Strange problem with (?) Mozilla

nhabedi · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 7

Hi!

I have a strange problem with my Thinkpad T23 and Linux. It's hard to describe in detail because it isn't really reproduceable, it just happens frequently. I'll try to sum up what's happening, maybe someone has an idea:

1. The problem only seems to happen while I'm using Mozilla (1.0rc2), not on any particular website but more or less out of the blue.

2. If it happens my (external) USB mouse stops to work. The Ethernet card also stops to work. If I try to bring these devices up again, the logfile shows entries like:

May 20 11:17:05 bird kernel: hub.c: USB new device connect on bus2/1, assigned device number 5
May 20 11:17:08 bird kernel: usb_control/bulk_msg: timeout
May 20 11:19:09 bird kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
May 20 11:19:09 bird kernel: eth0: Transmit timed out: status f048 0c00 at 4085/4145 command 000ca000.

3. At this point, the only thing that I can do to get the whole system working again is reboot... :(

4. The system is Gentoo Linux 1.1a with a 2.4.19 kernel and XFree86 4.2.0. I use the Sawfish window manager with gkrellm. There are only a few fairly standard daemons running, including sshd, dhcpd, devfsd, syslogd, klogd, crond, postfix, and autofs4. The file system is ext3.

5. It looks like this doesn't happen with a stock SuSE 8.0. I'm not 100% sure as I don't boot into SuSE that often.

Has anybody seen something similar? Any ideas?

Thanks,
Edi.

mikaelu · n00b Joined: 04 May 2002 Posts: 10 Location: Sweden/Hjo

This could be an interrupt problem. What is your output from:
cat /proc/interrupts ??

I have had similar problems with pcmcia cards ....

nhabedi · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 7

nhabedi · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 7

Guest · Posted: Tue May 21, 2002 3:30 am Post subject:

can you try moving the ethernet card toa different pci slot...drobbins did an article about resolving irq issues...you ight want to check that out....looking at proc i would say its an irq issue

mikaelu · n00b Joined: 04 May 2002 Posts: 10 Location: Sweden/Hjo

Check /etc/pcmica/config.opts

Try with:

exclude irq 11

nhabedi · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 7

Thanks to all who replied.

It turned out that it was an IRQ problem. I now have used the BIOS to completely disable IRQ sharing and the problem seems to be gone. (That's why I waited a couple of days before I posted this. It's almost a week now and I haven't encountered the bug since.)

Just for the record:

1. It wasn't only Mozilla, I was able to trigger the bug with Konqueror, too.

2. I think it was the NIC conflicting with the USB mouse.

3. Switching from eepro100 to e100 (as provided by Intel) as some suggested didn't solve the problem.

Thanks again,
Edi.