You have been subscribed to a public bug: I'm on Karmic Koala. This problem manifested with numerous 2.6.31 kernels (64-bit).
I boot up, start a browser, browse around, then the screen freezes. I can only move the mouse cursor, and it's quite jerky. I cannot get to a text console. I am able to ssh in. After trying many processes, I've found that killing X brings me back to the log-in screen, and the machine is responsive again. I log back in, and in a few minutes the same thing happens. With some experimenting, I found it to be proximately induced by a browser tab with a large (though not gargantuan) image. I was not able to get any debugging information. Nothing showed up in /var/log/messages. I tested the memory and the hard drive. I tried a live CD without problems. I had a few hours earlier a routine update from synaptic, consisting of the following: 2010-05-27 06:41:52 upgrade libc-dev-bin 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:41:54 upgrade libc6-dev 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:41:56 upgrade libc6-dev-i386 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:41:57 upgrade libc6-i386 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:41:58 upgrade libc-bin 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:42:04 upgrade libc6 2.10.1-0ubuntu16 2.10.1-0ubuntu17 2010-05-27 06:42:18 upgrade chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra 0.5+svn20100430r46138+46111+47191-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 0.5+svn20100522r47988+47943+48268-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 2010-05-27 06:42:19 upgrade chromium-browser-inspector 6.0.404.0~svn20100514r47231-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 6.0.417.0~svn20100527r48348-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 2010-05-27 06:42:20 upgrade chromium-browser 6.0.404.0~svn20100514r47231-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 6.0.417.0~svn20100527r48348-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 2010-05-27 06:42:29 upgrade google-chrome-beta 5.0.375.38-r46659 5.0.375.55-r47796 2010-05-27 06:42:36 upgrade libkrb5-dev 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:36 upgrade libgssapi-krb5-2 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:37 upgrade libkrb5-3 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:38 upgrade libkrb5support0 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:39 upgrade libk5crypto3 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:39 upgrade libgssrpc4 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:40 upgrade libkdb5-4 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:40 upgrade libkadm5srv6 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:41 upgrade libkadm5clnt6 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.5 1.7dfsg~beta3-1ubuntu0.6 2010-05-27 06:42:42 upgrade chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-nonfree 0.5+svn20100430r46138+46111+47191-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 0.5+svn20100522r47988+47943+48268-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic 2010-05-27 06:42:42 upgrade gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu2.1 2.28.1-0ubuntu2.2 2010-05-27 06:42:53 upgrade libpq-dev 8.4.3-0ubuntu9.10.1 8.4.4-0ubuntu9.10 2010-05-27 06:42:54 upgrade libpq5 8.4.3-0ubuntu9.10.1 8.4.4-0ubuntu9.10 2010-05-27 06:42:55 upgrade xserver-common 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.2 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.3 2010-05-27 06:42:56 upgrade xserver-xorg-core 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.2 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.3 2010-05-27 06:42:57 upgrade xvfb 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.2 2:1.6.4-2ubuntu4.3 It had been weeks since I'd done an update before that. Since it appeared to be X-related (and top usually showed Xorg eating CPU), I tried reverting the X packages back (well, back to a version I could readily get). This did not help. I started reverting seemingly irrelevant packages, including the linux- headers and the libc packages. I went back to a much earlier kernel version. The problem appears to have gone away. My best guess (based on likelihood) is that it's a problem with the libc packages, or at least their interaction with X. If so, it's quite serious, as it rendered the machine basically unusable. I hope others can avoid this nightmare. (Unrelatedly, Launchpad wouldn't let me submit this because I set my browser to not send Referer headers. No problem, I just turn them back on, right? No, I hit the back button and the whole bug report was gone. Thanks, Launchpad! So I re-enter it. Next, timeout errors!) Update: Never mind about it being fixed, it happened again, it just took longer. ** Affects: xorg (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- computer becomes unresponsive a few minutes after booting (karmic) https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/586994 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in ubuntu. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp