On Thursday 31 Jan 2008, Adrian Bridgett wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 22:12:54 +0000 (+0000), Peter Salisbury
wrote:
> > It's hard to investigate when the basic tools stop working! Can
> > anyone think what might be happening? Is there any way of getting
> > ps information direct from /sys or /proc or other magic to help
> > find out what's going on?
>
> cd /proc
> echo * (an old trick which is handy when ls stops working/isn't
> there!) cat */cmdline
>
> also, try jumping out of X into a text console, then Alt-sysrq-t
> dumps running tasks (and various other keys do useful things:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key
>
>
> Adrian
Belated thanks Adrian,
In fact the system is in such a mess that even Alt-SysRq-t won't
complete but I am delighted to learn about those key combinations,
especially Alt-SysRq-B which saves the really uncool alternative of
pressing the power switch for 4 seconds to close down and then again
to reboot!
It was also good to learn about the /proc/*/cmdline trick but again
the system was in such a state that cat /proc/5516/cmdline or even
ls /proc/5516 would lock up the terminal.
The underlying problem remains a mystery and it's very frustrating
trying to narrow it down: sometimes it will lock up in less than a
minute of skyping and other times it will go on for 15 minutes plus.
The latest apparent success is plugging the headset into a
motherboard USB socket rather than a 4 port USB hub but we haven't
had enough skype time to see if it's a proper fix or just that we've
been lucky...
ATB, Peter
