Bug 17435

Summary: xserver freezes on random xscreenserver transisitions
Product: xorg Reporter: Jeff Cunningham <jeffrey.k.cunningham>
Component: Server/GeneralAssignee: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.1 (2006.05)   
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments:
Description Flags
xorg.conf
none
Xorg log none

Description Jeff Cunningham 2008-09-04 11:22:37 UTC 
On a recently upgraded AMD64 Debian Etch system (nVidia Quadro FX 3400) xscreensaver started freezing the xserver on some of its random screensaver transitions. Over time I believe I have traced it to a faulty xscreensaver configuration file (xscreensaver-demo/advanced menu) which now has "Text Manipulation" defaulting to an unspecified "Text file" instead of the previous "Host Name and Time". After changing the selection to the latter the problem seems to have gone away. I believe the non-existent file selection was causing xscreensaver to do something strange when it would eventually try to start a screensaver which required text input, and I've notified JWZ about it. 

But as JWZ rightly points out, no matter what xscreensaver does, it shouldn't be able to crash the xserver, and it seems to be doing that. Once it is frozen, the graphics freezes, it doesn't respond to keyboard or to mouse. The system is still working fine underneath, because I can ssh in from other machines. If I kill xscreensaver it does not release the xserver. If I kill gdm, it will not restart. Nothing short of rebooting the machine will bring back the xserver (that I have found). 

Jeff Cunningham
Comment 1 Jeff Cunningham 2008-09-04 11:27:38 UTC 
I forgot to add os info:

2.6.18-6-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Aug 19 04:30:56 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Comment 2 Julien Cristau 2008-09-04 17:27:45 UTC 
> --- Comment #1 from Jeff Cunningham <jeffrey.k.cunningham@saic.com>  2008-09-04 11:27:38 PST ---
> I forgot to add os info:
> 
> 2.6.18-6-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Aug 19 04:30:56 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> 
Please also attach the X log and config.
Comment 3 Jeff Cunningham 2008-09-10 09:17:38 UTC 
Created attachment 18806 [details]
xorg.conf
Comment 4 Jeff Cunningham 2008-09-10 09:18:16 UTC 
Created attachment 18807 [details]
Xorg log
Comment 5 Adam Jackson 2018-06-12 17:10:24 UTC 
Pretty sure this was a livelock in the acpid support code, which nothing should be using anymore.

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