Issue 863 - Complete hard lock-up (RH 7.1)
Summary: Complete hard lock-up (RH 7.1)
Status: CLOSED WONT_FIX
Alias: None
Product: Installation
Classification: Application
Component: ui (show other issues)
Version: 627
Hardware: PC Linux, all
: P3 Trivial (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Olaf Felka
QA Contact: issues@www
URL:
Keywords:
: 937 960 12629 (view as issue list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2001-05-07 02:07 UTC by issues@www
Modified: 2003-12-06 14:52 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


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Description issues@www 2001-05-07 02:07:45 UTC
When installing OpenOffice, as a non-root user, crashes and locks up operating
system. 

Here is the following configruation:
Hardware: Laptop: Toshiba Tecra 8100 (  <- A piece of junk! I hate it! )
OS: Linux 2.4.2
Distro: RedHat 7.1 (compat-libs and compat-glibc are installed)
X: XFree86-4.0.3-5
Other X packages:
XFree86-libs-4.0.3-5
XFree86-100dpi-fonts-4.0.3-5
XFree86-xfs-4.0.3-5
XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.0.3-5
XFree86-twm-4.0.3-5
XFree86-FBDev-3.3.6-35
XFree86-4.0.3-5
XFree86-tools-4.0.3-5
XFree86-xdm-4.0.3-5
XFree86-devel-4.0.3-5


Description: 
Download Tarball, place in /tmp
extract tarball, also into /tmp
as non-root user go to /tmp/install
type ./setup
Opening splash screen comes in, and then no more mouse reponse, no nothing. No
opportunity to click on any of the buttons on the screen. 
No further network connections to this computer are accepted
Ctrl-alt-backspace does not get me out of X
Ctrl-alt-f1 does not get me to a console window. 
Even setting the ulimits to unreasonably low numbers for cpu-time and datasize
before running setup does not keep this lock-up from happening.
The only movement after this is a hard reboot. 

Discussions on the NOVA lug mailing list (novalug.tux.org) suggest that XFree86
version 4.x is to blame, and suggests that downgrading to X version 3.3.6 will
work. 

However, I have no desire to go back to X version 3. 

Also to note: Star Office 5.2 dies in exactly the same place, on the same
installation. 

If you so desire, I will risk the fsck again, and attempt to get an strace on
the binary during lockup-execution.  (what's a fsck between friends?) ;-)
Comment 1 Olaf Felka 2001-05-07 11:15:37 UTC
Hi Piet,
-can you tell which glibc is running on you laptop?
On our standard installation of RH 7.1 we've had no problem like this.
Regards, Olaf.
Comment 2 issues@www 2001-05-07 21:20:14 UTC
Certainly!

[pbarber@pb-laptop pbarber]$ rpm -qa |grep glibc
glibc-common-2.2.2-10
glibc-devel-2.2.2-10
compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2
glibc-2.2.2-10

[pbarber@pb-laptop pbarber]$ rpm -qa |grep compat
compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2
compat-libstdc++-6.2-2.9.0.14
compat-libs-6.2-3

I don't mean to lead you down the path that may not be the solution, but I have
some posts to a local LUG list that lead me to believe that "X" is the source of
the problem. 

Here is the thread of the discussion:
http://www.tux.org/pipermail/novalug/2001-May/000587.html

Originally, Jon K. Miller posted his woes which are identical to mine -- 

"I have found that StarOffice 5.2 will not install
under RedHat 7.1 or Mandrake 8 on my Toshiba Tecra
8100 laptop.  When I run the setup the computer locks
up tight very shortly after the initial screen comes
up.  I had first tried to install under Mandrake as
this is my preferred desktop distro. and it didn't
work so I then tried with RedHat 7.1 again same
results.  I may try SuSE 7.1 but was wondering if
anyone has had similar issues or has a suggestion on
how to get this to work.  I have posted this before
but no one responded so I am trying again."

Jon later wrote:
"I am pretty sure it must be an issue with the new
display drivers included in the distributions.  I used
to have to use Framebuffer drivers and now the new
svga works fine until I try to run the install, or
launch StarOffice."

In a third post, Jon Miller wrote:
"Just installed SuSE 7.1 and once I got my video up I tried to install
StarOffice and bam, it locks up.  So I then try setting up my video with sax
which configures XFree86 version3.x and try to install StarOffice and it
worked, I guess the combination of video card and XFree86 4.x doesn't work
too well for StarOffice.  It is working so I am happy, don't know if I leave
SuSE 7.1 on or try Mandrake 8 again, although SuSE has always seemed very
stable for me in the past."

And he finally concluded
"I think it has something to do with XFree86 4.x and my S3 Virge video card,
cause it works with XFree86 3.x"

Comment 3 Olaf Felka 2001-05-08 11:15:13 UTC
Hi Piet,
thank you for your help. 
I think you're right, it's not a problem with the glibc. We have tested on 
RH7.1 and mandrake 8.0 and we've had no problems.
It is a special hardware configuration that you have (we dont have a configuration like that). So if you have the possibility to debug this crash it
might be helpfull because we wont give this problem to much attention. If you
could send us this debug output the developer should a look and say wether he
can fix it (or not). If you have a solution -> brillant!!!!!
Thanks you, Olaf.
Comment 4 Olaf Felka 2001-05-23 08:47:47 UTC
*** Issue 937 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 5 issues@www 2001-05-23 17:02:00 UTC
There is a solution to the problem at:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=31879

The fix (well, I really mean to say "kludge") involves setting the following
environment variable before execution of any staroffice program:


export SAL_DO_NOT_USE_INVERT50=true

then execute any OpenOffice or StarOffice executables for installation or usage. 

The issue is also discussed at:
http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html
Comment 6 Olaf Felka 2001-05-28 09:50:21 UTC
*** Issue 960 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 7 Olaf Felka 2001-07-04 08:35:16 UTC
Hi,
please ead what Joost Andre has written in the discuss group:
"Hello Patrick,

your problem seems to be X server<->S3 Savage related. I would check if 
this problem disappears if you change to XFree86 v. 3.3.6 or a newer 
(4.1.0) version.
Did you really check if you can switch to text console via 
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+[F1-F6] ?

To check if it is an Xerror which causes the X server to hang it might be 
useful to check this via the (purposely undocumented) environment 
variable SAL_IGNOREXERRORS which you might set with a boolean value (1) 
before starting the setup application. CAUTION: Be aware of that this 
environment variable disables StarOffice/OpenOffice Xerror handling 
completely and you need to know what you are doing in detail. I wouldn't 
use this variable as a default setting. If you are able to connect your 
system to a network you might debug the application remotely using gdb."
Comment 8 Olaf Felka 2001-10-09 10:36:24 UTC
*** Issue 1792 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Comment 9 erlingd 2001-10-22 21:40:10 UTC
Sorry did first post under 1792 !

The hint did work :-)

But now it claims that XRender (libXrender.so) does not exists !
What .rpm must I install ?

/Erling Damsgaard
famdam@tdcadsl.dk
Comment 10 Unknown 2002-01-29 10:23:55 UTC
This problem with the S3 Savage cards and XFree86 4 has been resolved.

You can work around it with setting an enviroment variable :

export SAL_DO_NOT_USE_INVERT50=true

Or upgrade to the latest version of the savage driver (1.1.20t), this
driver is also included in the latest RedHat XFree86 rpm (4.1.0.-15).

I can verify that upgrading XFree86 solves this problem. I don't know
if this also fixes the problems with the S3 Trio cards.
Comment 11 chris 2003-03-25 12:37:54 UTC
*** Issue 12629 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***