[PLUG] Mouse click crashes X (I think)

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Fri Jun 22 23:44:37 UTC 2007


On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:04:24 -0700
"Quentin Hartman" <qhartman at gmail.com> dijo:

> > > > Backtrace:
> > > > 0: /usr/X11R6/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x6d) [0x48282d]
> > > > 1: /lib/libc.so.6 [0x2ac5417b1d40]
> > > > 2: /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libfb.so(fbDoCopy+0x1a1) [0x2ac544d9b081]
> > > > 3: /usr/lib/xorg/modules//libfb.so(fbCopyArea+0x4c) [0x2ac544d9b47c]
> > > > 4: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//nvidia_drv.so [0x2ac5443a6d04]
> > > >
> > > > Fatal server error:
> > > > Caught signal 11.  Server aborting

> That error definitely makes it look like a video card problem. If you use
> the generic "vesa" driver do you see this behavior? Be warned, it will be
> dog slow.
> 
> You mention in your first post that the laptop uses a "Geforce 4" video. Can
> you give any more details?
> 
> Some potentially useful information would be the output of "lspci -vv" and
> "uname -a". Also, are you running the "normal" driver packages from Feisty,
> or are you using stuff you installed from NVidia directly, or via a tool
> like Envy or something?

The video controller, according to sudo lspci -vv, is:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go 32M] (rev a3) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 006d
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 248 (1250ns min, 250ns max)
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Region 1: Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Region 2: Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at f8080000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0
                Status: RQ=32 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW+ AGP3- Rate=x1,x2,x4
                Command: RQ=32 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- AGP+ GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=x4

I posted above just the video controller part of the output, but I should add that all the rest of the stuff listed is working fine -- ethernet, wireless, firewire, usb (with some misgivings), audio, pcmcia, etc.

Uname -a gives:

Linux Devil5 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Thu Jun 7 19:00:28 UTC 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ubuntu installs as its standard driver for this video controller the "nv" driver; that is, the open source nVidia driver. You can install the proprietary nVidia drier "nvidia" if you wish. There are various scripts to do so, but I did it manually. I did it so long ago that I don't recall exactly the steps. I think all I had to do was install "nvidia-glx" from Synaptic, then a command line (forgotten) to make it the default. I can switch back to the "nv" driver just by editing the xorg.conf file and replacing "nvidia" with "nv." I had to do so once back in the days of Breezy because of some conflict. I have just kept the "nvidia" driver installed all along through the upgrades from Breezy to Dapper to Edgy to Feisty. Since it is in the Ubuntu repositories it automatically gets checked by Update Manager, so I know it is the most current.

As a troubleshooting step I did go back to the "nv" driver about a month ago. However, the problem continued, so I changed back to the "nvidia" driver.

After learning about the /var/log/xorg.n.log file and seeing the error message generated on the last crash, I am now convinced that it is some kind of problem with the video driver. Or perhaps better stated, an incompatibility between the video driver and the mouse or Gnome or usb or something else that causes X to crash occasionally on a mouse click. That being the case, after the most recent crash yesterday I decided that the first thing to try was to reinstall nvidia-glx. I did so from Synaptic, then restarted the computer. It has been running fine ever since, but that doesn't prove much, as it sometimes goes for several days before X crashes. I have been deliberately doing a lot of mouse click activity, however, including opening a lot of new tabs in Firefox, and even watching youtube stuff. So for the moment I am crossing my fingers. If it crashes again, then I will try a usb mouse of a different brand that does not use the Logitech driver.



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