Lockups under 2008 OS

[coffeedrinker]

I have had several lockups under the new OS. They range from the screen no longer responding to input (although I can still hear the click from touching it). Under this circumstance the buttons still work. I have also experience full lock ups requiring holding down the power button until the unit shuts down.

Anyone else having these issues? Under the previous versions I did not experience this kind of instability.

[Milhouse]

Yes, I've had several situations today where the process "pdflush" has gone mad and consumed 100% CPU for an extended period of time, usually between 5 and 30 seconds. During this time, the current foreground application no longer responds and sometimes the OS helpfully suggests killing the application even though it's not the application that is at fault, it's the pdflush process which apparently commits or writes buffered filesystem updates to the actual filesystem.

If you can, run "top" in xterm or an ssh session and next time your device "hangs" see if pdflush is taking all your CPU. I'll open a bug if it continues to happen to me or others confirm my observations (I've rebooted and it hasn't helped).

[coffeedrinker]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for that, especially if I can ssh in.

[kvakvak]

I own N800 and I must say I'm considering to install back the beta OS 2008 because the installing of new apps takes forever, application manager doesn't respond to check for updates and most important there is something strange with thumb scrolling in fbreader!!!!
But otherwise I think that browsing feels faster and battery life seems better....

[adammelancon]

I own N800 and I must say I'm considering to install back the beta OS 2008 because the installing of new apps takes forever, application manager doesn't respond to check for updates and most important there is something strange with thumb scrolling in fbreader!!!!
But otherwise I think that browsing feels faster and battery life seems better....

That makes no sense, because once you reinstall the beta OS of 2008 you will still need to access the inaccessible repos that you are complaining about right now to reinstall your apps.

[coffeedrinker]

PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD ON TOPIC!!

Thank you!

[Jonnycat26]

Yes, I've had several situations today where the process "pdflush" has gone mad and consumed 100% CPU for an extended period of time, usually between 5 and 30 seconds.

I had the *exact* same issue with OS2007.. I never did figure out what was causing it, but it always seemed to have issues when I launched Canola. A reflash fixed the issue (altho I never reinstalled Canola).

[Roc Ingersol]

I have had several lockups under the new OS. They range from the screen no longer responding to input (although I can still hear the click from touching it). Under this circumstance the buttons still work.Yeah, i get that particular problem once every few days. I'll unlock the screen to switch tracks or start/stop music and the touchscreen won't respond (though the buttons work fine). I have to power-cycle to get things back to normal.

After the first couple times it happened, i reflashed with OS 2008 and didn't reinstall any apps. But I still encounter the problem. Running nothing buy microb, notes and media player, it'll happen every three to four days.

[kamishki]

I definitely am seeing some lockup issues. I will try to see if pdflush is using resources but I see the tablet hanging then it goes again. I see it with the browser and especially with app manager. At least one time it reset itself.

[Milhouse]

I've opened bug #2615 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2615) for my pdflush problem, anyone else with the same problem please vote or comment against the bug. :)

[crumbinator]

Are you still experiencing this problem? I am and have voted for your bug. This thread is kinda lonely, though :/

[Milhouse]

Yeah, seems there aren't many of us about with this problem! :)

I reflashed and still had the pdflush process (also jffs2_gcd_mtd4) going nuts for extended periods of time. I'm currently in the process of performing a complete run down test (see bug #2602 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2602)) as I was getting poor battery lifetime, which could have been something to do with pdflush, but as I don't have any software installed right now and I'm trying not to use the device I can't really tell if I still have the pdflush problem after this third re-flash.

I should be able to check in about 3 or 4 more days when it runs out of juice and I can install openssh-server etc., and I'll update either 2602 or 2615, or both, with any relevant observations! :)

[Rebski]

I have also experience full lock ups requiring holding down the power button until the unit shuts down.
I have this too. I never mentioned it as I just assumed it was part of the general 'unfinished work-in-progress' character of the device.

I can't spot what triggers it although browsing this forum often provokes it to the point where powering off and starting again is the fastest solution. Waiting for up to 15 minutes might do the trick too.

[Roc Ingersol]

For what it's worth, I haven't experienced any of the touch-screen locks since I updated to the latest OS2008 release.

[Rebski]

For what it's worth, I haven't experienced any of the touch-screen locks since I updated to the latest OS2008 release.
This is amazingly coincidental, I have just updated from the first 'beta' to the final release and have had a big lock-up which required a hard restart.

And no I wasn't browsing this forum, that pleasure comes later.

[GeneralAntilles]

And no I wasn't browsing this forum, that pleasure comes later.

Classic style, Classic style, Classic style. . . .

[wv9k]

Not sure what it is yet, but twice now I have had the n800 become unresponsive to input - might be the igo keyboard, but I am not sure.

The only solution I have found is to ssh in and do a shutdown -r now and after that all is well again. Completely unable to enter anything on the n800 but all the buttons seem to work.

Also, and not sure about this either, there seem to be a LOT of duplicate applications / processes runing when I run ps.

I'd hate to have this happen someplace where I don't have the facilities to ssh in and force a reboot, but it is possible that turning it off, popping the battery for a bit and re-assembling might do it.

Only twice so far (in about two months) but it runs 24/7 with the charger on all day while I am in here.

Very unsure whether to upgrade to the new 2008, would be nice if all the people reporting problems would specify which of the 2008 releases problems relate to.

[Milhouse]

For me it's the official release 2.2007.50-2 on N800. Anyone running the Beta with problems should upgrade as the Beta is unsupported... Next time you experience a lock up try running top and see if there is a processing hogging the CPU. I never had a serious problem with OS 2007, but since upgrading to the official OS 2008 I've had repeated issues with the pdflush and jffs2 processes.

[migs]

Today my OS2008 N800 completely froze with the screen off and the LED would only blink. The power button was unresponsive I had to take the battery out to make it work again...

[coffeedrinker]

OK, just got another lockup. And fortunately, I was sshing in at the time. Nothing is using the cpu to any great extent. The interface is not responsive at all.

So, from my experiences with the lockup: It *seems* to happen when I wake it up from soft power off or, if I recall correctly, not long after plugging it in while running it.

I tried restarting the window manager and the desktop with no positive result.

[coffeedrinker]

Had another lockup. Again, it is only the user interface as ssh still works. CPU is not busy, nor is pdflush anywhere to be seen.

:(

[linuxrebel]

What apps do you have open? In fact if you can think of it when it happens the full output of the command

ps aux

Might help. My brain is a bit fuzzy right now on the details but I seem to remember something in an early Matchbox server where under certain conditions it would enter a loop/wait state waiting for a return that would never happen (the code that did the check and return was removed but the wait state to pause the rest of the code wasn't). Perhaps something like this is the case here as well.

[coffeedrinker]

I'll try to post that. The only things open that were not system were:

openssh
microb
omweather
load-applet
mnotify

I am running from mmc.

[linuxrebel]

Ah... I wonder if running from the MMC is a factor. (bad sector etc.....) Not sure if this is possible even. hmmm

[coffeedrinker]

I don't remember for sure, but I think I had lockups before mmc.

[coffeedrinker]

OK, so I finally installed the development stuff and built a few programs, got my fvwm running, etc.

From what I can see with this, and from using xkbd and XEV UNDER SSH, it looks like some of the bugs is this:

The interface is responding to clicks but with additional keys held down. Thus no response from applications.

So the lockups are the same issue as the keyboard messing up and typing the wrong keys.

It looks like once the keystroke bug is fixed then the lockups will be gone too. My guess is that the key buffer is not getting cleared out properly.

[NDLS2K]

I am having the same issue with pdflush eating up a lot of CPU time. It is much more noticeable when using the Application Manager (refresh application list, install or remove applications). It is also quite slow to boot up after a full power down, like other people mentioned.

I voted for the bug posted in Bugzilla, by the way, and I hope that other people having the same issue do too so that someone can take the time to look into it.

Installed and active applets: RSS Feeder, omweather, FM Radio, Internet Radio, clock.

Nick

[coffeedrinker]

One thing that makes the boot up time much slower under OS 2008 over 2007 is the startup greeting (the jingle and hands screen). There seems to be a several second delay at the end of it that was not there before. Fortunately, it can easily be disabled in /etc/osso-af-init/

You can see the difference simply by running the app standalone from xterm by running /usr/bin/osso_startup_greeting.

I disabled it without any problems.

On another note, I'm pretty sure the lockups are related to the keyboard issues as I previously posted. I've played with this for a while now and can see that the mouse clicks are being rejected because they are coming with 'modifiers' (that is, keys held down). That is also why some letters are in CAPS and some are dupes and some cannot be typed at all. Hope this fix this mess soon.