Kernel panic under Webconverger 19 and earlier versions (tested back to v17)

[samgraf]

On test hardware I consistently experience kernel panics in short periods of time, less than an hour at maximum. The attached screen shot was taken from the crash of a Dell Dimension B110. I have tried both 486 and 686 boot options as well as live and installed sessions. Booting in debug mode confirms that the machine is completely locked at this point.

Flash-based video seems to be a factor. Attempting to view a page with embedded video at BBC.com was what I was doing when the machine crashed with the kernel panic in the attached image. That is a pretty consistent way to cause the machine to crash.

I have experienced the same result while testing Webconverger on an HP Compag nx6125 laptop.

NOTE: I apologize for the fact that the attached image seems to be upside down in Preview mode. It was rightside up on my desktop.

[kaihendry]

Rotated image attached. I am not sure where the fault lies

• page fault ? memory ?
• systemd seems to exit, is it systemd issue?

[kaihendry]

Ok, could you please try boot without "vga=771 quiet splash"

Then... you're not going to like this. Try all of these:

memtest noapic noapm nodma nomce nolapic nomodeset nosmp nosplash vga=normal

[samgraf]

OK, after testing most of the options no success so far, and I'm not optimistic about what's left to try. The most stable state for the machine is one where the situation degenerates over time. I'll have normal operation for several minutes, then it becomes pretty clear that the system is becoming unstable, then crash.

Maybe it just isn't going to work on the older types of hardware I'm going to have available. But I'll do more testing just in case I can learn something that might be useful.

Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:59:06 -0700 From: notifications@github.com To: webc@noreply.github.com CC: sam-graf@hotmail.com Subject: Re: [webc] Kernel panic under Webconverger 19 and earlier versions (tested back to v17) (#154)

Ok, could you please try boot without "vga=771 quiet splash"

Then... you're not going to like this. Try all of these:

memtest noapic noapm nodma nomce nolapic nomodeset nosmp nosplash vga=normal

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[kaihendry]

Hi Sam, debugging can take time, so please persevere. :)

I'm not sure what you are saying now. You can get the machine booting, but then it crashes later?

The problem with the screen shot, is that it doesn't give us much information before the page fault. Oh, have you tried running a memory test btw? http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

[samgraf]

Hi Kai,

Yes, the machine boots fine. The two machines I set aside for testing will boot fine from CD (I could not get either to boot from USB) or from HDD and operate normally at first. But both of these machines crash eventually during use. I picked the Dell B110 desktop for further testing just for time and convenience.

A trigger for the crashes seems to be heavy use of the video system. I stumbled on the problem during testing when I visited BBC.com and started reading various news items that had video elements.

I use the other machine that I tested Webconverger on, an HP Compaq nx6125, daily under Debian 6 without issue, and prior to that, under Windows XP without issue. During business hours the B110 is used under Windows XP without issue.

Since I personally use the nx6125 I'm doubtful that there is an underlying hardware issue that shows up (only) under Webconverger. I don't think the B110 has any underlying hardware issues (I would hear about any chronic problems with it), but since I don't personally use it, I'm not ruling out stuff like memory problems.

I have to fit Webconverger testing into open spots in the daily routine so I can only look at it periodically, but I do intend to see what I can learn. It just may take time.

Sam

Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:09:50 -0700 From: notifications@github.com To: webc@noreply.github.com CC: sam-graf@hotmail.com Subject: Re: [webc] Kernel panic under Webconverger 19 and earlier versions (tested back to v17) (#154)

Hi Sam, debugging can take time, so please persevere. :)

I'm not sure what you are saying now. You can get the machine booting, but then it crashes later?

The problem with the screen shot, is that it doesn't give us much information before the page fault. Oh, have you tried running a memory test btw? http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[Jan02]

kernel panic happens also for me. with a dell latitude d610 it seems to kernel panic when flash tries to play.

[kaihendry]

Jan, did you try the very latest version of Webconverger? Could you try append acpi=off to the boot command line? http://webconverger.org/testing/ Thank you!

[kaihendry]

Can you guys please test with the latest version? http://build.webconverger.org/latest.iso

[kaihendry]

Closing due to inactivity.