Sudden inestability and problems on a 32 bit machine [SOLVED]

Question

Last week, after updating I started to have multiple problems on my computer. Suddendly I can't fullscreen videos in flash (that can be flash fault). Mplayer won't work on X anymore, multiple games will crash after a while, firefox crashes constantly, other programs, like chromium won't open, VirtualBox also stopped working... lots of problems and at the same time, so I don't think is jut a coincidence; all of the programs that are affected drop a very simple "Segmentation fault", so not a lot of chances to know what is happening. Meanwhile, my girlfriend also uses arch, and her computer works as fine and stable as mine did a week ago. The only difference is that she uses a 64 bit architecture, while I have a pure 32bit. We both update it daily
I am wondering if someone with a 32bit computer is suffering the same problems, as it might be some stray library. If is not the case, I shall jump to install another distro to see if it still fails (in which case I can add the possibility of hardware problem). That option I rather delay as much as possible, as I don't feel like doing a backup of all my data again.
In any case, thanks in advance for any reply
Last edited by vladimir_1922 (2014-06-08 11:41:00)

Answer 1

jasonwryan wrote:
Some logs would be useful...
Not a Sysadmin issue, moving to NC.
Sorry, the nature of this problem is a bit hard to put on any forum.
I agree that any log would be nice. However dmesg shows a very healthy system. I also checked the log for X.org (suspecting that some of the errors might be because of the free ATI drivers, but despite some harmless warnings due to missing fonts, nothing worth of a crash, or mention to it (I did read them after causing some crashes)).
VirtualBox drops a warning about libpng:
"Qt WARNING: libpng warning: iCCP: Not recognizing known sRGB profile that has been edited".
But after failing to initialize any virtual machine it won't prompt any other warning or message, it crashes silently.
Firefox drops a warning upon starting, but works fine afterwards
"(process:5595): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed"
There is no more warnings after it crashes; it does it silently.
To be fair, all the programs I am having problems do crash silently, and not output is let on terminal or any log.
Eduke32, openttd, zandronum drop a very simple "Segmentation fault", which is not very helpful,  they all work fine for a while, before crashing.. Chromium drops a more elaborate error.
[5622:5646:0608/115704:ERROR:nss_util.cc(853)] After loading Root Certs, loaded==false: NSS error code: -8018
[5622:5622:0608/115704:ERROR:component_loader.cc(138)] Failed to parse extension manifest.
ATTENTION: default value of option force_s3tc_enable overridden by environment.
[5654:5654:0608/115704:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(297)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
For firefox (I find funny to see a GnomeProgram warning, as I am using awesome, not Gnome):
(firefox:5727): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: Attempt to add property GnomeProgram::default-icon after class was initialised
console.error: hola_firefox_ext:
  2014-06-08 11:03:13 ERROR: rmt_init %s
  6350ms r 5696ms
Last edited by vladimir_1922 (2014-06-08 11:04:57)