Ubuntu

I would like to report and strange bug, but how do I collect the relevant info?

Asked by Ryan Budney

Since upgrading to the 22-14 kernel with Ubuntu 7.10, I've had the strangest problem where if I leave my computer unattended for an hour (or so), it shuts down. I have no idea what mechanism is causing it to power-down, but this started happening after the 22-14 update. I've been running Ubuntu 7.10 for 2 months now, and this is the most serious problem I've had. It renders my machine near useless as I can't leave it alone to process big jobs.

Any idea of where to look to find out enough information to make a useful bug report? The log files don't seem to have much unusual stuff in them. It looks like the machine just turns off, without a proper power-down sequence.

My computer is a laptop, and it doesn't matter if the lid is open or closed. All power-management tools are set to never suspend, never hibernate. Advice would be appreciated.

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#1

Random bits of information that might or might not be useful:

[code]
rybu@rybu-laptop:~$ uname -a
Linux rybu-laptop 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Wed Oct 10 05:28:36 GMT 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

rybu@rybu-laptop:~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
LENOVO

rybu@rybu-laptop:~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
64575KU

rybu@rybu-laptop:~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-version
ThinkPad T61p
[/code]

I'm running an nvidia quadro fx570m card, with the nvidia driver: NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-100.14.19-pkg2.run

There are several other odd things going on with my laptop now. 22-14 has been the most buggy episode in my Ubuntu 7.10 experience:

One problem is the Ubuntu splash screen has dissappeared. usplash is running fine. This is also new to me with the 22-14 kernel.

Another problem is my wireless signal gets disconnected periodically, while it didn't lose the signal once with any pre-22-14 kernel.

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#2

After last night compiz, xresprobe and cryptsetup updates, I've had one night where my laptop has stayed powered-up.

Any idea if the problem might be solved, and why?

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#3

Well, I don't know why the problem is gone, but appears to be gone.

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#4

Problem is back. My system isn't shutting down anymore, but it is locking up. Today it locked up running ktorrent, and the screensaver. I'll file a bug report.

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Andres Mujica (andres.mujica) said : 		#5

Hi, it's possible that's a bug, did you fill it in? if so can you link it to this question? thanks

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#6

Hi, I filled out a bug report, and linked this question to the bug report.

There's the possibility that this problem is triggered by a c++ program I wrote. I'm pretty sure I haven't been running it every time I get a lock up or shutdown, but it looks like most of the time it happens, I'm running this program.

It's a very simple c++ program that uses only the iostream, fstream, string and cmath libraries. It's not doing anything special, just iterating Newton's method over a pretty tame 4-dimensional parameter space, then dumping the output in a graphical format -- some POVray code, suitable for rendering.

If anyone would like to try it out, to see if it triggers the problem on their system, let me know and I'll upload the code and instructions on how to run it in a way that tends to trigger the crash on my system. It's a 100kb .tar file. I've been running this program for 3 years on several different computers, with several different linux distros. This is the first time it's caused a serious problem -- if this is the cause.

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Ryan Budney (delooper) said : 		#7

FYI, the problem seems to have been created by an over-heating issue. But it seemed to be a combination of the buggy NVIDIA driver, the overzealous TrackerD and the Gnome screensaver. I'm running 8.04.1 now so this problem is "resolved" but in an unsatisfactory way.