Description of problem: When I check /var/log/messages on a machine I find several entries that look like this: Mar 19 10:18:11 eztiv840 gpm: gpm startup succeeded Mar 19 10:23:27 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: *** info [mice.c(1766)]: Mar 19 10:23:27 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: imps2: Auto-detected intellimouse PS/2 Mar 20 10:24:02 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: *** info [mice.c(1766)]: Mar 20 10:24:02 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: imps2: Auto-detected intellimouse PS/2 Mar 20 12:41:17 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: *** info [mice.c(1766)]: Mar 20 12:41:17 eztiv840 gpm[6712]: imps2: Auto-detected intellimouse PS/2 Mar 20 12:41:18 eztiv840 gpm: gpm shutdown succeeded I'm very curious to know why gpm is firing the "Auto-detect" message several times and not only once when gpm is started. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Run RHEL4 U4. Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Many messages that gpm auto-detects a mouse. Expected results: Just one detection cycle when starting gpm. Additional info: There is no change in the hardware meanwhile, that means nobody is unplugging the mouse and plugging it again. So I don't see any reason for those sporadic messages.
May this be caused by VT switching -- from X to console and vice versa?
Well, there is a process involved that kills gdm every 12 seconds, but if this is related I should see much much more log file entries than just a few sporadic ones.
Every 12 seconds? Why is that?
Yes, I know, it sounds strange. But that is the "test procedure" of our customer and unfortunately the machine locks up after some time (which can be a few hours up to 9 days). So we're desperately following every trace of things that look unusual. We wonder if some sort of event can trigger gpm to autodetect the mouse. Maybe its related to BIOS problems, but we're not yet sure.
Ok, I'll look into that.
I've built a gpm packages that log a backtrace every time the message is logged: http://people.redhat.com/tjanouse/gpm/233102/ I hope it will help you to find the reason for that message. I think it will just confirm my hypothesis about VT switching though. I doubt you'll see anything other than these two types of traces: 1) gpm(I_imps2+0x169) [0x409b49] | gpm(init_mice+0xa1) [0x405521] | gpm(old_main+0x71) [0x403081] | gpm(main+0x10) [0x404450] This is the mouse init on gpm start. 2) gpm(I_imps2+0x169) [0x409b49] | gpm(old_main+0x1185) [0x404195] | gpm(main+0x10) [0x404450] And this is the reinit caused by VT switching. (the numbers are for x86_64 and should really be the same for you -- if they're not, that would mean the casue is different) The cause of the messages not appearing every 12 seconds may be that the machine does not spend enough time in text console between the X server restarts. There is a loop in gpm that checks for the text console every 2 seconds. You can also attach strace to gpm to check whether this is the case.
Any news on this? Did this help you?
Ping.
Pong. Sorry for the delay. Yes, the answer was good and helpful. I guess we can close this "bug" now. Thanks Rainer