X Crashes Frequently

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Configure-Administer
1

About twice a week, sometimes more, the SLES11 SP2 server will be at the console screens and not the login screen. We use KDE on this server. Looking through the messages log, i see:

Nov 17 23:57:59 web kdm: web.server.com:1[24509]: Received unknown or unexpected command -2 from greeter
Nov 17 23:57:59 web kdm: web.server.com:1[24509]: Abnormal termination of greeter for display web.electrichendrix.com:1, code 1, signal 0
Nov 18 00:17:58 web syslog-ng[1313]: Log statistics; dropped=‘pipe(/dev/xconsole)=0’, dropped=‘pipe(/dev/tty10)=0’, processed=‘center(queued)=10709’, processed=‘center(received)=10356’, processed=‘destination(messages)=10174’, processed=‘destination(mailinfo)=162’, processed=‘destination(mailwarn)=13’, processed=‘destination(localmessages)=6’, processed=‘destination(newserr)=0’, processed=‘destination(mailerr)=0’, processed=‘destination(netmgm)=0’, processed=‘destination(warn)=70’, processed=‘destination(console)=51’, processed=‘destination(null)=3’, processed=‘destination(mail)=175’, processed=‘destination(xconsole)=51’, processed=‘destination(firewall)=0’, processed=‘destination(acpid)=4’, processed=‘destination(newscrit)=0’, processed=‘destination(newsnotice)=0’, processed=‘source(src)=10356’

Nov 18 01:23:07 web kdm_config[24793]: Multiple occurrences of key ‘UseTheme’ in section [X--Greeter] of /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc
Nov 18 01:23:07 web kdm: web.server.com:1[24809]: Fatal X server IO error: No such file or directory
Nov 18 01:43:07 web – MARK –
Nov 18 02:03:08 web – MARK –
Nov 18 02:17:59 web syslog-ng[1313]: Log statistics; dropped=‘pipe(/dev/xconsole)=0’, dropped=‘pipe(/dev/tty10)=0’, processed=‘center(queued)=10724’, processed=‘center(received)=10365’, processed=‘destination(messages)=10183’, processed=‘destination(mailinfo)=162’, processed=‘destination(mailwarn)=13’, processed=‘destination(localmessages)=6’, processed=‘destination(newserr)=0’, processed=‘destination(mailerr)=0’, processed=‘destination(netmgm)=0’, processed=‘destination(warn)=72’, processed=‘destination(console)=53’, processed=‘destination(null)=3’, processed=‘destination(mail)=175’, processed=‘destination(xconsole)=53’, processed=‘destination(firewall)=0’, processed=‘destination(acpid)=4’, processed=‘destination(newscrit)=0’, processed=‘destination(newsnotice)=0’, processed=‘source(src)=10365’
Nov 18 02:37:59 web – MARK –
Nov 18 02:57:59 web – MARK –
Nov 18 03:17:59 web – MARK –
Nov 18 03:17:59 web syslog-ng[1313]: Log statistics; dropped=‘pipe(/dev/xconsole)=0’, dropped=‘pipe(/dev/tty10)=0’, processed=‘center(queued)=10728’, processed=‘center(received)=10369’, processed=‘destination(messages)=10187’, processed=‘destination(mailinfo)=162’, processed=‘destination(mailwarn)=13’, processed=‘destination(localmessages)=6’, processed=‘destination(newserr)=0’, processed=‘destination(mailerr)=0’, processed=‘destination(netmgm)=0’, processed=‘destination(warn)=72’, processed=‘destination(console)=53’, processed=‘destination(null)=3’, processed=‘destination(mail)=175’, processed=‘destination(xconsole)=53’, processed=‘destination(firewall)=0’, processed=‘destination(acpid)=4’, processed=‘destination(newscrit)=0’, processed=‘destination(newsnotice)=0’, processed=‘source(src)=10369’
Nov 18 03:26:15 web kdm_config[25063]: Multiple occurrences of key ‘UseTheme’ in section [X--Greeter] of /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc
Nov 18 03:26:15 web kdm_config[25069]: Multiple occurrences of key ‘UseTheme’ in section [X-*-Greeter] of /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc
Nov 18 03:26:15 web syslog-ng[1313]: Termination requested via signal, terminating;

No logs again until i reboot the server. Any idea how i can find out what is going on as when at the console, certain stuff fails like backups and remote access to name 2.

2

Hi
What GPU are you running?

Can you try tweaking the timeout in /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc
the “X-:*-Core” section (Core config for local displays). Try
increasing ServerAttempts to 5 and ServerTimeout to 45.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64) Kernel 3.4.11-2.16-desktop
up 1 day 2:14, 5 users, load average: 0.25, 0.17, 0.48
CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU

3

[QUOTE=malcolmlewis;10281]Hi
What GPU are you running?[/quote]

ATI Mach64

[quote]Can you try tweaking the timeout in /usr/share/kde4/config/kdm/kdmrc
the “X-:*-Core” section (Core config for local displays). Try
increasing ServerAttempts to 5 and ServerTimeout to 45.[/QUOTE]

I saw some x updates in the online update, so i did those in the hopes this would fix it. If it does not, i will try what you suggested.

4

If patching doesn’t fix the issue, change the display adapter to VESA. Works with everything, but more importantly, it works.

Also, disable screen saver, disable power saving features. Change the default run level to 3. No reason, ever, on a production server, to leave the GUI running always. ( Well, except unless you are an animator at Dreamworks. ) If you “need” the GUI, which you don’t, you can always startx to get it when you need it.

– Bob