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CwF

Member

Registered: 2018-01-28

Posts: 288

Random XFCE log off dump to lightdm screen ;Solved

My symptoms are a random log off, a dump to my lightdm screen, with the error from lightdm.log "Seat seat0: Stopping display server, no sessions require it"

This is my Debian Stretch KVM hypervisor running multiple VM's, some with vfio hardware. The issue surfaced with no changes to the host other than VM configuration, including hardware changes and kernel upgrades to ddebian vm's. If there is interest or suspect here, I can detail that later.

There is variation on the actual crash. Sometimes everything open on the host crashes except any xterm's. Other terminals will disappear. Open programs loose unsaved data. Sometimes only a log on is required and nothing crashed. In every case, VM's are all unaffected. VM's on passed video continue without a glitch. With a passed keyboard you'd never know the host logged out. All connections through kvm/spice get terminated. Since most things are happening inside a vm, unsaved work on the host is rare, and since vm's are unaffected I've stopped rebooting since it doesn't help. Since Monday it has logged off 5-6 times.

I'm poking through logs, most things document a result of the session stopping and not clearly why. The problem seems old and rare, I've found threads of this exact issue where xfce and lightdm are the only common elements with my setup. There is no screensaver or power manager packages, maybe I should ditch lightdm also. Default Debian  does timeout and blank without those and I use xset manually to change that, been fine. Any ideas?

Last edited by CwF (2018-05-13 15:38:40)

Sideburns

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From: Trinidad, CO

Registered: 2011-03-30

Posts: 467

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Re: Random XFCE log off dump to lightdm screen ;Solved

There are two hidden files in your home folder: .xsession-errors and .xsession-errors.old.  The first contains all error messages from your current session and the second from the previous one.  The next time this happens, check the last few messages in .xsession-errors.old and see if there's anything there that suggests what might be happening.

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CwF

Member

Registered: 2018-01-28

Posts: 288

Re: Random XFCE log off dump to lightdm screen ;Solved

Thanks for the tip, the last .old log was long and did show a dump, I wish there was an easier time index in those logs. From a combination of logs the times lined up with network issues causes by a 4 port pcie eth card. It went in and out while I was sorting out other things and the issue followed that card without me realizing it. It had been used before so I considered it not a host change and it escaped my thinking for a week. A 2 port card does fine. I found some bug talk on lower level errors that occur when changes happen in the network list. Somehow wrong info or absent info compounds into the xserver exit, no idea how. libvirt errors on vm creation led to the log off without any crash, and a dhcp renewal every 11 hours led to the crashed host apps and log off. With the 2 port card the same things happen but are not followed by the xserver exit a few lines down. I've been watching the tail of the daemon log I found I could see it coming, 30 hours up now without issue.