Updated; oops with 2.6.24 kernel and arpstar?

Sadako · Last edited by Sadako on Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

Edit: I discovered the problem was the arpstar third party module, please scroll down to this post.

I'm getting what appears to be a fairly generic oops message when trying to boot a 2.6.24 kernel, not much more than "Kernel panic: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!"

It will usually get to a console login and after logging in it'll panic anytime between a few seconds and a few minutes, If I startx after login the desktop seems to load just fine but it'll be completely frozen.
A couple of times it paniced far earlier in the boot process.

I just tried updating to hardened-sources-2.6.24, previously (and right now) running hardened-sources-2.6.23-r9.
It seems to be equivalent to gentoo-sources-2.6.24-r4.

I originally enabled a load of new stuff, but after the first few panics I ran a `make oldconfig` on the working 2.6.23 config, and tried to keep it as close to that as possible.
Still panics.

Here's a diff between the 2.6.23-r9 and 2.6.24, with the seemingly irrelevant comments removed;

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:06 am Post subject:

If it happens randomly, it may be a hardware issue. To be sure, boot with your install cd and see how long it takes (if at all) for the machine to die. If it doesn't die, there may be a problem with your kernel configuration. If it does die, it's hardware, pure and simple.

If you really want to be sure, download mprime, and use it to give your computer a real stress test. If you can't get the system to stay up that long, there is a version made for floppy available here.

Good luck.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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Sadako · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:56 am Post subject:

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:15 am Post subject:

I could give rewriting your kernel a go if you send me your present config and your lspci...another set of eyes and all that. That might help. It might also be a bug with the new kernel. There are lots of those, doncha know!

Blessed be!
Pappy
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Sadako · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:09 am Post subject:

Okay, so a friend on irc found a similar bug which suggested that the problem was with acpi and could be worked around with acpi=off in the kernel command line, however I tried both acpi=noirq and then acpi=off, and it made absolutely no difference.

I've taken a couple of pictures of the oops, acpi=noirq & acpi=off, the latter appears to be the clearer of the two.

I know, I know, actual photos os a screen, ugh, but it is rather difficult to take a screenshot of an oops...)

I would have posted this info earlier, but I had to rebuild with framebuffer console support, couldn't see the details with a vga console...

shinobi.jack · n00b Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Australia

I do not really have much of a background in debugging oops, but I did read something this morning that may (or may not) be helpful. There is a post on kernel trap today that refers to a sparsemem crash that could be causing your trouble. It does mention that 2.6.24 'worked', but that the bug was generally unstable - ie was just a bit more hidden. Also i noticed that one of the diffs between your 2.6.23 and 2.6.24 is sparsemem...

G
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Sadako · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 3:02 am Post subject:

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:18 am Post subject:

Sarpy Sam · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:37 am Post subject:

I had a problem similar to this one on a via board after I upgraded to 2.6.24. Kernel panic at random intervals. I could not find a predictable pattern to them. I finally decided it had to be a hardware issue and decided it was the memory. It turned out to be a bad memory module. I put in a new memory module and it hasn't happened since.

Why it didn't start happening until 2.6.24, I don't know. I could down grade to 2.6.23 and everything was fine but with 2.6.24 I would get the panics.

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:38 am Post subject:

If that's true, perhaps a little dance with mprime will show the problem. I know it puts my Core2 under such a bind, my old Toshiba laptop can ALMOST beat it in a speed race. It also clears out those pesky memory leaks from firefox..hehehe

Blessed be!
Pappy
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Sadako · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:01 pm Post subject:

I found the problem, it turned out to be caused by the ]only third party module I use, arpstar.

After booting a more debugable kernel, I found this in my logs;

pappy_mcfae · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject:

You're most welcome.

Blessed be!
Pappy
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OmSai · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 11:16 pm Post subject: