[PLUG] Log file translation to English

[John Jason Jordan]

First, the long story:

I have periodic problems with my Hardy x86_64 locking up on my T61 Thinkpad. That is, the lockups are sometimes a bit different, but in all cases the only solution is to reboot. For example, this morning moving the mouse (bluetooth) failed to restore the screen from the screensaver. Now, the bluetooth mouse has always suffered from random disconnects. Usually I get several days before it suddenly quits working. I turned off the touchpad in the BIOS a long time ago but left the trackball working so I have a "backup mouse" when that happens. I just open a terminal and do "sudo hidd --connect <address> after holding the mouse "look for me" button down for 12 seconds. It's annoying, but I suffer it because I love the mouse.

This morning when the mouse failed to restore the screen I tried Ctrl-Alt-F1, which restored the screen, although it did not go to a command line. I tried the mouse again and discovered that it had died again. That would explain why moving it did not restore the screen. Intending to reconnect it I used the trackball to go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal, but I was unable to open a terminal with the trackball. The panel said "opening terminal" for a bit, then nothing. I tried Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a command line, but discovered that the keyboard had died. The trackball would select menu items, but I could not restore any programs that had been minimized to the panel. Eventually the trackball wouldn't even select menu items. At that point I had to reboot.

This morning's episode is a bit different because usually the lockups are complete - no keyboard, no mouse, no trackball - nada. I should also mention that I have never ever had the computer lock up while using it. It is always when I return to the computer after leaving it for several hours, only to discover that it has locked up. 

I can also add that it sits on a docking station at home, which is plugged into the wall. However, I have a desktop that is also plugged into the wall (no UPS because it is used only for backups and for watching movies). In the past when I discovered the T61 had locked up I found that the desktop was completely shut down. In other words, it was PGE's fault. A momentary power outage had occurred in my absence, although it must have been very brief because the stereo was still playing. I asked on the Thinkpad e-list about this because it didn't make sense to me for such a brief power outage to affect the Thinkpad. If the mains go down it should automatically switch to the battery without incident. The response on the e-list was that it was probably a power surge. I got no "me too" responses from other T61 users, so evidently my problem is unique.

Now the question:

In my several years of using Ubuntu I have never paid much attention to log files. This morning I decided it was time to rectify that failure in my Linux education, in the hope that I could figure out what is causing the lockups. After a bit of googling I figured out that /var/log/messages (and its .0, .1 ... prior copies) would be the best place to find answers. I opened both /messages and /messages.0 in gedit, but found that I was unable to scrute the messages. For example, I found this in /messages at the time I gave up and hit the power button:

<pages of stuff deleted>
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438891]  [system_call+0x7e/0x83] system_call+0x7e/0x83
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438923] 
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438926] 
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438927] Code: 48 8b 73 38 48 8b 3d 09 8c 39 00 48 89 d9 48 c7 c2 10 38 30 
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438956]  RSP <ffff810069df5a58>
Sep  8 08:20:29 Devil7 kernel: [160176.438967] ---[ end trace 47b9677cdef171ba ]---
Sep  8 08:25:46 Devil7 syslogd 1.5.0#1ubuntu1: restart.
<more pages showing evidently the boot process>

Looking at the pages of stuff before the "restart" line I find nothing that I can understand. I would assume that the poking around that I did with the trackball left messages, but I am unable to find them.

I also find this at intervals of exactly 20 minutes, apparently while the computer is idle:

Sep  7 12:10:08 Devil7 -- MARK --
Sep  7 12:30:08 Devil7 -- MARK --

What is that all about?

Is there any way to figure out what the pages of inscrutable messages mean?

Are there any other log files that I should be looking at to troubleshoot this issue?