver issue, then an Ubuntu form is probably the best place to seek
help.


Brian