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Tasklist

FS#32837 - [linux] 3.6.7 freezes

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Neil Darlow (neildarlow) - Sunday, 25 November 2012, 09:19 GMT
Last edited by Tobias Powalowski (tpowa) - Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 17:42 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Core
Status Closed
Assigned To Tobias Powalowski (tpowa)
Thomas Bächler (brain0)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:
linux-3.6.7-1 freezes without warning. Examining the systemd journal gives no clue.

Operation appears normal until the freeze and the only resolution is a power-off of the affected system.

I don't think this is Arch-specific as it occurs on Fedora 18 also with the same symptoms.

It appears to be one of those bad kernels.


Additional info:
linux-3.6.7-1

Steps to reproduce:
1) Just run system as normal and it will freeze.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Tobias Powalowski (tpowa)
Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 17:42 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Comment by phanisvara das (phani00) - Sunday, 25 November 2012, 10:02 GMT
mine doesn't freeze; my guess it's hardware related, video card, bad memory? did you experience this with other kernels earlier?
Comment by Neil Darlow (neildarlow) - Monday, 26 November 2012, 09:47 GMT
@phani00 I'll address your points one by one.

video card: This system runs headless and KMS is disabled so we're talking text consoles only. Graphics is ATI Radeon 6310 so it's not bleeding edge.

bad memory: I don't think so. I have used branded memory and it's behaved perfectly during the initial 3 month system burn-in period.

earlier kernels: It has run previous 3.6.x releases without any problems. I've just switched to 3.0.x-lts and it's running that quite happily with no freezes.

I'll also add disk to the equation but we're talking about a software RAID10 mirror. OK there's LVM and Ext4 on top but that's been flawless too.

No, I am more inclined to believe that this is a regression introduced in linux-3.6.7 especially as I see the same thing on the same version of kernel, from a different vendor, on different hardware. The Arch system is AMD Dual Core x86_64 and the other system is Intel Single Core i686.

We shouldn't jump to conclusions that this is hardware related when there is a huge body of code (that is the kernel) which could be causing this.

Anyhow, I'm OK with 3.0.x-lts for now but someone else may be experiencing the same problem so this report should, at least, provide some form of documentation.
Comment by Thomas Bächler (brain0) - Monday, 26 November 2012, 11:50 GMT
I can't reproduce this. There has to be some common denominator between your two systems that is related to the cause, but I can't see it in your report.
Comment by Neil Darlow (neildarlow) - Monday, 26 November 2012, 13:23 GMT
The only commonality, besides kernel version, is that I have recently migrated my Arch system to systemd and the Fedora system runs systemd also. I would have thought that once a system is booted, systemd has little impact unless its journalling functionality is causing the freeze. I'll keep thinking on this but maybe we'll never fully resolve the cause and the next 3.6.x release might fix things.
Comment by Tobias Powalowski (tpowa) - Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 16:06 GMT
Status on 3.7.x?
Comment by Neil Darlow (neildarlow) - Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 17:41 GMT
Hi Tobias,

I think it was just that particular kernel version. Your kernels are generally rock-solid so I would close this.

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