[WBEL-users] Mozilla and X issues after recent updates

[Kirby C. Bohling]

On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 02:42:17PM -0500, Terry wrote:
> On 5/27/05, Kirby C. Bohling <kbohling at birddog.com> wrote:
> > Whitebox users,
> > 
> >     After the last round of Mozilla and kernel updates, I've had
> > problems with X during startup and mozilla randomly closing
> > (possibly crashing) during normal usage.
> > 
> > lspci says this is the Video card:
> > Intel Corp. 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics
> > Device (rev 03)
> > 
> > PCI ID: Class 0300: 8086:2562 (rev 03)
> > 
> > When I boot the machine, if it is in runlevel 5 (i.e. it starts
> > prefdm) the screen will blank like it's in powersaving mode, and
> > switching to a text console doesn't work.  Ctl-Alt-Del works
> > sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't.  I can remotely log in an
> > reboot the machine.  Ctl-Alt-Backspace doesn't ever work.
> > 
> > Now, if I boot to single user mode, or to runlevel 3 log in as root,
> > run startx, kill X almost immediatly, then run "init 5", it will run
> > prefdm without a problem.  If I boot into single user mode, or
> > runlevel 3, and then run "init 5", I get the same symptoms as if I
> > boot directly into run level 5 (blank screen, can't get a text
> > console).
> > 
> > So it seems like "startx" is doing some bit of initialization that
> > "prefdm".  Anybody seen anything like this?
> > 
> > My other issue that started at the same time is that Mozilla will
> > just close down.  When I'm scrolling, or right after clicking on a
> > link.  There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it that I can tell.
> 
> Sounds a lot like a memory issue, (and I see that you suspect the same).

I believe several other are correct, that going from Moz 1.4 to Moz
1.7 didn't deal well with the profile.  I've created a new profile,
and haven't had any problems since.  Not sure it's gone, but it
seems a lot less crash happy.

> 
> > I haven't memtest'ed the box, but both problems started immediatly
> > after running the last round of updates for the kernel (I'm not sure
> > what all I installed in that batch, I believe Mozilla and the kernel
> > were the two main things).  So I'm fairly sure those two are the
> > source of my problems.
> 
> Revert to the old kernel and see if problems go away.

Right, I did try that, and it did go away.

This one works:
kernel-2.4.21-27.0.2.EL

This one doesn't:
kernel-2.4.21-27.0.4.EL

Not sure what's up with that.

    Kirby