Re: Weird display problem in recent current

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005, Kevin Oberman wrote:

> Since I updated my current kernel yesterday, I have been seeing a weird
> problem that appears to be in X. I did not have the problem with the
> build I did on Friday, Apr. 8.
>
> I run gkrellm, a GTK based system monitor. I also run Gnome 2.10 and
> X.org. All of these ports are up to date. System is a P4M IBM T30.
>
> After my new kernel was installed yesterday, gkrellm would work until
> the screen blanks (screensaver set to blank). When the screen is
> re-activated, all of the applications refresh except that one. I just
> have an empty grey are where gkrellm should be.

This is indicative of gkrellm not monitoring the X socket and getting the
refresh message.  This means its stuck doing something.

> top shows that gkrellm is continually in RUN state, although it is using
> very little CPU.
>
> The second problem is that Gnome will no longer shut down. (This may be
> an artifact of th problems gkrellm is having.) I have to
> CTRL-ALT-BS. (Ugh!)
>
> I'd look at gkrellm except that I only updated the kernel on Monday, not
> world, let alone the gkrellm port. I thought some user-land/kernel
> issue may have cropped up, so I just finished rebuilding both the kernel
> and world. No change in behavior.
>
> Any ideas what might have changed between Friday morning and today to
> cause this? I'm not even sure where to start looking.

Being that gkrellm grubs around in the kernel, its possible some data
structre it was looking at changed and now its looping off into space.
I'd ktrace it and see what its doing when it goes awry -- that might help
isolate the affected module. If that isn't useful then remove modules
until you find the broken one.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite_at_gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org