Mailing List Archive: MythTV: Users

OT problem with Xorg

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gary.dawes at gmail

Jun 29, 2008, 11:26 AM

Post #1 of 12 (648 views)
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OT problem with Xorg

My mythbox which is based on knoppmyth, has recently deveoped a problem
where once X is loaded Xorg uses as much CPU as it can, frequently 99.9%.
This is having the result of making the box unusable.

I have checked though all the log files I can find, restarted the box,
reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, and searched this mail list, the knoppmyth
forums and google til my fingers bled, but I cannot find any cause.

Nothing has changed on the box, unless some driver or library has
mysteriously corrupted.

Does anyone have any ideas before I rebuild the damn thing.

Cheers

Gaz

beww at beww

Jun 29, 2008, 12:02 PM

Post #2 of 12 (629 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Sunday 29 June 2008 12:26:10 Gary Dawes wrote:
> My mythbox which is based on knoppmyth, has recently deveoped a problem
> where once X is loaded Xorg uses as much CPU as it can, frequently 99.9%.
> This is having the result of making the box unusable.
>
> I have checked though all the log files I can find, restarted the box,
> reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, and searched this mail list, the knoppmyth
> forums and google til my fingers bled, but I cannot find any cause.
>
> Nothing has changed on the box, unless some driver or library has
> mysteriously corrupted.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas before I rebuild the damn thing.

Are you using UseEvents True ?

This generally reduces CPU load, but of course the question is if things were
working initially, what changed?

Did you upgrade your drivers or anything like that.

I have noticed that chronic updaters (and I include myself) seem to get into
trouble with MythTV a lot. Basically if it's working leave it alone,
something hard for a lot of us Linux users :-)

beww

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knowledgejunkie at gmail

Jun 29, 2008, 12:03 PM

Post #3 of 12 (629 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On 29/06/2008, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> My mythbox which is based on knoppmyth, has recently deveoped a problem
> where once X is loaded Xorg uses as much CPU as it can, frequently 99.9%.
> This is having the result of making the box unusable.
>
> I have checked though all the log files I can find, restarted the box,
> reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, and searched this mail list, the knoppmyth
> forums and google til my fingers bled, but I cannot find any cause.

Did your check include /var/log/Xorg.0.log? Has your xorg.conf file
been changed recently?

--
Nick Morrott

MythTV Official wiki:
http://mythtv.org/wiki/
MythTV users list archive:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin
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gary.dawes at gmail

Jun 29, 2008, 1:48 PM

Post #4 of 12 (621 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

2008/6/29 Brian Wood <beww[at]beww.org>:

> On Sunday 29 June 2008 12:26:10 Gary Dawes wrote:
> > My mythbox which is based on knoppmyth, has recently deveoped a problem
> > where once X is loaded Xorg uses as much CPU as it can, frequently 99.9%.
> > This is having the result of making the box unusable.
> >
> > I have checked though all the log files I can find, restarted the box,
> > reinstalled the Nvidia drivers, and searched this mail list, the
> knoppmyth
> > forums and google til my fingers bled, but I cannot find any cause.
> >
> > Nothing has changed on the box, unless some driver or library has
> > mysteriously corrupted.
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas before I rebuild the damn thing.
>
> Are you using UseEvents True ?
>
> This generally reduces CPU load, but of course the question is if things
> were
> working initially, what changed?
>
> Did you upgrade your drivers or anything like that.
>
> I have noticed that chronic updaters (and I include myself) seem to get
> into
> trouble with MythTV a lot. Basically if it's working leave it alone,
> something hard for a lot of us Linux users :-)
>
> beww
>

I've managed to leave the box well alone for a long while, last software
change was when 0.21 was released. Last hardware change was a new power
supply about 8 weeks ago. It was working fine on Friday as I was watching
various recordings. I restarted the box on Saturday morning as it appeared
very unrepsonsive.

My feeling is that some library or such has corrupted. Either that or it's a
graphic card gone bad. It does seem to be whenever X tries to launch an
application such as the frontend or mythwelcome. I've commented out the
lines in the fluxbox conf file which starts mythwelcome, and X is Ok until I
do anything.

I've popped the use events true in the Xorg,conf, and checked that there is
plenty of disk space, even checked that the network is up - I'm stumped.

vitaminjoe at gmail

Jun 30, 2008, 11:28 AM

Post #5 of 12 (593 views)
Permalink

Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes[at]gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've popped the use events true in the Xorg,conf, and checked that there is
> plenty of disk space, even checked that the network is up - I'm stumped.

It sounds like X might be stuck in a loop of some kind. strace might
be able to give you some info on what it's doing... try something
like this:

# ps a |grep X
(get X's pid)

# strace -p 4066
(or whatever X's pid is)

The output may give you some insight as to what's going on.

--
Joe Ripley
vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com
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gary.dawes at gmail

Jun 30, 2008, 12:27 PM

Post #6 of 12 (587 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

2008/6/30 Joe Ripley <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>:

> On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've popped the use events true in the Xorg,conf, and checked that there
> is
> > plenty of disk space, even checked that the network is up - I'm stumped.
>
> It sounds like X might be stuck in a loop of some kind. strace might
> be able to give you some info on what it's doing... try something
> like this:
>
> # ps a |grep X
> (get X's pid)
>
> # strace -p 4066
> (or whatever X's pid is)
>
> The output may give you some insight as to what's going on.
>
> --
> Joe Ripley
>
> <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>

Thanks for that. I think (everything crossed) thta I have now managed to
resolve it. "useevents" "true" and a couple of other driver config tricks
did not fix the problem, but since I started using Myth I have had a custom
PAL modline, which is now crippling Xorg for some reason. Strange as I have
not changed anything for months, software or hardware wise, and have used
that modeline for years.

Just happy that it's fixed.

On a OT aside, we have just taken delivery at work of 55 Windows servers
which are to replace 1 small IBM P5 running AIX. Same software from same
supplier, just the windows version on top of Windows instead of Unix as we
have very little professional experience of Unix, and the decision has been
taken to base everything on Windows where possible

beww at beww

Jun 30, 2008, 12:58 PM

Post #7 of 12 (587 views)
Permalink

Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Monday 30 June 2008 13:27:51 Gary Dawes wrote:

> the decision has been
> taken to base everything on Windows where possible

None of my business, but that's probably one of the stupidest decisions I've
heard of in a long time, for reliability, cost and philosophical reasons.

Windows Weenies !

beww

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fatgerman at ntlworld

Jun 30, 2008, 1:27 PM

Post #8 of 12 (585 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Monday 30 June 2008 20:27:51 Gary Dawes wrote:
> 2008/6/30 Joe Ripley <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>:
>
> > On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes[at]gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I've popped the use events true in the Xorg,conf, and checked that there
> > is
> > > plenty of disk space, even checked that the network is up - I'm stumped.
> >
> > It sounds like X might be stuck in a loop of some kind. strace might
> > be able to give you some info on what it's doing... try something
> > like this:
> >
> > # ps a |grep X
> > (get X's pid)
> >
> > # strace -p 4066
> > (or whatever X's pid is)
> >
> > The output may give you some insight as to what's going on.
> >
> > --
> > Joe Ripley
> >
> > <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>
>
> Thanks for that. I think (everything crossed) thta I have now managed to
> resolve it. "useevents" "true" and a couple of other driver config tricks
> did not fix the problem, but since I started using Myth I have had a custom
> PAL modline, which is now crippling Xorg for some reason. Strange as I have
> not changed anything for months, software or hardware wise, and have used
> that modeline for years.
>
> Just happy that it's fixed.
>
> On a OT aside, we have just taken delivery at work of 55 Windows servers
> which are to replace 1 small IBM P5 running AIX. Same software from same
> supplier, just the windows version on top of Windows instead of Unix as we
> have very little professional experience of Unix, and the decision has been
> taken to base everything on Windows where possible
>

Hehe, 55 Windows servers replacing one IBM P5..... ain't Microsoft great? At the other end of the scale, we've just taken delivery of 2 quad-core servers running Linux which are to replace 10 Windows servers. Well, actually, they're each going to be running 5 Windows servers under VMWare... but, y'know.....

topic? what topic?

Sorry.

Mark
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gary.dawes at gmail

Jun 30, 2008, 10:56 PM

Post #9 of 12 (578 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

2008/6/30 Mark Greenwood <fatgerman[at]ntlworld.com>:

> On Monday 30 June 2008 20:27:51 Gary Dawes wrote:
> > 2008/6/30 Joe Ripley <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>:
> >
> > > On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Gary Dawes <gary.dawes[at]gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I've popped the use events true in the Xorg,conf, and checked that
> there
> > > is
> > > > plenty of disk space, even checked that the network is up - I'm
> stumped.
> > >
> > > It sounds like X might be stuck in a loop of some kind. strace might
> > > be able to give you some info on what it's doing... try something
> > > like this:
> > >
> > > # ps a |grep X
> > > (get X's pid)
> > >
> > > # strace -p 4066
> > > (or whatever X's pid is)
> > >
> > > The output may give you some insight as to what's going on.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Joe Ripley
> > >
> > > <vitaminjoe[at]gmail.com>
> >
> > Thanks for that. I think (everything crossed) thta I have now managed to
> > resolve it. "useevents" "true" and a couple of other driver config tricks
> > did not fix the problem, but since I started using Myth I have had a
> custom
> > PAL modline, which is now crippling Xorg for some reason. Strange as I
> have
> > not changed anything for months, software or hardware wise, and have
> used
> > that modeline for years.
> >
> > Just happy that it's fixed.
> >
>
Bugger - It's not fixed. Joe's strace has revealed that X seems to be stuck
in a loop processing gettimeofday. machine time is correct and NTP is
functioning as normal.

garrick at usc

Jul 1, 2008, 11:35 AM

Post #10 of 12 (556 views)
Permalink

Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 06:56:55AM +0100, Gary Dawes alleged:
> Bugger - It's not fixed. Joe's strace has revealed that X seems to be stuck
> in a loop processing gettimeofday. machine time is correct and NTP is
> functioning as normal.

It is very likely not having a problem with gettimeofday, it is just in a loop
that happens to include gettmeofday.

strace only shows the system calls, it just happens to be the only system call
in the loop.

while(1) {
gettimeofday();
do some stuff;
do some other stuff and fail;
}

--
Garrick Staples, GNU/Linux HPCC SysAdmin
University of Southern California

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

gary.dawes at gmail

Jul 1, 2008, 1:07 PM

Post #11 of 12 (550 views)
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Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

2008/7/1 Garrick Staples <garrick[at]usc.edu>:

> On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 06:56:55AM +0100, Gary Dawes alleged:
> > Bugger - It's not fixed. Joe's strace has revealed that X seems to be
> stuck
> > in a loop processing gettimeofday. machine time is correct and NTP is
> > functioning as normal.
>
> It is very likely not having a problem with gettimeofday, it is just in a
> loop
> that happens to include gettmeofday.
>
> strace only shows the system calls, it just happens to be the only system
> call
> in the loop.
>
> while(1) {
> gettimeofday();
> do some stuff;
> do some other stuff and fail;
> }
>
> --
> Garrick Staples, GNU/Linux HPCC SysAdmin
> University of Southern California
>
> Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
> See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
>
>
> Continuing slowly with this, it now seems that it's mythwelcome and
mythfrontend which is causing Xorg to go completely loopy. Don't know why
yet. I may try a recompile.

jon.the.wise.gdrive at gmail

Jul 30, 2008, 1:48 AM

Post #12 of 12 (329 views)
Permalink

Re: OT problem with Xorg [In reply to]

On Jun 30, 2008, at 12:58 PM, Brian Wood wrote:

> On Monday 30 June 2008 13:27:51 Gary Dawes wrote:
>
>> the decision has been
>> taken to base everything on Windows where possible
>
> None of my business, but that's probably one of the stupidest
> decisions I've
> heard of in a long time, for reliability, cost and philosophical
> reasons.
>
> Windows Weenies !

The word counterproductive comes to mind.
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