# Bizarre issue when compiling



## Deke (Jun 5, 2011)

Hi, 

When I use portmaster to update installed ports I'm running into a bizarre issue where if I run it from inside an xterm in Gnome, within 30 seconds or so, the display locks up (and displays graphical corruption).

Now I thought OK, my GPU is having an issue. But then I ran some very GPU intensive tests (and run compiz 24/7) and have found no issue. 

So next I thought it could be overheating the CPU when compiling. So to test, I SSH'd in and did the exact same procedure with portmaster over ssh - compiles fine, no crash/lockup. Have been doing my regular port updates over SSH for about 6 weeks now without issue. Trying the same thing in the GUI still gives the lockup. 

So what is going on that my machine locks up when compiling ONLY when done from the GUI?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jun 5, 2011)

Onboard video? I'd put in an aftermarket video card. Handily fixed compiling problems here... but I did not see graphical corruption but inability to compile in more than two tty's at once, etc. OTOH if that graphical corruption is misaligned letters etc rather than colored bits, it can be fixed with a simple command usually


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## Deke (Jun 5, 2011)

Because compiz works with integrated video?

No. It's a Nvidia Quadro. Like I said, I've tested the video with some extreme tests, no issues with the GPU.


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## Deke (Jun 6, 2011)

Interesting update.

Found that when I updated with portmaster over ssh, no issues.

Ran portmaster to get a list of the updates I needed, then quit portmaster and ran the port reinstalls one by one. No crash, and it was a big update too (VLC and GCC updates, god GCC takes forever to compile).

So it's portmaster that kills my system? What the hell?


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## Deke (Jun 6, 2011)

I can't see the edit button...excuse me if I'm simply missing it. I meant to say I did all of that compiling in an xterm where it previously had been crashing.

[ read the email about the forum rules, including editing - Mod. ]


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## Beeblebrox (Jun 6, 2011)

1. Sounds like Hardware problem to me... Have you run a memtest to check ram defects?  It could also be a faulty power supply - damaged power supplies can give out fluctuating power and cause strange things.

2. look into devel/ccache


> god GCC takes forever to compile


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## Deke (Jun 6, 2011)

Beeblebrox said:
			
		

> 1. Sounds like Hardware problem to me... Have you run a memtest to check ram defects?  It could also be a faulty power supply - damaged power supplies can give out fluctuating power and cause strange things.



I initially thought that two, but like I said I've tested this extensively, with MANY repetitions and found two things:
1) It is not at all random, but reproducable under precise circumstances (ie portmaster run, from within an xterm in gnome)
2) If I alter those conditions even slightly, the issue does not occur. I don't see how compiling ports manually is any different than compiling them with portmaster doing a group at a time from a hardware point of view, if you know what I mean - and thats putting aside the fact that updating them with portmaster over ssh works fine.



			
				Beeblebrox said:
			
		

> 2. look into ccache



Wow, thanks for that, bloody champion!


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 6, 2011)

Try a different terminal client. I have metric tons of portmaster output on my screens, but I don't use xterm, but rather Terminal or Roxterm.


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## Deke (Jun 6, 2011)

Ok I can't believe I didn't think of that...and I also can't believe that worked.

Wow...just wow.

For the record the xterm I was using was "sakura"...changed to Roxterm as per Dutch's suggestion, problem vanished.

I'm out of port updates for now, will try again next week to confirm the issue is truly gone.


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## danbi (Jun 7, 2011)

Very interesting -- I would not expect xterm to have issues with scrolling. What is 'sakura'?

One thing that you might consider is to enable acceleration in your X config. You may have Nvidia Quadro, but no acceleration --- that will make huge difference (in scroll performance). But I can hardly see why it would lock up or anything. What driver are you using?


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 7, 2011)

x11-toolkits/sakura, "a terminal emulator based on GTK and VTE", probably? Does xterm straight-up cause the same problem?


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## Deke (Jun 8, 2011)

Yes Dutch is right, that is what I meant by "sakura".

Update on this - I got enough ports updates to do another portmaster run. The problem re-occurred in Roxterm.

Interesting side-note I forgot to mention - when the GUI seizes up as mentioned, I can still *ping*, *ssh* and connect over CIFS to the system. From SSH I tried restarting X and GDM, but it just hung. Kind of sounds like it's hanging the graphics driver or something (killing X and GDM and dropping back to the physical console works fine, which obviously doesn't use accell) , but I can't fathom how a terminal emulator could do that?


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## wblock@ (Jun 8, 2011)

A terminal in X is doing lots of bitmap scrolling, and some support font antialiasing.  None of that happens in a real console.  Running the same compile in a detached sysutils/tmux session would only do a little initial scrolling until you enter ctrl-B D and then the last bit of output when you reattach with *tmux attach*.


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## Deke (Jun 8, 2011)

Yeah, I understand the buffer could be causing the crash, but as I said, if I do all the ports manually one by one, I don't get the issue. This would in theory be generating just as much text in the buffer as portmaster. I can't fathom what portmaster is doing differently that causes the issue.


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## wblock@ (Jun 9, 2011)

A unique feature of portmaster is that it changes the terminal title to show what it's doing.  Run it with --no-term-title to see if it's a bug in the terminal.


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