[Tfug] Debugging X lockups?

[Claude Rubinson]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 05:47:29PM -0700, Claude Rubinson wrote:
> I'm having a pretty severe problem with X locking up on me.  It's
> almost certainly something to do with the mouse.  Sometimes when I
> click a button on the mouse, the cursor will turn to the "busy" cursor
> and simply won't turn back.  Sometimes my whole X session will lock
> up, but other times, it's simply that mouse button clicks are no
> longer received.  Focus-follows-mouse still works, so I can keep
> typing and I can switch VTs so that I can kill and restart X.

So it may have been a kernel problem.  I'm not sure yet but,
basically, it looks like the kernel might have been upgraded without
my noticing.  In and of itself, that shouldn't cause a problem.
However, it appears that a Debian maintainer fscked the naming
convention such that grub would default to the older kernel.

I almost never actually reboot--usually I sleep and sometimes I
hibernate.  The kernel gets reloaded when you come out of hibernation
(but not sleep), providing an opportunity for modules to get out of
sync.  That is, I'm thinking that the old kernel was trying to use the
new modules and because they were the same revision, the kernel didn't
complain.

But I happened to actually reboot this morning and the old (grub
default) kernel wouldn't load.  But the newer kernel booted up fine
and I haven't noticed any problems since.  (Although I probably just
jinxed myself.)

Here's hoping!

Claude