Description of problem: Sometimes gdm fails to start on boot and I'm left with a plain text screen showing the boot messages from the various services starting. It's easily fixed by hitting CTRL-ALT-F2 and logging in as root and running systemctl restart gdm.service It might be a timing issue with starting the X server. [root@firefly ~]# systemctl status gdm.service gdm.service - GNOME Display Manager Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gdm.service; enabled) Active: active (running) since Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:05:12 -0500; 2min 36s ago Main PID: 754 (gdm-binary) CGroup: name=systemd:/system/gdm.service ├ 754 /usr/sbin/gdm-binary └ 810 /usr/bin/Xorg :0 -background none -verbose -auth /... Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.174408 seconds Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: Unable to kill slave process Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: Child process 875 was already dead. Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: Unable to kill slave process Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.174408 seconds Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm-simple-slave[881]: WARNING: Child process 884 was already dead. Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.056684 seconds Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.056684 seconds Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmLocalDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors Oct 25 07:05:21 firefly.localdomain gdm[754]: gdm-binary[754]: WARNING: GdmLocalDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gdm-3.6.1-1.fc18.x86_64 systemd-194-1.fc18.x86_64 xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.13.0-5.fc18.x86_64 How reproducible: rarely, maybe 1 time in 10? Steps to Reproduce: 1. boot the computer Actual results: gdm fails to start Expected results: presented with graphical login screen when boot finishes Additional info: I'm using a Lenovo T60 laptop with Intel graphics: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
Created attachment 633293 [details] gdm logs from /var/log/messages
I have a number of log files from Xorg from this morning's boot (Oct 25 07:05): [root@firefly ~]# ls -latr /var/log/Xorg* | grep Oct.25 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9852 Oct 25 07:05 /var/log/Xorg.1.log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9852 Oct 25 07:05 /var/log/Xorg.2.log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9852 Oct 25 07:05 /var/log/Xorg.3.log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9852 Oct 25 07:05 /var/log/Xorg.4.log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 9852 Oct 25 07:05 /var/log/Xorg.5.log -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 27859 Oct 25 07:08 /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 30287 Oct 25 07:22 /var/log/Xorg.0.log Servers 1 though 5 all ended with a seg fault: [ 42.860] (EE) Backtrace: [ 42.975] (EE) 0: /usr/bin/Xorg (xorg_backtrace+0x36) [0x46c326] [ 42.975] (EE) 1: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x71c59) [0x471c59] [ 42.975] (EE) 2: /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x7f23c7785000+0xf000) [0x7f23c7794000] [ 42.975] (EE) 3: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so (0x7f23c6949000+0x1335b) [0x7f23c695c35b] [ 42.975] (EE) 4: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so (0x7f23c6949000+0x143d5) [0x7f23c695d3d5] [ 42.975] (EE) 5: /usr/bin/Xorg (xf86DeleteScreen+0x84) [0x4946a4] [ 42.976] (EE) 6: /usr/bin/Xorg (InitOutput+0xc37) [0x48daf7] [ 42.976] (EE) 7: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x27e76) [0x427e76] [ 42.976] (EE) 8: /lib64/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xf5) [0x7f23c6ee5a05] [ 42.976] (EE) 9: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x2839d) [0x42839d] [ 42.976] (EE) [ 42.976] (EE) Segmentation fault at address 0x60 [ 42.976] Fatal server error: [ 42.976] Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting
Created attachment 633295 [details] tar of Xorg logs
I created a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/serverflags.conf with contents below so that abrt could capture a core dump from the X server: Section "ServerFlags" Option "NoTrapSignals" EndSection I then restarted gdm repeatedly until the problem happened again systemctl restart gdm.service After about 20 restarts, the X server crashed on gdm start. With debuginfo installed, the backtrace looks like: [root@firefly ~]# gdb /usr/bin/Xorg /var/spool/abrt/ccpp-2012-10-25-08\:20\:44-7444/coredump ... (gdb) bt full #0 list_is_empty (head=<optimized out>) at intel_list.h:269 No locals. #1 intel_mode_fini (intel=intel@entry=0x26b1c10) at intel_display.c:1774 mode = 0x0 #2 0x00007f2bc31de3d5 in I830FreeScreen (arg=0x26b0e80) at intel_driver.c:1077 scrn = 0x26b0e80 intel = 0x26b1c10 #3 0x00000000004946a4 in xf86DeleteScreen (pScrn=0x26b0e80) at xf86Helper.c:237 i = <optimized out> scrnIndex = 0 is_gpu = 0 #4 0x000000000048daf7 in InitOutput ( pScreenInfo=pScreenInfo@entry=0x81a780 <screenInfo>, argc=argc@entry=12, argv=argv@entry=0x7fff61c3d588) at xf86Init.c:606 i = -1 j = <optimized out> k = <optimized out> scr_index = <optimized out> modulelist = <optimized out> optionlist = 0x26a1fa0 screenpix24 = <optimized out> pix24 = <optimized out> pix24From = X_DEFAULT pix24Fail = 0 autoconfig = <optimized out> sigio_blocked = 0 configured_device = <optimized out> #5 0x0000000000427e76 in main (argc=12, argv=0x7fff61c3d588, envp=<optimized out>) at main.c:204 i = <optimized out> alwaysCheckForInput = {0, 1}
I reported the X crash using abrt-gui and it opened https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=870057
okay let's dupe this. Thanks for the investigative work. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 870057 ***