January 2006 Archives

Well it wasn’t the fact that I had reset the permissions to be more permissive that solved the X11 issue. The issue came roaring right back for some reason that I haven’t pinpointed.

I’m back to my original thoughts of possible video card issue but that may not fly either since all was well for so long although I rarely have been doing anything significant on my web server the past several months so I haven’t really exercised the X11 desktop on my web server.

That’s the thing trying to pinpoint if this was a recent issue or something that has been lurking waiting for me to really get in and do something. Looking back I have been doing things remotely logging in from other systems on the LAN to ftp files around and look at things so I wouldn’t have to mess with the KVM switch that was in an inconvenient location.

I tried using the new Nvidia Linux driver (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-8174.html ) and that looked cool but produced the same type of behavior. I’m not getting a lot of clues in the XFree86.log.

I’m moving the Web Server over to another system I’m building anyway but I will troubleshoot this still but the urgency will not be there. Actually I can still always get in via my other tools remotely and other systems so there is no real reason to dive in too deep right now with all my other projects percolating

Well as I was doing my therapeutic updating of my issue I had with X11 I remembered what last actions I had done on my system before having this issue. I had created a new blog but also in that process had to create a new directory in the folder I share out my html content in. I also had to chmod my new directory to enable the blog application to be able to write to the directory.
I simply changed he permissions back to my original settings when I created my directory I presume with my umask settings, rebooted and logged back in and presto X11 is not using 98% of the CPU
At this point this makes no sense to me! Why would this directory having open permissions cause my Linux desktop to freeze and X11 to grab 99% of my CPU when I logged in? I did see this new Java file pop into my directory after I had created the blog with the application software, mt-site.js. I looked in this file briefly but didn’t spot anything. This will be the first new blog I create with the newly updated blog software MT version 3.2, at this point just scratching the head and really tired.
I have top running on the system now with the X11 desk top up and several terminal sessions going and accessed several X11 apps and X occasionally goes to the top of the list but with barely more than 1% of CPU and now this system is 95% -98% idle most of the time as it usually is.
To top this off the program I was looking for, GnuCash doesn’t even exist on this system!
Oh well, that’s enough for now I will isolate this when I have time. I need to get maybe a couple of hours sleep on my new bed and mattress.

I’m not sure what’s going on with my web server but when I login as any user using any desktop, Gnome or KDE it hangs and goes to about 100% CPU. This system has been up and running with this configuration for the past few years without any issues. My web server is still serving up pages and my blog is working fine with Mysqld but the simple act of logging in as any user in X11 mode sends X11 into CPU hogging mode.

I discovered this trying to see how GnuCash works to track my finances since I want to start my business in some fashion again this year and this time keep track of things a little better. I turned my KVM the wrong way since I was going to try on my backup web server first but since I went to the main web server and was just going to see if the GnuCash program was there and how it looked and felt I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Boy was I surprised when my desktop froze on me. I never even got to open the program it just hung as I browsed to the program and the whole desktop became unresponsive except being able to move the mouse pointer around.

The first thing I did was check my web page and everything there worked just fine. Next I logged in using ssh from my other Linux system (backup web server) and confirmed the issues I was having. I tried various ways of stopping and starting the X11 engine and none gave any better results.

I even rebooted and also tried removing my soundcard blew the system out with canned air etc… Nothing worked. I was totally unprepared for going into troubleshooting mode on this system since I was just going to check out GnuCash and go to bed but several hours later here I am!
For now I will keep X11 off of that system and login from my other Linux system. I am going to upgrade my web server’s hardware anyway but didn’t want to do it this soon. I think this may be a good time to update it anyway since I will be putting a new blog out on my site for items I will be selling. I will start selling items to finish clearing room in my house first and then fine tune everything.

Now that I’m thinking about it the only new thing I did was create a new blog for my site and for sale items, but doubting if that has anything to do with XFree86 grabbing CPU but hey something to check for later.

I will update on the progress of this issue later.

My dad decided to cook some seafood gumbo Saturday. Anyone who has cooked seafood gumbo know this is quite the endeavor and expensive as a car payment for a large amount of people! We all usually pitch in to help offset the cost but he still bears the brunt of the cost with some not really contributing as much as they consume but that’s how it rolls sometimes. I also always try to get over and help with preparation. I make gumbo sometimes myself and I know how it can go and I like picking up additional tips.
There are a lot of us in my family and my dad makes his gumbo fully stocked so each bowlful has plenty of all ingredients. This was one of his best efforts with pieces of King crab almost as wide as a small child’s wrist, lots of shrimp, oysters, chicken, sausage etc...
Three huge pots of gumbo you can bet I’m going back over there to make sure I have my fill. I brought some home already but that’s going to go pretty quick.
My mother said he started banging around about 4am so I missed how he starts his roux the most important part but I remember a few things from previous times, plus he gave a brief overview Friday when I was helping cut up some veggies.
I may do my part and make some gumbo this winter myself and have people over and I keep my pots fully stocked just like my dad.