X crashes when ending X session [SOLVED]

Question

Hello,
I am suddenly having a problem where X crashes when I end an X session. I am using the slim login manager, the fglrx driver and wmii as a window manager. When my machine first boots, slim starts and I can log into X, and everything works fine, but my machine locks when I try to end my X session. The screen goes blank and neither Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, nor Ctrl+Alt+Delete nor Ctrl+Alt+Fn work. However, I hear that my laptop fan turns on high so it sounds like X is in a tight loop somewhere using all the CPU. I must reboot to recover. If instead of ending my X session through wmii's quit command I kill X with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, I get the same result except that my screen doesn't go blank. Wmii ends and I'm left with an immobile mouse and my wallpaper and X in a tight loop.
Now, my Xorg.conf, .xinitrc, and slim.conf have not changed in months and have been working perfectly, so I'm just about 100% sure it's not a configuration problem. I do note that this has been occurring since I upgraded xorg-server (1.4.0.90-6 -> 1.4.0.90-8), xkeyboard-config (1.1-1 -> 1.2-1) and xf86-video-ati (6.7.197-2 -> 6.8.0-2) a couple of days ago. Has anyone else experienced any problems with X and the recent update?
EDIT: OK, I set up telnet on the machine and found that when X dies and the machine locks up, I can still telnet in and reboot the machine. The odd part is when I look at the process list (ps -e) when the machine is locked, I don't see any X processes. I can see and kill my login process, but the machine stays locked up. I checked my Xorg.0.log.old after restarting and I see:
Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x7e) [0x80e053e]
1: [0xb7f28420]
2: /usr/bin/X(Xfree+0x21) [0x81b2681]
3: /usr/bin/X [0x81a4c10]
4: /usr/bin/X [0x81a4cac]
5: /usr/bin/X [0x81a46ed]
6: /usr/bin/X(SrvXkbFreeGeomRows+0x49) [0x81a4859]
7: /usr/bin/X [0x81a48a1]
8: /usr/bin/X [0x81a46ed]
9: /usr/bin/X(SrvXkbFreeGeomSections+0x49) [0x81a4809]
10: /usr/bin/X(SrvXkbFreeGeometry+0xdf) [0x81a4f1f]
11: /usr/bin/X(SrvXkbFreeKeyboard+0xc1) [0x81a30f1]
12: /usr/bin/X(XkbFreeInfo+0xdf) [0x819180f]
13: /usr/bin/X [0x8084b8f]
14: /usr/bin/X(CloseDownDevices+0x29) [0x8084fe9]
15: /usr/bin/X(main+0x4be) [0x8073e6e]
16: /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe0) [0xb7cfd390]
17: /usr/bin/X(FontFileCompleteXLFD+0x205) [0x80731b1]
Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11. Server aborting
It seems something is segfaulting when trying to exit X. Aaargh.
OOPS: I posted too quickly. A little googling found this Debian bug report. I switched my keyboard model from "latitude" to "pc101" and all was well. Looks like this version of the X server has some problems.
Regards,
j
Last edited by jbromley (2008-03-22 08:15:06)

Answer 1

Edit:
Well turns out, the synaptics error pops out when running openbox too. I Ctrl+Atl+F1ed, and there is was again, but still openbox starts and works fine! My touchpad works fine, with scrolling and all that.
How do I get awesome to run?
EDIT:
Turns out the Synaptics driver issue was totally irrelevant. I sorted that out (double loading of drivers) by reading https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=835318
But awesome does not start. I get that nvidia screen and then get thrown back at the console, with no errors or anything!
Last edited by maxarch (2010-11-08 19:08:20)