system crash, skype causing it

[yonnie]

I put skype from synaptic package manager onto my pcLinuxOS (LXDE) think it's kernel 3.2.18.  It's skype version 4.0.0.7.  Used it a couple times last wekend, no problems.  Go to answer a call today and bang I'm booting and then staring at the login screen.  I been using PCLinuxOS for a long time, and never seen it crash before.  This did this 3-times in a row, I'm not trying it again.  This ain't no dual-boot system, it's the real-thing, all Linux no windows!

I was hoping to see the grandkids, this sux!  I need some help!

[Just17]

Did you have any other applications running at the time ?

Were the calls audio only or audio & video?

Does it happen on outgoing calls?

This did this 3-times in a row, I'm not trying it again.

I do not know how you can troubleshoot the problem without trying it again, so I guess you are at an impasse.

[pclinmike]

When I 'skype' my daughter at uni I only have skype and NO other program running and this is on a good computer !

[yonnie]

The crashes happened with both incoming and outgoing calls.  The last crash happened with nothing else running.  It's a brutal crash, almost like power went off.  I hate doing this because it's almost certain to cause file corruption. 

My daughter called me from an iPhone, and put on my grand-daughter.  Call lasted only seconds.  After re-boot, I tried calling back, maybe 2 seconds after connection, another crash.  After another re-boot, I started checking google and forums for solutions, none, and tried again.  Another crash within seconds.  I'm trying to switch to Ekiga and having some sort of settings issue now.  Don't really like using MSproducts anyway.

[Just17]

I can understand Skype crashing if using video and there is a lack of codec compatibility between sender and receiver .....  it happened to me many months ago.

.....  but you never said if the calls are audio only or audio+video ......

[yonnie]

audio+video, sorry.

[Just17]

audio+video, sorry.

Turn off your video in Skype ...... try an audio only call ...... I suspect it might be OK ....  

[scoundrel]

and start skype in terminal .. copy paste any output here..

[Bald Brick]

and start skype in terminal .. copy paste any output here..

If the whole system goes down he won't have any output to post.

Now, programs will at times segfault, parts of your DE may crash, but a sudden spontaneous reboot usually means the system is overheating. Perhaps yonnie should monitor the temperatures (or at least system activity) the next time he starts Skype.

[yonnie]

This system is almost never off and not over-heating.  I don't think this system has ever crashed before with PCLinuxOS, going on 7 months.  Only time in recent memory of this system crashing is within seconds of a Skype phone call connection being established.  The skype test phone call does not cause a crash and the first non-test phone call was for about an hour with no issues at all with video running.  I will try making phone calls without video but will need some patience as I have a small list and they're not home.

[yonnie]

Ok, tried the no video, system crashed. 

Installed Ekiga, could not get it to work, video would quit and not re-start.  Including Cheese and VLC.  Have to re-boot to get it back on.

Installed Linphone... seemed to work but had no-one to call for real test.  Video would watch me for maybe an hour and then quit.  Still working with Cheese.  Would have to re-boot to get video to work in Linphone.

Today, Linphone won't launch at all.  Tried a complete re-install of Linphone, still won't launch.

Just for fun, tried Skype.  Working! (?) what?  Video quits around an hour into conversation, but will re-start when call is re-made.  Audio quit once ~an hour after, but re-established after calling back.

I'm puzzled, Skype is working, (not causing a crash) Linphone and Ekiga are not working, but were, sort of.

[kjpetrie]

When you say booting, what exactly do you mean? Do you see the POST, followed by the Grub menu, or just some skewed writing followed by the cursor timer (eg hourglass, watch or two orbiting circles)?

The first would be a reboot, and could cause file corruption. The second is just an X crash and restart.

[yonnie]

Ok, this is weird.... is there a virtual user mode?
After long talk with Skype to one person, I decided to call the original person with the instant crash problem.  Instant crash again.  The computer I was calling is an older Apple laptop.  So I used the phone and talked her into setting-up another laptop running Linux and how-to install Skype.  Then, while talking on the Skype (with both camera's on) after a long time ~30 minutes, the sleep-timer activated with a fade-to-black.  Accept it wasn't my username sleeptimer.  It wasn't anybody's sleeptimer and all I had to look at was a blank-screen with the skype still working.  I couldn't wake it up.  It touched the power-button and the log-in power-off/restart menu popped-up...Skype is still working this whole time, so I chose to login and chose my username.  After that the kicker-panel and normal user screen appeared, accept Skype wasn't there (but it's still working).  So then I tried re-launching it, it wouldn't launch (audio still working though, no video, no menu).  Symptoms similar to when the Linphone wouldn't launch in previous post.  

When I had booted-up previously and went to choose applications, all that showed for the menu was Run and Logout.  I tried the menu button several times and each time all I could get was Run and Logout.  So I chose Run and then cancel.  After that the menu button then showed a normal pop-up menu.  I had experienced this several times over the past few days.  There is no clue that I am not looking at my normal user desktop, other than some items may not launch as they are already running?  And they don't show in the taskbar like they are hidden.

[yonnie]

Kjpetrie,
Everything looks totally normal (all virtual workspaces).  Booting shows the typical grub and boot sequence.  Only difference I see is the main Menu button either gives me a choice of everything (normal) or gives me Run or Logout.  I now recognize that menu choice (run/logout) is I'm running in a false user-mode and don't know how to get rid of it.

I'm curious that if the Apple computer I tried to talk to that caused the original system crash, had anything to do with this new weird problem?  Prior to then, I had not experienced the described conditions.

[kjpetrie]

I still don't understand what you see when it crashes. Are you saying the machine restarts from a grub prompt and when you reach a desktop you then find the menu options limited? That could be file system corruption. (Almost anything can happen as a result of file system corruption.)

It sounds as if Skype is detaching itself from your desktop session and running in the background if you can log out without closing it. To discover which user it runs as it might be worth pressing Ctrl+Esc to bring up the process table and see how many Skype instances there are and what user(s) they run as.

Please describe exactly what happens step by step so we can understand exactly what you see. We need hard facts.