system crashing - logs?

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karl
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system crashing - logs?

Post by karl »

Hello all

My PC keeps crashing, I have absolutely no idea why. It is seemingly at random but, possibly, with increasing frequency. The symptoms are that I cannot change tabs in Firefox or switch applications (either by the taskbar or alt-tab), the pointer moves if I move the mouse but there is no response to clicks. All I can do is power off the machine.

I'm not a power user and generally the only application I have had open when the crash occurs is firefox. I am aware there have been some memory leakage issues with FF on windows, does this also exist in Linux?

To be honest, I don;t know where to start here. Are there likely to be any logs that will help diagnose the problem?

Thanks

Karl
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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McLovin

Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by McLovin »

The memory leaks in FF are universal, they exist on all platforms. Do you have alot of tabs open when the crash happens?
karl
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Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by karl »

Normally 4-6 tabs, do you think this is the likely culprit?
MagnusB
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Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by MagnusB »

I don't think Firefox causes a full system lock, but you can take a look at /var/log/messages to see what that say. I usually just track down what messages it shows when it boots, then look for the last boot after a crash. Alternately you can look at kern.log as well, or try to use Epiphany instead of Firefox to see if that helps with the lock ups.
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McLovin

Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by McLovin »

what are your system specs? (ram, processor, etc.) and are you running b[]anything[/b] else in the background? also, are you on dial-up, or dsl, or cable?
karl
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 3:36 pm
Location: Torquay, Devon, England

Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by karl »

MagnusB - Thankyou, I;ll take a look at those logs and see if they tell me anything.

McLovin - I have and AMD64 3200+ and 1gb RAM. ADSL connecting via homeplug to a router

I didn't think I had much running in the background, but just did a 'ps -ax' (I think that's the right command, it's what I use on my TiVo) and it listed about 60 things, not sure what they all are, though.
karl
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Location: Torquay, Devon, England

Re: system crashing - logs?

Post by karl »

There was nothing in the logs to suggest what the problem was.

I downloaded firefox 3 and have been using that four a couple of days now and everything seems to be okay.

Thanks
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