Abnormal hangs and restarts Ubuntu 8.04

Question

I am using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and seeing the following behaviors:

1. The system hangs after a while and becomes completely unresponsive.

2. The system sometimes restarts itself !

Can you please help me identify what is the problem? Also please mention where should I look for the possible cause of this error.

Thanks.

EDIT: Got the following from the dmesg output (the system got hung and had to restart)

[ 15.452015] Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods [ 15.456882] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods [ 15.457987] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 52x/52x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray [ 15.457993] Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20 [ 15.458058] sr 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 [ 15.463028] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB) [ 15.463051] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [ 15.463055] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 15.463083] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [ 15.463151] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 156301488 512-byte hardware sectors (80026 MB) [ 15.463167] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off [ 15.463171] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 15.463197] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA [ 15.463202] sda:<5>sr 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 5 [ 15.464634] sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 [ 15.470120] sda1 sda2 < sda5 > [ 15.495536] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk [ 15.759549] Attempting manual resume [ 15.759554] swsusp: Resume From Partition 8:5 [ 15.759556] PM: Checking swsusp image. [ 15.759742] PM: Resume from disk failed. [ 15.779964] EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem. [ 15.779970] EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery. [ 19.904204] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds [ 19.904235] EXT3-fs: sda1: orphan cleanup on readonly fs [ 19.904245] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 303260 [ 19.904304] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 303329 [ 19.932763] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801871 [ 19.932785] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801874 [ 19.932798] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801910 [ 19.951253] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801912 [ 19.951266] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801914 [ 19.951278] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3959212 [ 19.951299] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3959213 [ 19.960335] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3959215 [ 19.963531] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3801875 [ 19.963545] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3663727 [ 19.963565] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 3663708 [ 19.963577] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072122 [ 19.963597] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072157 [ 19.968616] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072159 [ 19.970252] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072160 [ 19.970264] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072161 [ 19.992889] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072264 [ 19.992903] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072267 [ 19.999585] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072268 [ 20.008329] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072270 [ 20.008343] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072123 [ 20.008360] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072452 [ 20.008374] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072453 [ 20.008385] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 4072124 [ 20.008398] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 311574 [ 20.008413] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 967890 [ 20.008420] EXT3-fs: sda1: 28 orphan inodes deleted [ 20.008423] EXT3-fs: recovery complete. [ 20.082622] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. [ 29.025379] input: PC Speaker as /devices/platform/pcspkr/input/input2 [ 29.187133] Linux agpgart interface v0.102 [ 29.225338] iTCO_vendor_support: vendor-support=0 [ 29.259662] iTCO_wdt: Intel TCO WatchDog Timer Driver v1.02 (26-Jul-2007)

Answer 1

After a bootup, look at the /var/log/ directory.
This is where all file logging happens.

1. syslog -- is likely to have error messages around stalls.
   • dmesg -- will track logging as the system starts

Log files are rolled over with number suffices; for older dmesg do a ls /var/log/dmesg*.

You could also list all the log file names in a reverse sorted order to see which are being updated at the moment (say, just after a boot or a little while later when you think it will stall). This can be done with,

ls -lsrt /var/log/

Couple of articles on log files.

1. ghacks: Learning Linux: Log Files
   • IBM DeveloperWorks: Windows-to-Linux roadmap: Part 5. Linux logging (for basics)

You could also consider keeping a terminal active with a tail on one or more log files.
That way, if your system freezes you can see the last activity before it reboots.

Answer 2

You should consider upgrading you kernel to a newer one, because those sd and sr modules are what interfaces with your disks. And if they are unstable then your whole system is unstable.

Kernel 2.6.27 and 2.6.28 had some trouble with this, and you may still be using it in your ubuntu 8.04. The new LTS version will only be out in April.

Answer 3

The problem was actually in my hardware (motherboard and SMPS)

Thanks for the help !