[Bug 788793] [NEW] Ubuntu regularly locks up and requires hard reboot - no specific application or action

[Steve Comrie]

Public bug reported:

My machine is regularly locking up and becoming unresponsive requiring
me to perform a hard reboot.

When this happens I can not SSH into or ping the machine from a laptop.
I can not switch to console. My mouse stops moving, any audio currently
playing repeats on a short 1/2 second loop. The keyboard becomes
unresponsive.

I have updated to Kernel 2.6.39 and have also updated my Nvidia drivers
to a development release of 270.41.19. Neither seems to have had much
(if any) affect. Other than that it's a pretty clean install of 11.04,
just redone yesterday in an attempt to try to squash this bug.

The crash occurs about once every hour or two.

This bug was happening when I previously had an ATI graphics card in the
machine and I've since switched to Nvidia and performed a complete re-
install. It happens when I'm in Unity and previously when I was using
Gnome classic.

I can not tell if a particular program is responsible or not. It happens
at such random times, most recently while all I was doing was typing an
email. Previously it's happens while I was switching windows, dragging
windows, writing code or simply while I was moving the mouse. It fair to
say though, that I almost always have one or more of Firefox /
Thunderbird / Komodo IDE open.

Absolutely nothing shows up in the syslog or kernel log immediately (or
remotely) around the time of the crash.

During the most recent crash I noticed that my text cursor vanished
while I was typing and the keyboard became unresponsive, I moved the
mouse around and noticed it moving very sluggishly. I grabbed a window
to drag it to see if I could still interact with  the system and then it
completely locked up on me.

It happened twice yesterday while I was in the process of transferring a
couple of Gigs of files between two internal SCSI drives (both secondary
mounts), but today I was not transferring or downloading anything, nor
performing any other heavy disk activity.

I'm not sure what else I can do to diagnose the problem. I've never had
a persistent problem like this since I switched to Ubuntu a couple of
years ago. Any advice, directions, suggestions or requests for more
information would be much appreciated.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: ubuntu-desktop 1.220
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.39-0.5~20110427-generic 2.6.39-rc5
Uname: Linux 2.6.39-0-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu May 26 14:58:11 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

** Affects: ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug natty running-unity

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to ubuntu-meta in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/788793

Title:
  Ubuntu regularly locks up and requires hard reboot - no specific
  application or action

Status in “ubuntu-meta” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  My machine is regularly locking up and becoming unresponsive requiring
  me to perform a hard reboot.

  When this happens I can not SSH into or ping the machine from a
  laptop. I can not switch to console. My mouse stops moving, any audio
  currently playing repeats on a short 1/2 second loop. The keyboard
  becomes unresponsive.

  I have updated to Kernel 2.6.39 and have also updated my Nvidia
  drivers to a development release of 270.41.19. Neither seems to have
  had much (if any) affect. Other than that it's a pretty clean install
  of 11.04, just redone yesterday in an attempt to try to squash this
  bug.

  The crash occurs about once every hour or two.

  This bug was happening when I previously had an ATI graphics card in
  the machine and I've since switched to Nvidia and performed a complete
  re-install. It happens when I'm in Unity and previously when I was
  using Gnome classic.

  I can not tell if a particular program is responsible or not. It
  happens at such random times, most recently while all I was doing was
  typing an email. Previously it's happens while I was switching
  windows, dragging windows, writing code or simply while I was moving
  the mouse. It fair to say though, that I almost always have one or
  more of Firefox / Thunderbird / Komodo IDE open.

  Absolutely nothing shows up in the syslog or kernel log immediately
  (or remotely) around the time of the crash.

  During the most recent crash I noticed that my text cursor vanished
  while I was typing and the keyboard became unresponsive, I moved the
  mouse around and noticed it moving very sluggishly. I grabbed a window
  to drag it to see if I could still interact with  the system and then
  it completely locked up on me.

  It happened twice yesterday while I was in the process of transferring
  a couple of Gigs of files between two internal SCSI drives (both
  secondary mounts), but today I was not transferring or downloading
  anything, nor performing any other heavy disk activity.

  I'm not sure what else I can do to diagnose the problem. I've never
  had a persistent problem like this since I switched to Ubuntu a couple
  of years ago. Any advice, directions, suggestions or requests for more
  information would be much appreciated.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
  Package: ubuntu-desktop 1.220
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.39-0.5~20110427-generic 2.6.39-rc5
  Uname: Linux 2.6.39-0-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Thu May 26 14:58:11 2011
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_US:en
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: ubuntu-meta
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)