system crash, skype causing it

[yonnie]

No, wine is not installed.  Shylock sounds pretty nasty, any reason to expect it to run on Linux?

When the system crashed yesterday, the computer required a ctrl-alt-delete to boot.  Screen was black, there was nothing to see.

Now I am getting something a little different.  Grub is not posting on last boot.  Earlier today it gave me the choice of safe mode or not.  After running Clamav and doing searches for updates and file system check howto's, I'm not getting Grub anymore, it's always paused at that screen for a few seconds, booted twice and didn't see it.

Normal mode for this computer is never-off.  Rare to ever have to re-boot for anything, it's always on.

Right now the Menu button is giving me 2 choices... Run or Logout.  Clamtk scans are looking at my home directories, PCmanFM is showing my normal directories.  Logout does not give me choice of who to logout (but I've never tried that, so don't know what to expect).

[Just17]

I would check the integrity of the HDD .......  if only for assurance .....

[yonnie]

Is there an integrity checker?  Synaptic does not think there are any "broken" packages, but then it never does even when there are.

[Just17]

Hdparm should give an indication if there is anything wrong.

hdparm --help

to see the options.

[yonnie]

I ran rootkit hunter and checkroot, no issues found.
Contro/Escape just brings up the Main Menu button pop-up.  Going over to monitor processes I get only one instance of Skype and does not include a user name.  Process ID is 24139, I will need to wait for people to get home from work to place calls to and test again.

hdparm -I /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
   Model Number:       WDC WD5000AADS-00S9B0                   
   Serial Number:      WD-WCAV9C562336
   Firmware Revision:  01.00A01
   Transport:          Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6
Standards:
   Supported: 8 7 6 5
   Likely used: 8
Configuration:
   Logical      max   current
   cylinders   16383   16383
   heads      16   16
   sectors/track   63   63
   --
   CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
   LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
   LBA48  user addressable sectors:  976773168
   Logical/Physical Sector size:           512 bytes
   device size with M = 1024*1024:      476940 MBytes
   device size with M = 1000*1000:      500107 MBytes (500 GB)
   cache/buffer size  = unknown
Capabilities:
   LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
   Queue depth: 32
   Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
   R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16   Current = 0
   Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254
   DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
        Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
   PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
        Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
   Enabled   Supported:
      *   SMART feature set
          Security Mode feature set
      *   Power Management feature set
      *   Write cache
      *   Look-ahead
      *   Host Protected Area feature set
      *   WRITE_BUFFER command
      *   READ_BUFFER command
      *   NOP cmd
      *   DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
          Power-Up In Standby feature set
      *   SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up
          SET_MAX security extension
          Automatic Acoustic Management feature set
      *   48-bit Address feature set
      *   Device Configuration Overlay feature set
      *   Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
      *   FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
      *   SMART error logging
      *   SMART self-test
      *   General Purpose Logging feature set
      *   64-bit World wide name
      *   WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
      *   {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
      *   Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
      *   Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
      *   Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
      *   Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
      *   Host-initiated interface power management
      *   Phy event counters
      *   NCQ priority information
      *   DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
      *   Software settings preservation
      *   SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
      *   SCT Read/Write Long (AC1), obsolete
      *   SCT Write Same (AC2)
      *   SCT Features Control (AC4)
      *   SCT Data Tables (AC5)
          unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
          unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
Security:
   Master password revision code = 65534
      supported
   not   enabled
   not   locked
   not   frozen
   not   expired: security count
      supported: enhanced erase
   110min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 110min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50014ee25a56a115
   NAA      : 5
   IEEE OUI   : 0014ee
   Unique ID   : 25a56a115
Checksum: correct

[kjpetrie]

OK, so you've had a hard reset...

In that case you need to boot from a livecd, open a terminal, su to root and run fsck -fy /dev/sdxn> (where x is the device letter and n the partition number) on your unmounted Linux partitions, except swap. This needs to be done after every hard reboot because, as you've already noted, it can cause fs corruption. If you don't, all sorts of weird problems will start to occur and the system will gradually become unusable and data will be lost.

To find how the livecd sees your partitions use fdisk -l (again as root).

Then, please, answer the question - what exactly do you mean by "it reboots". Until you do people have to guess what the problem is and may give you unhelpful or even damaging advice.

[yonnie]

Hi kjpetrie,
Do I need a current LiveCD, or will an old one suffice?
I just re-read my posts, you'll need to help me out as to which one I said "it reboots".  I realize there doesn't seem to be a post counter but if I could re-read which post I could translate it then.  In general whenever I've used boot, I mean exactly that, the system is booting, boot means only one thing to me, no other definitions... the computer is loading initial OS parameters for operation.  Normally in this process I see the Grub menu, last 2 times Grub menu seemed to be missing, not sure how as the computer booted from a full power-off condition.

[Just17]

First we get the POST

Then we get the Grub screen to select an OS, or OS boot options to use, to boot

After that the OS begins to boot ..... for clarity the reader needs to know at what stage you refer to.

If you edit the boot options at the Grub page, to delete the 'quiet' and 'splash=verbose' options, the actual boot report can be seen on screen, line by line.

[yonnie]

I get the Post, too fast to read, then I should get Grub (gone) then a get a please wait loading operating system........
Then I get a LXDE splash with progress bar, then I get the login screen.  

I'd like to download the current PCLOS but they only do it via torrent now.  I tried to get aria2 working, all I get are errors.  How does one get torrent working?

[yonnie]

Got amule to work, ran the fsck -fy here's a copy of the results:
[root@localhost guest]# fsck -fy /dev/sda1
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/sda1: 180910/788416 files (0.1% non-contiguous), 1323630/3148732 blocks
[root@localhost guest]# fsck-fy /dev/sda2
bash: fsck-fy: command not found
[root@localhost guest]# fsck -fy /dev/sda2
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
fsck.ext2: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while trying to open /dev/sda2
Could this be a zero-length partition?
[root@localhost guest]# fsck -fy /dev/sda6
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Extended attribute in inode 2363625 has a value size (0) which is invalid
Clear? yes

Extended attribute in inode 3543299 has a value size (0) which is invalid
Clear? yes

Extended attribute in inode 28974424 has a value size (0) which is invalid
Clear? yes

Extended attribute in inode 29100247 has a value size (0) which is invalid
Clear? yes

Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

/dev/sda6: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/sda6: 206750/29483008 files (0.4% non-contiguous), 62839978/117925124 blocks
[root@localhost guest]# fsck -fy /dev/sda4
fsck from util-linux-ng 2.18
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/sda4
Possibly non-existent device?
[root@localhost guest]#

[kjpetrie]

Booting only means one thing to me also, but many people post that their system won't boot when X fails to start or say it reboots when X crashes and they are thrown back to the log-in screen, and I needed to be clear you didn't mean that.

It sounds as if your machine is really rebooting spontaneously when making certain calls using Skype.

Assuming MS haven't deliberately sabotaged the Linux version of their program to trigger a reset of the machine at random points, it's very unlikely the behaviour you see is triggered by a software problem. If an application crashes you should be left with a desktop. If it takes the desktop with it you should be looking at a frozen desktop or an X restart leading to a log-in prompt. If it crashes the kernel you should see a kernel panic message with core dumps and call traces. Rebooting only happens if a runlevel change to 6 is requested or a hardware reset pulse is generated, not what I would expect from an application crash.

I therefore think you have a hardware problem related to CPU or GPU load. Either the PSU or the motherboard is dying (or you have too much demand for the supply), and heavy demands result in power rails sagging and generating a hard reset. It just happens that Skype is the application that shows this up.

That's what I'd put my money on if I were a betting man.

[yonnie]

KJP,
You may be correct.  I tried looking at the task manager and noticed it lists the owner.  I saw I own the Skype process.  So I logged out and logged back in as the other owner and saw me still owning Skype as a running process.  I then did a Switch user back to me again and noticed Skype was gone, but the other owner still listed as owning several processes.  I Logged out and the system didn't like that, got a screen with a lot of complaints about failed whatevers in a DOS-like mode using wrap-around text.  Screen would not accept text, nor alt-F1.  ctrl-alt-del brought up a 'restarting PCLinux' splash screen with progress bar.

One other thing I should mention, when this system re-boots it always shows the power-on light going off and on several times before assuming a steady state.  Is this normal?  This is my newest old-computer, all my other systems are old to very old and slow.  Is there a CLI command to print out all the specs?  Including Mobo?