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User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020408

Description of problem:
I am using the Redhat PPP dialer applet to connect to the Internet.
After a few seconds, the connection automatically closes.

After investigating the problem (see bellow), it is a misunderstanding between
the Redhat PPP applet and the gnome panel. If the checkbox "Terminate connection
when session closes" of the applet (context menu/Properties) is checked, the
applet closes the connection when it receives a "save session" message from the
panel. This seems to happen every few seconds. The relevant source code is in
appapplet.c, function session_save_applet.

The logs in /var/log/messages shows that ppp receives signal 15. Thus it is not
a problem with the phone line (in that case, a message 'modem hangup' is seen).

The problem can be workarounded workarounded by renaming the file 'ifdown-ppp'
to 'ifdown-ppp.bak', thus its invocation is used. We
can learn who is invocating it, for example, by placing a statement
echo $$ > debufile, pstree -p >> debugfile. In debugfile, we see that
rp3 has invoked the ifdown.

Next, the rp3 problem was built from sources with debugging info. The applet is
reloaded, the pid of rp3 is learn through /sbin/pidof rp3,
and we start gdb with gdb /usr/bin/rp3 <pid> . A breakpoint is placed on
interface_change_status, the function used to turn the ppp0 interface down. We
let it continue, start the connection, and wait
until the breakpoint is hit. Then we see this stack trace:

Breakpoint 1, interface_status_change (i=0x80b6d90, s=INTERFACE_DOWN)
    at interface.c:498
498
    if (s == INTERFACE_UP) {
(gdb) where
#0  interface_status_change (i=0x80b6d90, s=INTERFACE_DOWN) at interface.c:498
#1  0x08053cdc in session_save_applet (applet=0x8095668, 
    privcfgpath=0x80cd0e8 "/panel.d/default/Applet_14_Extern/", data=0x80cfd58)
    at appapplet.c:414
#2  0x404351e9 in marshal_signal_save () from /usr/lib/libpanel_applet.so.0
#3  0x4020b3e6 in gtk_handlers_run () from /usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0
#4  0x4020a71d in gtk_signal_real_emit () from /usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0
#5  0x402084d5 in gtk_signal_emit () from /usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0
#6  0x404382d8 in server_applet_save_session ()
   from /usr/lib/libpanel_applet.so.0
#7  0x4043f165 in _ORBIT_skel_GNOME_Applet_save_session ()
   from /usr/lib/libpanel_applet.so.0
#8  0x4047cc77 in ORBit_POA_handle_request () from /usr/lib/libORBit.so.0
#9  0x4047f233 in ORBit_handle_incoming_request () from /usr/lib/libORBit.so.0
#10 0x4047f491 in ORBit_handle_incoming_message () from /usr/lib/libORBit.so.0
#11 0x40494d69 in giop_main_handle_connection () from /usr/lib/libIIOP.so.0
#12 0x4044b509 in orb_handle_connection () from /usr/lib/libgnorba.so.27
#13 0x4041af9e in g_io_unix_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#14 0x4041c773 in g_main_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#15 0x4041cd39 in g_main_iterate () from /usr/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#16 0x4041ceec in g_main_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-1.2.so.0
#17 0x401d62e3 in gtk_main () from /usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0
#18 0x40437fa7 in applet_widget_gtk_main () from /usr/lib/libpanel_applet.so.0
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---q
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(gdb) cont