X freezes (kbd, mouse, screen) but machine itself still OK

This has now happened to me several times today, and although I think I may have found the cause (or at least something associated with it) I'm really not sure. I'm posting anyway, just in case it triggers any thoughts and anybody can give me a better approach to troubleshooting the next time it happens.
I'll list a possible cause below, but the symptom is that the machine just seems to freeze. No response to mouse or keyboard, even CTL-ALT-Fn or CTL-ALT-DEL. However, I'm on a KVM switch, and I can go to another machine and ssh in to the "frozen" one, and nothing seems wrong. No obvious problems in dmesg, /var/log/everything.log, or /var/log/Xorg.0.log. top gives perfectly reasonable results - the system is mostly idle. A few times, there was a zombie process, but I could get rid of it by killing its parent. I've killed a few processes at a time, even up to X itself, but putting the KVM back, the screen is unchanged. I'd say the X input mechanism was borked, but that would not completely freeze the keyboard - which doesn't even respond to caps-lock or num-lock (the lights don't change).
So far, every time, I've just ended up rebooting from my ssh session. However, this last time, I waited before rebooting, and after several minutes, the machine started responding normally. Still nothing strange in the logs.
My one clue: on every freeze, I was running KMyMoney, and had launched it's manual in KHelpCenter. I also note in the X error log the following:
khelpcenter(2857): running ("/usr/bin/meinproc4", "--stylesheet", "/usr/share/apps/khelpcenter/table-of-contents.xslt", "--output", "/var/tmp/kdecache-jack/help/en__kmymoney__makingmostof.docbook", "/usr/share/doc/kde/html/en//kmymoney/makingmostof.docbook") failed with exitCode 2
khelpcenter(2857): stderr output: "kio_help4(3062): File ' "/usr/share/doc/kde/html/en//kmymoney/makingmostof.docbook" ' does not exist.
(yes, there really does seem to be an extra double quote on the last line)
At first, I thought perhaps some temp file was being deleted while KHelpCenter was still trying to use it. The problem is that I see that error a few times - with different files, and it seems the error shows up when I view the manual page, not just before the freeze. At this point, I think It may just be a red herring.
I'm on Xorg-server 1.10.2 with the Radeon driver, kernel 2.6.39, and I do 'pacman -Syu' a few times a week - so things are pretty up to date.
Right now, I'd be happy with any useful suggestions on what to look for next time it happens.
Jack

Just an update - this is still happening, although less often. About 90% of the time, I just wait for some minutes, and everything starts working again. It has nothing to do with running KHelpCenter, since I've had plenty of freezes without it. It also happens with no zombie process present, so that was also a red herring.
I'm now on Xorg-sserver 1.10.3 and kernel 3.0.1-1.

Similar Messages

Phone 5 freezes at lock screen but control centre and answering calls woriks, to work again i should press lock button then it works normally and freezes again if i leave it for 1min or less icant understand what problem isit,restored in dfu,normal no use

phone 5 freezes at lock screen but control centre and answering calls woriks, to work again i should press lock button then it works normally and freezes again if i leave it for 1min or less icant understand what problem isit,restored in dfu,normal no use i still have problem please try to sovle it

i tried it but no use
i restored it as new device and kept it idle over night but no use

My ipod touch is showing a blank screen but i can still hear, how can i fix that

My Ipod toush is showing a blank screen but i can still hear, how can I fix that?

Try:
- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: How to back up
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.
If still problem, make an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store since it appears you have a hardware problem.
Apple Retail Store - Genius Bar

Help! I have a flickering white screen but I can still turn on my IPod Touch! It is a white flickering but the bottom half of the screen is unseeable. How do I fix it?

Help! I have a flickering white screen but I can still turn on my IPod Touch! It is a white flickering but the bottom half of the screen is unseeable. How do I fix it?

Try the follwing to rule out a software problem:
- Reset. Nothing will be lost.
Reset iPod touch: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Restore from backup
- Restore to factory defaults/new iPod
If you still have a problem then you likely have a hardware problem and an appointment at the Genius Bar of an Apple store is in order.

Brand new iMac 21", freeze. Mouse movies, but does nothing

We just opened a brand new iMac 21" literally yesterday (purchased within the last three weeks). It was on for about an hour with no problems whatsoever. Then, while transferring photos to iPhoto, the system interface randomly froze. You can move the mouse around the screen, but it does nothing. You can't click anything. Hard resets/shutdowns result in the system rebooting back to the desktop like normal, but the mouse stays in this semi-frozen state. You can movie the pointer, but you can't actually interact with anything to fix the problem. Nothing brings it out of this state. We're not terribly experienced with Macs (new owner) and also snowed in to boot.
Has anybody encountered problems like this before? How do I fix this freeze?
Message was edited by: ThirdMarioBro

My suggestion with a new Mac that is having those problems is to take it back to the Apple Store and ask them to fix it. Beside allowing them to solve the problem that will also give them the chance to document the problem with your Mac just in case it should happen again.
|___________________
Allan

My iPod freezes....but the music still plays.

My iPod has been slow lately, and it'll freeze, but the music is still playing, but I can't lower the volume, change the song, so to any other screen, or pause it and the screen with freeze for like ten seconds.

Been through these?
The Five Rs.

Program monitor freezes and goes black but I can still hear the audio

Hi just recently I've noticed after a few playbacks the program monitor goes black, the sequence plays out with audio, I just can't see the image. Timeline is mixed with prores, mts But haven't had this issue occur since updating.
THanks
I7 3970
gtx 780 tI
11TB raid 5

Hi,
Are you using CUDA for playback? Try changing the Mercury Playback Engine options and see if it helps.
Thanks,
Rameez

Iphone has a black screen but i can still call into it but no lights????

i updated an app after which my iphone went black and now wont do anything except i can press and hold the home button and siri still works but i cant do anything else?????

try a reset, no data loss.
hold down the home/sleep button together until you see the apple logo and then release, then wait for the phone to boot back up.

IPhone 6 black screen but works

After getting to work, I come to find out that my iPhone 6 has a black screen. Before that time, it worked just fine until I took it out of my pocket later this morning. The phone shows a black screen, but the buttons still work (the mute switch works; every time I mute it the phone vibrates). I tried connecting it to iTunes and it shows the phone. I assume that the screen has been bricked. I previously had a time where my phone was covered in rain water. That also explain why I have been experiencing crashes on my phone which led me to doing a hard restart. I have the choice of taking it back to my carrier as I'm still under warranty or I can try find out and fix this bug myself.
Any Suggestions?
Many thanks
iPhone 6 running the latest iOS

IIf you did a reset and screen remained black then it's a hardware issue, not a bug. You should return it under warranty if you still can. Any other attemp to fix on your own is probably going to void your warranty.

Youtube videos lag/freeze on full screen when mouse is inactive, but only in firefox.

I absolutely HATE IE, so I hope we can find a solution to my problem.
Pc info: Win 7 64 bit, 2.9 pentium with 4 gig ram
video: radeon HD 3800
Three days ago I was infected by some malware. While i had it i could not watch videos on youtube in full screen unless i constantly moved my mouse. I uninstalled the malware and it didn't help. I reinstalled videos card drivers (even tried the new beta drivers), firefox, adobe flash, java 32 and 64 bit, and performed these steps: http://techlogon.com/2012/06/04/flash-player-crashes-in-all-web-browsers/
I've reset Firefox, emptied cache in Firefox, and manually deleted all program temp folders I could find. Also, I have disabled all add-ons and plugins, and even ran Firefox in safemode. Nothing seems to work.
There may be a few things I've forgotten that I've tried.

well, in windows safe mode, it seems to play the video in full screen without the mouse moving, but while playing (normal or full screen) it either restarts the video several times or straight crashes the player.

Vidoe in full screen freezes unless mouse is moved in version 27.0.1

I'm running windows 7 64-bit. You tube videos freeze in full screen only when mouse is inactive. This is not a problem when instant streaming Netflix videos or in internet explorer. I did not have this problem when running windows xp on an old machine a few months back. I tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested: started in safe mode, uninstalled/reinstalled, reset, downloaded most recent version, disabled plugins, checked each plugin separately and I still have the problem. I know there were threads on this issue related to version 25 which seemed to suggest this was a know bug in Firefox that was fixed in newer versions, but it is still an issue with the newest version 27.0.1. It has to be a Firefox problem since I don't have this issue with other browsers and I still had the problem in safe mode. I don't want to change browsers but will be forced to if there isn't a solution to this problem. I also made sure I have the most recent plugin versions of : adobe acrobat, shockwave flash, shockwave for director, silverlight, Java deployment toolkit, and java platform (the last two cannot be "always activated" they are set for "ask to activate") I don't understand much about plugins so I don't know if I have what I need or too much - not sure that would address my issue though.

See [/questions/976293]
The bug has a Target Milestone: mozilla30 and thus is still present in the current Firefox release
*[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=933733 bug 933733] - Page doesn't load/render if the mouse is not moving

Screen image freezes but iMac seemingly still working

Hi,
The screen on my iMAC has started to freeze in the past 1 maybe 2 weeks - there is no pattern to this - seems to be quite random.
However, it appears that just the image has frozen, the mouse pointer can move over the frozen image but cannot select anything.
If the iMAC goes into power save whilst the screen is frozen, pressing a key on the keyboard brings the frozen screen image back up - so it seems as though the peripherals are communicating with the iMAC, it's just that the screen image has frozen.
It froze on me today when doing a manual Time Machine BU to an external HDD - but the BU still continued on and I waited until the ext HDD went into sleep mode which indicates that BU has finished. After a hard reboot, I checked Time Machine and the BU was fine.
Any ideas on what needs to be fixed here?

Deleting the two plist files didn't work, and the Disk Utility found no errors with the disk.
Funny thing is that when I log in as the root user - this doesn't seem to happen, I had the root user up for 4 hours today, not a problem, why? What is it about the root user that seems to be protected from this but all other users are affected after a short period? The only difference is the regularity of login, last time I used root user prior to this problem was last year, have all of the other users picked up the same problem somehow.
I don't think it's the X1600 graphics card as the screen saver animated image is still able to kick in (or is this a low level BIOS function?), the processor doesn't seem to be frozen either as the talking clock continues to read out the time, the keyboard however does not respond when the screen has frozen.
Would restoring user accounts from a Time Machine Back up taken before this problem appeared be the way to go? Any potential pitfalls with this - can I literally just restore a user folder or is there other dependent stuff that would have to be restored as well?

My Macbook Pro *****! I have had it for 2 weeks now, got it brand new at the apple store, it freezes all the time, and reboots itself, sometimes when i start it, purple dots cover the screen and i have to hold the power button.

I have had it for 2 weeks now, got it brand new at the apple store, it freezes all the time, and reboots itself, sometimes when i start it, purple dots cover the screen and i have to hold the power button. a 2 week old computer is not supposed to do this! it wastes all its time being so flashy that it just craps out all the time. sometimes i feel like i should have stayed with my virus covered PC. at least when it shut down randomly you could turn it back on, but with the macbook pro, it just keeps restarting itself over and over. need help with this, any answers?

Here's a novel thought. Take it back to the vendor. Should have done that one week ago.

I downloaded OS X Lion on my iMac and I'm having problems with my computer waking up after hibernating. I can get to the login screen but my mouse will be frozen. The only fix's is a hard reboot. Any help would be great!

I downloaded OS X Lion on my iMac and I'm having problems with my computer waking up after hibernating. I can get to the login screen but my mouse will be frozen. The only fix's is a hard reboot. Any help would be great!

Try resetting the SMC and the PRAM.
1. SMC
Read this and follow the instructions for your kind of mac:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
2. PRAM
Follow the procedure below:
1. Power down the machine.
2. Locate the following keys on your keyboard in preparation for Step 4:
command–option–P–R
3. Press the ‘power on’ button.
4. Immediately – and before the grey screen appears – hold down ‘command-option-P-R’ all together.
5. Keep them held down until you’ve heard the start-up chime twice. After you release them you should hear it again, and hopefully your Mac will boot up as it should normally.

HP copier/printer/scanner/fax all-in-one The print screen on machine is lit but blank.

HP laserjet 8600 All-in-one. My print screen on machine is lit but blank. Unable to access prompts to operate. At times it will display home, right and left arrows and ? when touching those prompts it shifts from right to left but goes blank when touching other prompts
I am unable to print a copy because prompts don't appear on screen other than those mentioned.
I can print only from my computer

Hi there klf, welcome to the forums
I understand your display screen is blank on your printer. I would like for you to confirm which 8600 model you have and I will look into this for you.
In the meantime try a power reset:
Press the Power button to turn on the product.
With the product turned on, disconnect the power cord from the rear of the product.
Unplug the power cord from the wall outlet.
Wait at least 15 seconds.
Plug the power cord back into the wall outlet.
Reconnect the power cord to the rear of the product.
If the product does not turn on by itself, press the Power button to turn it on.
Tip: Plug the printer in directly to the wall outlet, avoiding power bars and surge protectors. This ensures the printer is receiving full power and may help this situation.
HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus e-All-in-One Printer - N911g
HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One Printer - N911a
HP Officejet Pro 8600 Premium e-All-in-One - N911n
Thank you
R a i n b o w 7000I work on behalf of HP
Click the “Kudos Thumbs Up" at the bottom of this post to say
“Thanks” for helping!
Click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution!

X freezes (kbd, mouse, screen) but machine itself still OK

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for