Frequent crashes in Trisquel 11
I am experiencing intermittent crashes while using Trisquel. It usually occurs while using Abrowser but has also occurred during other tasks. Trisquel will crash to a black screen with a blinking cursor before returning me to the login screen. I am unable to determine the cause of this and I am unsure which log files (if any) will shed light on what is happening.
It is possible that this is not unique to trisquel as I like many others here am using old hardware (X200 Thinkpad in my case) but I am posting this mainly to determine if other people are experiencing this issue.
Any help or advice is appreciated.
I have a similar issue, but no blinking cursor. So far, this only happened to me randomly when I'm using cool retro term in fullscreen. I use IceCat instead of Abrowser, so I don't know what to say about that.
Have you tried using the command "sudo journalctl" (without quotes) in the terminal?
What I did was used that command, narrowed it down to the approximate time that the crash occurred, and found some entries related to at-spi-bus-launcher and xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service. Then I noticed some systemd entries that indicated it was running /run/user/110 (starting a new session) after seeing messages like:
at-spi-bus-launcher[2286]: X connection to :0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
systemd[2028]: xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE.
I tried downgrading the at-spi package to the one from nabia, but it didn't work.
I'm sure someone else knows better on what's wrong with your system.
Thank you for your suggestion, I will try this. I am able to reliably cause the error to occur by visiting the following web page: https://github.com/Zygo/xscreensaver
Something about visiting this page (it has happened when visiting others too) causes my system to crash to the login screen. I am curious to know if this happens to anyone else running Trisquel 11.
It is worth noting that the error persists even on a fresh install.
I am going to force the error and then check the logs as you suggested.
I'm going to take a wild guess; this might have something to do with non-free Javascript?
I suspect this because the version of IceCat I'm using includes librejs, which forbids non-free code from running. And that includes GitHub.
I might actually try replicating the issue with Abrowser and see if the issues I'm having are related to that as well.
Apr 09 21:37:35 PALADIN pulseaudio[953]: X11 I/O error handler called
Apr 09 21:37:35 PALADIN pulseaudio[953]: X11 I/O error exit handler called, preparing to tear down X11 modules
Apr 09 21:37:35 PALADIN at-spi-bus-launcher[16119]: X connection to :0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
This is what I could find in the logs after forcing the error. I am not sure it's a JS thing because I also run LibreJS.
I agree. It definitely has nothing to do with LibreJS.
Looking at your log, those entries are pretty much the same I'm seeing on mine.
Do you happen to see entries where systemd indicated it was running like a new user process? And are there entries related to xdg-desktop-portal-gtk on yours?
It seems like there's a bug somewhere in pulseaudio, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, or at-spi-bus-launcher that's causing this.
And I tried replicating the issue on my computer with Abrowser, but I couldn't get it to crash. However, the issue happens randomly when using other applications.
By the way, are you using the default MATE desktop? I assume that is the case here. I haven't seen such issue occur on Plasma 5.24.
Hopefully someone has a suggestion on what to do from there.
Here is a temporary workaround I tried. I assume you're using the MATE desktop.
Open Control Center, go to the section "Personal," then click on "Startup Applications."
Then, in the tab "Startup Programs," click the checkmark "Show hidden," then scroll up to the top until you see the entry "AT-SPI D-Bus Bus."
Once you find it, uncheck the entry. Afterwards, reboot Trisquel.
Let me know what happens from there.
Disabling services like this one isn't desirable. I think AT-SPI D-Bus is used for accessibility services, which I haven't used before. But it should be a good enough workaround until someone submits a patch.
I tried it and it seems to not crash anymore so far. But I could be wrong.
This link is also crashing me on an X200 (librebooted).
Opening any image over 1mb in Viewnor also causes the system to crash back to the login screen.
Have you tried running "sudo journalctl" (without quotes) in the terminal and narrowed down the entries to the approximate time the crash occurred?
I assume your log entries are showing similar errors like the ones described.
And sadly, I do not have a librebooted computer, so yours might be different.
Let me know what you find.
Failing RAM make random freezes. Have you tested your RAM? You can install "memtests86+" (in Trisquel's repository) and let it test you RAM during one full night. Memtest86+ is to be launched from the menu of GRUB, the bootloader, that lists the installed operating systems right after the computer switches on. You may have to press [Esc] to have GRUB's menu appear. If memtest86+'s blue screen turns red, your RAM is defective. Instead of installing memtest86+, you can test your RAM with any live ISO that includes memtest86+.
That could be a possibility, but the issue occurs on a fresh install too, as reported by Ardea.
I think it's more likely a bug or a missing dependency. Otherwise the system runs fine.
Could this be related?
https://trisquel.info/es/forum/x11-close-session-when-opening-file-or-browsing-web
Thanks for pointing that out. I will give that a try and see what happens when I create the xorg config file for the Intel GPU (my computer happens to be running Intel graphics in this case).
Yes, the solution given by augustoborin has solved the issue for me and others.