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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 46: Id "x" respawning too fast: Murdered Mysteriously</TITLE>
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<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
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<H4>By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:answerguy@ssc.com">answerguy@ssc.com</a><BR>
LinuxCare,
<A HREF="http://www.linuxcare.com/">http://www.linuxcare.com/</A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Id "x" respawning too fast: Murdered Mysteriously</H3>
<p><strong>From Kelley Butch on Tue, 07 Sep 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Id "x" respawning too fast: Murdered Mysteriously
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
James,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I've been running LINUX on my Thinkpad 600 for a few months now with
good results. The other day I experienced a power outage and the system
went down. Now, during boot-up and just before the "log-in" screen I
get this:
</STRONG></P>
<Pre><STRONG><BlockQuote>
According to /var/run/gdm.pid, gdm was already running (process id) but
seems to have been murdered mysteriously.
INIT: Id "x" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
</BlockQuote></STRONG></Pre>
<P><STRONG>
and after 5 minutes I get the same error.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I removed the pid file thinking that would solve the problem, but the
pid file gets recreated and the errors start over again.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
The culprit seems to be the last line in my inittab file:
<br><code>x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon</code>
<br>- (this is a link to <TT>/usr/bin/gdm</TT>)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks in advance,
<br>Butch
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Oh yeah! I've seen that on some
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> 6.x systems.
'<tt>prefdm</tt>' is a symbolic link to your preferred display
manager (the original <tt>xdm</tt>, the newer <tt>kdm</tt> for
<A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A>, or the
culprit of your problem the <tt>gdm</tt>,
<A HREF="http://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</A> display manager).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Try starting the system in single-user mode (or running the
command '<tt>telinit 3</tt>' to switch to the "normal" multi-user
mode without any display manager (graphical login) running.
Then remove the PID file and any stray core files in the
root, <TT>/root</TT> and similar directories.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You might also want to look for any UNIX domain sockets
under the <TT>/tmp</TT> directory and <TT>/var</TT>. You can use the command
command: '<code>find /tmp /var -type s -ls</code>' to look for them.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You'll normally find a couple of them under <TT>/var</TT> for
things like the printer (might also be under <TT>/dev</TT>) and
gpmctl (console mouse and cut/paste support) as well as
one or two sockets for your X server(s). Those would
normally be in the <TT>/tmp/.X11-unix/</TT> directory and be named
X0, X1, etc. (If you've never run multiple concurrent X
sessions then you'll only see X0 under there).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You probably don't have to do anything with those
sockets. However, it might make sense to blow away the
one's under <TT>/tmp.</TT> X will (re-)create those as necessary.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The fact that the version of GNOME gdm that shipped with
Red Hat 6.x can't gracefully handle (clean up after) an
inadvertant shutdown or other mishap is very disappointing.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Personally I still think GNOME is still beta quality code.
(Or at least it was when RH 6.x shipped). It dumps core
files all of the place, can't figure out whether there is a
living process that owns a 'dead' socket, etc.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Oh well. At least it's getting a bit better.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I did grope around a bit at the GNOME web site:
<A HREF="http://www.gnome.org"
>http://www.gnome.org</A>.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I did NOT see this question listed in their FAQ (which
surprises me, since I would think that this would be a very
commonly encountered problem among RH6/GNOME users).
However, I did find a link to a bug tracking system. From
there I searched for messages related to our "murdered
mysteriously" problem. There was some indication that
Martin K. Petersen is the contact for gdm and that he posted
patches to resolve that (and several other) gdm issues.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I also saw several references to a <tt>gdm2</tt> (which presumably is
a second version of the GNOME display manager).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In any event, you may want to download a set of updates to
your version of GNOME. Hopefully the fix to this problem is
included therein. (I'm pretty sure that the GNOME CVS
sources are updated, I just don't know if there are RH RPMs
of the latest versions and patches readily available).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/ssc.copying.html"
>Copyright ©</a> 1999, James T. Dennis
<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 46 October 1999</H5>
<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML transformation by
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