Bug 41392
| Summary: | System lockup during file copy, multiple servers, same model, RedHat Installer >= 6.2 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Retired] Red Hat Linux | Reporter: | Doug Reed <doug_reed> |
| Component: | installer | Assignee: | Brent Fox <bfox> |
| Status: | CLOSED DUPLICATE | QA Contact: | Brock Organ <borgan> |
| Severity: | high | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | medium | ||
| Version: | 7.1 | ||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | i386 | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | 2001-05-21 20:25:37 UTC | Type: | --- |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
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Description
Doug Reed
2001-05-19 19:57:04 UTC
I'm trying to understand exactly what happens when the install fails. Do you see a Python traceback when it crashes, or do you see something like "Signal 11" or "Signal 7"? Also, are these cd's that you burned yourself, or were they from the box set? If you burned them yourself, did you check the md5sums of the ISOs to make sure that they matched up with the ones on the ftp site? --- Doug Reed's Response --- o What Happens? I do not SEE ANYTHING. The system freezes. No Python errors or anything at all on any of the systems. The mouse no longer moves <CTRL-ALT-(anything)> does nothing...on the plus side, the "Power" button still works! Since I cannot press any keys after the freeze...to determine that I did not get any other errors, it was necessary to do several installs to gather information for you guys. In each case, I got the install going, and when it started copying files, I entered <CTRL-ALT-F3>... and left it there until the disks stopped spinning, I verified that it was locked up. I then repeated this with <CTRL- ALT-F4>. I appologize that I don't remember what the last message on the screen is, but it is always the same and of no interest. <CTRL-ALT-F3> has all of the boot stuff on it about what it found at boot, and everything is correct...this stuff is already there when the GUI first starts. <CTRL-ALT-F4> basically has has status about what it is doing, but it really doesn't say much. The default install doesn't check "format" for the "/home" partition. When I failed to check it manually, the last message was a complaint about mounting an unchecked file system, and suggests that an fsck was recommended... This occurs when "/home" is mounted, which is done a good 5 minutes before the machine locks up, because it then installs the system, and then starts copying files, and freezes after completing glibc-common. A year ago or so, when I first installed 6.2, I did this same thing on one of the machines in the Support Center, and again, never saw anything an any of the screens that gave me any clue what was wrong. I then tried the other machines and got ther same result. Last time, I never changed any BIOS settings or anything, I simply gave up after looking for messages in the other screens...I knew if I reported the error to you, you would want more information and I had nothing to give you, so I figured that it would surface somewhere else and would get fixed eventually. It now appears that whatever change occured, did so between 6.1 and 6.2 and is still there. p.s. I also tried the text install with the same procedures with no difference in the results. OH FLASH! There is one thing! When I ran the text install, I got some message like: Unrecognized E??: supported. overlaying one of the graphics screens. Subsequently, I found the same message on one of the F3, F4 screens when I ran the GUI install. I don't recall what the "E??" was. It was three letters and I originally remembered it as being "ESS", and suspected my sound card was having problems but on a subsequent install, I remember that it was not this, besides my sound is correctly detected. It works flawlessly on 6.1 and is auto-detected. It was not an achronym that I had heard of. I searched for the string on Google, and did not find anything, I then searched for the "E??" string, and only found unrelated references. The only computer references at all mentioned advanced graphics if I recall. I talked to the RedHat support people, and they couldn't find anything related to this either and nobody had ever heard of the achronym either. Maybe one of them will remember what the string was. I am not at home now, I may be able to find it in my search history on my Windoze system at home. I was just doing searches here for three leter E things, and I didn't find any combination that brought back any memories. Anyway, it occurs REALLY EARLY in the install when the install is probing stuff. It occurs like twice or so when the install is trying to guess about video, mouse and network settings. The support staff thought it might be important, and suspected this as the problem...I am not convinced. If the message occured anywhere near the lockup, I would agree, but it occurs too early, and the installer finally makes all of the right decisions and formats all of the drives, and installs the system before dying during the copy. I can even successfully boot the 7.1 system after powering it off and on! I can't use it because it panics when it cannot find "init". o Burned or Bought? I purchased the Deluxe boxed set for RedHat 6.1, which works on all machines. I mean TOTALLY WORKS FLAWLESSLY! It auto-detects everything in the machine including the video, network card, and even the sound card. My company purchased the Enterprise Boxed set for RedHat 6.2, but I had not yet purchased this set in my department. My co-worker (with the 6.2 version) burned the install CD from his Boxed set, and gave it to me so that I could determine if it was enough of an improvement to merrit an upgrade. Our company moved our support center, so I moved the systems in question to the new location, and performed clean installs. Every system hung in the same way, so I assumed that I had a bad CD, and simply installed 6.1. I then borrowed the original CD from my co-worker to evaluate on my development system at home, and experienced the same thing on my system at home using the Original CD. I went through the install several times (both Text and GUI) looking for clues in the F3 and F4 screens to no avail so I gave up, and simply installed 6.1. I assumed this was some install bug that would get sorted out in time, and didn't worry about it. 6.2 was not substantially different than 6.1 with maintenance, so it was not worth my time to chase it. I never played with RedHat 7.0 in any way. I just purchased RedHat 7.1 Deluxe so that I could use it to upgrade my 4 or so machines in the Support Center, but they are now being used daily as client workstations for an X application (Micromuse Netcool). Therefore I don't wish to break them unnecessarily. For this reason, I did the upgrade on my development system at home and experienced the exact same system freeze during an "upgrade" that 6.2 had experienced so long ago. I then tried to do a clean install, formatting everything. I got the same freeze in the same place. I then started playing with text install, skipping X configuration, BIOS settings like Bus Mastering and translation, and different install selections, all to no avail. I simply gave up, and re-installed 6.1, which still works fine. I have since re-installed all recommended maintenance, Ximian Gnome, and Evolution... Everything works flawlessly. ...except Evolution, which seems to be forever broken. :-) I have not tried 7.1 on any of the other machines because I am gun shy. I have every reason to expect the same behaviour. I will be happy to take whatever debug steps you would like...although I am getting rather tired of re-installing 6.1 :-( ...also I can re-post with the three leter achronym if I get home tonight and find it in my search history. I think that this bug is a duplicate of bug #37280. Another Compaq DeskPro. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 37280 *** |