On Feb 15, 2012 8:13 AM, "leee" <leee(a)spatial.plus.com> wrote:
Hi,
I'm frequently experiencing a problem with kdm-trinity (V3.5.12)
appearing to
time out on system start-up. The following two lines
are put into my
syslog
when this happens:
kdm[1966]: X server startup timeout, terminating
kdm[1966]: X server for display :0 can't be started, session disabled
This is an intermittant problem and doesn't happen every time I start my
system (I'd guess it occurs about 50% of the time). When it does I'm left
with just the basic console. However, all I need to do to get X up and
running is to log in on the console and restart kdm-trinity.
The system is running Debian Squeeze on amd64 with an nVidia graphics card
using the proprietary nVidia driver.
Curiously, I don't recall this happening when I first installed TDE
V3.5.12,
which was quite some time ago now and it only seems to
have started
occurring
relatively recently.
Since I first installed Trinity V3.5.12 I have installed a number of
Debian
Squeeze updates but in addition to this I also tried
upgrading to TDE
V3.5.13
but then had to downgrade back to TDE V3.5.12 due to a
couple of problems
with V3.5.13.
As I didn't remove TDE V3.5.13 and all of its config files when I
downgraded
back to TDE V3.5.12 I imagine that it's possible
that kdm-trinity V3.5.13
introduced some different configuration settings. Alternatively, there
have
been a couple of kernel updates during this period (I
compile my own
kernels
from the Debian linux-source package and then need to
recompile the nVidia
driver to fit the new kernel. The kernel updates have all been minor
point
updates so the kernel configs have been unchanged over
the period
concerned)
and this may be a factor. Fwiw, the syslog messages
from kdm-trinity
appear
about 15 seconds after the nVidia module load
message.
I've also had a look in the Xorg.log files and while there are no clear
errors
or warnings there are differences at the end of the
logs between
successful
and unsuccessful start ups as shown below...
Unsuccessful startup:
(**) Option "xkb_rules" "evdev"
(**) Option "xkb_model" "pc105"
(**) Option "xkb_layout" "gb"
(II) Power Button: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) Power Button: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
Successful startup:
(**) Option "xkb_rules" "evdev"
(**) Option "xkb_model" "pc105"
(**) Option "xkb_layout" "gb"
(II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
(II) Feb 15 11:52:58 NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "1920x1200+0+0"
(II) Power Button: Device reopened after 1 attempts.
(II) Power Button: Device reopened after 1 attempts.
(II) AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: Device reopened after 1 attempts.
(II) ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse: Device reopened after 1 attempts.
(II) ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device: Device reopened after 1 attempts.
The extract from the unsuccessful start up clearly shows that some of the
devices are being closed but I can't see any reasons why and, as I say,
there
are no errors or warnings: apart from some different
time-stamps earlier
on
in the logs they are otherwise identical (according to
KDiff3).
Any hints or tips would be appreciated.
My first suggestion is to backup your ~/.trinity directory and do a purge
your Trinity packages to get rid of any conflicting config files. From
there you should be able to install a fresh 3.5.12 (the ~/.trinity should
still be intact). If it still doesn't work, you can try
purging/reinstalling Xorg (or try a different version of nvidia driver,
though I remember it crashing a lot awhile back).