[solved] Rebooting computer problem?

[sonic67]

I have been running mint 17 for about a month now and i have an odd problem with it now. when my computer goes to screensaver/suspend it reboots its self and i cant figure out why. and it doesn't do it all the time ether. it seems like it does it after certain updates but i cant tell. did they change the way the updates are done that you have to do restarts. i wasn't going to worry to much about it but if i leave something up on the computer like chrome or Firefox i have a webpage that says that they weren't shut down properly. and im not the one doing it, the computer is. sorry for putting the question here but i don't know if its a software or hardware problem. so any help would be great. P.S. is there a code that type in and bring up a log or something that will tell me why its rebooting.



Intel pent.D 3.20 x2
4 gig ram
mint 17 cinnamon 32bit
cinnamon version 2.2.13
kernel ver. 3.13.0-24-generic
graphic card ati radeon x800 gt/se

[Spearmint2]

I see you have 4GB RAM, what size is your swap file? Does it hibernate for you?

[sonic67]

i have a 4 gig swap . most of the time it goes into hibernation fine except when it will do a restart on me. and i know when it does that because im at the initial log on screen and not my screensaver.

[karlchen]

Hello, sonic67.

No need to play guessing games in order to tell whether your machine rebooted or not:
(1) The command "uptime" will tell you exactly how long your machine has been up since the last reboot.
(2) The logfile /var/log/syslog will clearly and unambiguously log when a machine reboots. Lots of lines telling what the machine does when it starts up.

Kind regards,
Karl

[Mute Ant]

''did they change the way the updates are done that you have to do restarts'' There might be a message ''System Restart Required'' when something close to the kernel gets changed, but you decide when to do it.

There are many ways hibernate, suspend, disk-off and screen-off can go wrong...
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/buglist.cgi ... =hibernate
...I would disable them all while you learn what 'normal' is on your machine.

''it doesn't do it all the time either'' Usually this is the sign of software activity provoking something wobbly in hardware. Bad heat management is often involved [Hot environment + Fluffy heat-sinks].

[Spearmint2]

Do you have a cat? I do. I pulled my "Power" button completely off my keyboard because of that.

[sonic67]

Karl, as im definitely no expert on linux from what it looks like to me is its cinnamon thats restarting it but i cant tell ill put one or two of the log files on here and let you all look at it and see but i wish i knew programming jar-kin to figure it out but i hope one of you can give me so guidance on it.
and Spearmint2 yes i do have a cat but she dont go anywhere near the computer or keyboard, after having a can of air go off and she jumped out of her skin she is scared to death of my desk.

[karlchen]

Hello, sonic67.

im definitely no expert on linux

No need to be worried. None of us longtime Linux users have been born with a Linux Mint master of arts certificate laid in our cradles. We just tend to ignore this fact.

About the older syslog files syslog.7, syslog.6 and syslog.5

from what it looks like to me is its cinnamon thats restarting

Hm.. Yes and no.

Old syslog file syslog.7

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Jul 17 13:52:46 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [871522.303223] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.3: SMBus using PCI Interrupt
Jul 17 13:52:46 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [871522.331543] i2c /dev entries driver
Jul 17 13:53:10 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [871546.003596] waiting module removal not supported: please upgrade 
Jul 17 13:54:11 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Playing logout sound '/usr/share/mint-artwork-cinnamon/sounds/logout.ogg'
Jul 17 13:54:11 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Finished playing logout sound
Jul 17 13:54:11 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Resuming logout sequence...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB colord: device removed: xrandr-Westinghouse Digital Electronics-WDE LCM-19v1-0
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB colord: Profile removed: icc-a1e5b37ef635c3e6cfcbc7e34a1e7042
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 17 13:54:12 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[27691]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 17 08:06:57 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: message repeated 10 times: [ [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="807" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] rsyslogd was HUPed]
Jul 17 13:54:13 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="807" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.

Here system logging stops during shutdown / reboot.
A minute later the machine starts comming back up.

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Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="792" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 104
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@roseapple) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:08:14 UTC 2014 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9)
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] KERNEL supported cpus:
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Intel GenuineIntel
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   AMD AuthenticAMD
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   NSC Geode by NSC
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Cyrix CyrixInstead
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Centaur CentaurHauls
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Transmeta GenuineTMx86
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Transmeta TransmetaCPU
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   UMC UMC UMC UMC
Jul 17 13:55:13 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] e820: BIOS-provided physical RAM map: 
[...a lot of more lines ...]

Actually one can see that the cinnamon-session initiates a user logout and a system reboot. - Maybe I am not half as smart as I hoped to be, or the log entries are really not too explicit. - The entries look too me the same as they do when I deliberately tell my machine to reboot.
What I mean is this:
If you did not reboot your machine on July 17th 13:54 willingly, but if this reboot was initiated due to a system problem, then the syslog entries do not tell me this was the case.

OK. Next let us have a look at the next reboot, dcoumented in the old syslog file syslog.5:

Old syslog file syslog.5

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Jul 19 19:23:19 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Playing logout sound '/usr/share/mint-artwork-cinnamon/sounds/logout.ogg'
Jul 19 19:23:19 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Finished playing logout sound
Jul 19 19:23:19 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Resuming logout sequence...
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB colord: device removed: xrandr-Westinghouse Digital Electronics-WDE LCM-19v1-0
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB colord: Profile removed: icc-a1e5b37ef635c3e6cfcbc7e34a1e7042
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[21170]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 19 07:54:22 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="792" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] rsyslogd was HUPed
Jul 19 19:23:20 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="792" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.

Again this looks like a normal user initiated reboot to my eyes.
This time it takes 3 minutes before the system is coming back. 3 minutes. Why? The previous reboot only took 1 minute (normal). What did the system do during the 2 extra minutes? No idea.

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Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="1961" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 104
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@roseapple) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:08:14 UTC 2014 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9)
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] KERNEL supported cpus:
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Intel GenuineIntel
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   AMD AuthenticAMD
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   NSC Geode by NSC
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Cyrix CyrixInstead
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Centaur CentaurHauls
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Transmeta GenuineTMx86
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   Transmeta TransmetaCPU
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000]   UMC UMC UMC UMC
Jul 19 19:26:30 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] e820: BIOS-provided physical RAM map: 
[... a lot of more lines ...]

This time a few minutes before rebooting this was logged:

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Jul 19 19:07:41 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[1815]: Gdk-WARNING: cinnamon-session: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.#012
Jul 19 19:07:41 william-E-6500-SB mdm[1593]: WARNING: mdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0 

Not sure whether there can be a relation, because was 18 minutes before the reboot.
Yet, it might be a hint that there is a problem affecting mdm or the X server.

Yet, right before the previous reboot this was logged in syslog.7:

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Jul 17 13:53:10 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [871546.003596] waiting module removal not supported: please upgrade 

which module? upgrade what? - Any relation to the reboot initiated a minute later at all? If so which?

And the last reboot documented in syslog.5 occurs right after the reboot discussed above has finished.

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Jul 19 19:27:49 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[2860]: WARNING: Playing logout sound '/usr/share/mint-artwork-cinnamon/sounds/logout.ogg'
Jul 19 19:27:49 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[2860]: WARNING: Finished playing logout sound
Jul 19 19:27:49 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[2860]: WARNING: Resuming logout sequence...
Jul 19 19:27:50 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[2860]: WARNING: Requesting system restart...
Jul 19 19:27:50 william-E-6500-SB cinnamon-session[2860]: WARNING: Attempting to restart using consolekit...
Jul 19 19:27:50 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="1961" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="826" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 104
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
Jul 19 19:28:50 william-E-6500-SB kernel: [    0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@roseapple) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #46-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 10 19:08:14 UTC 2014 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9) 

This time no error messages are logged at all near the reboot.

To be honest I am not sure that the syslog files alone will help find out what may be the root cause ...
... unless someone else turns up and has detected what I may have missed in your syslog files.

Kind regards,
Karl

[karlchen]

<note on the cat as the root cause>

On the one hand, cats stepping on the keyboard can cause a lot of weird symptoms.
I cannot tell whether any reset/reboot button, e.g. on the keyboard (mine has got such buttons), can be pressed by a curious cat on the affected machine.
As we all know, a cat which will not come near the computer while we are sitting in front of it might do so while we are away.
(With our cat it is the other way round. A computer is only interesting provided we are sitting in front of it, because he wants to get our attention.)
Anyway, though there may be a chance that the cat is involved, I would not really concentrate too much on the cat as the main suspect.

In case the problem also occurs at times when the cat is away, but you are near the computer, then this would be a hint that the cat may be innocent in this case.

</note on the cat as the root cause>

[karlchen]

Actually, I wonder a bit whether by trying to find error messages which explain random reboots I have started chasing shadows, although Mute Ant may have put us on the right track already? => Mute Ant's post above

[sonic67]

thanks karl for taking a gander on this. while i was waiting for feedback from you all i went ahead and did some program removel and changed out the video card seeing how that was the oldest piece of hardware install'ed on my computer. so far so good, the software i removed was almost everything to do with Bluetooth. i had installed bluez and a couple other things needed to try to get Bluetooth to work. and some temp and fan speed programs. and ill try what a mute ant put in here and see what i can figure out. and ill leave this unsolved for now in-case somebody else has some input on it. but from what ive done its got me buffaloed on it thats for sure.

[sonic67]

Well i was hoping it was fixed but to no avail, so i re-installed mint 17 cinn. and it restarted on its own again so im coming to the conclusion its something to do with cinnamon ,xorg , and my ati radeon vid card. but i dont know so here is a fresh sys log for all to examine and see what you all think.if you look at around 22:18 it has a problem then at 23:38 a restart. and i was just sitting there watching when it restarted. as for a test i installed mate last night to see what happens. so far so good no restarts yet but im not used to the layout of mate got used to cinnamon. so any help on this would be appreciated as always.

[Spearmint2]

this sounds more and more like a hardware problem. If so, it will continue to get worse.

[sonic67]

Spearmint, ive been wondering that too but i went through and checked everything and made sure things were reset'ed and solid connections and all and i cant figure it out ether. but what is odd is ive done everything on mate de. and so far no restarts. ive walked away with my browser open and a pdf file open and a couple other windows open and let it go into hibernate like i did with cinnamon and it would do a mysterious restart and mate hasent yet. that is why i thought its a combo with the cinnamon ,xorg and the ati driver combined. from what ive seen in the bug reports that ive seen and from my limited knowledge of linux that it looks like its the xorg and ati driver that is with it. i was going to try downloading the propriety ati driver and try that but couldnt figure out how to yet.
here is a link that looked somewhat like what my old log before i re-installed mint

http://askubuntu.com/questions/152476/u ... o-error-11

what this log showed one line in mine as the same as the link ( Gdk-WARNING: gnome-session: Fatal IO error 11 (Ressource temporairement non disponible) on X server ) now this was off an aspire laptop and mine a gateway desktop.
but most off all the re-starting problems im seeing and or finding is from folks with laptops and or nividea cards in desktops on which i have nether. so again im back to banging my head on the proverbial wall.

[Spearmint2]

just use MATE then, that's what I prefer. I've avoided Cinnamon because I keep hearing odd problems people have with it. MATE seems much more stable to me.

I notice the link you gave is concerned with Firefox problems. I had a problem along that line and it was the Crash reporting program in Firefox.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=142857

[sonic67]

Well i think i have found some of the problem with this restarting. i thought i had it fixed when i went to mate but it started doing the restarting again so i did some looking at my logs and i showed from what i could guess problem with mdm, xorg and the ati driver fglrx combined. which is a programming problem which is out of my realm. so out of desperation i put in an nvidia video card and used the nvidia driver and so far no restarts in over 10 days so needless to say i think its a combo of the 3 programs that has been the problem.