Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 77093
screen corruption and crashes with multiple X servers
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:48:04 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2b) Gecko/20021016 Description of problem: Since I started running two X servers, it seems as though at least one of the following will happen once every other day: 1) X will start drawing window contents (text especially) somewhat offset from the windows in which they are supposed to appear. This happens only when I am actively using X. 2) X will blank the screen and lock out my keyboard and mouse. This happens only when X has been sitting idle for a while. Though restarting the offending X server will generally fix the symptoms in 1, they tend to recur within the next hour or so if someone is logged in to the other X server (usually my gf on a different vt). Whenever 2 happens, I can always ssh in, but I have yet to discover anything short of a reboot that will restore keyboard and mouse response. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 4.2.0-72 How reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: Using my system for a while causes 1 to happen, though I can't tell what in particular I'm doing (if anything) in each instance. 2 always happens when no one is around to see it, unfortunately. Additional info: I'm using a Voodoo 4 w/ 32MB video ram. Probably nothing else is relevant, hardware-wise. There's nothing I've noticed in my logs that corresponds to the X corruption or crashes. I wish I could give more info, but there doesn't seem to be more.
I should also mention that I'm using Sawfish as my WM, and my gf is using WindowMaker, which I was also using until recently. Strangely, the screen corruption has *never* happened to her, but happens for me under both WMs. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to matter which vt I'm using (7 or 8), this happens on both (I can't imagine why that would make a difference, but it might be worth mentioning.)
Using multiple X servers simultaneously does not work on all video hardware properly, nor with all video drivers properly. In some cases it is a hardware limitation, in other cases it is a driver limitation, and in other cases it is a driver bug. Few people use multiple X servers on a single box at all, so I can't consider it any sort of priority to try to troubleshoot or debug this specific problem instance you are encountering. We do not really support running multiple X servers simultaneously, it is more of a "if it works, great" type of thing than something officially supported. This type of problem should be reported directly upstream to XFree86.org for resolution/troubleshooting/help, etc. You may wish to post the problem on xpert@xfree86.org where the core developers can see it and perhaps comment.
I didn't know multiple X servers wasn't supported. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, though.