# System hangs when switching from X to terminals



## StrikerASD (Feb 3, 2013)

Hello,

I have a serious problem with FreeBSD 9.1 (x86) stability and for the record it isn't new. It has been happening at least since the 8.2 (x86_64) version (stable). Now, *I* have KDE 4.8.4 installed, got NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS with 304.xx NVIDIA drivers. nvidia.ko is loaded from /boot/loader.conf. Everything is working fine, *I* can switch from X11 to terminals and back, but there is a moment that *I* can't do anything. The system hangs and all that *I* can do is to do hard reset. 

Lately *I*'m having problem with terminals, *I* mean, the system is online for some time, let's say a few hours (4,6) and then *I*'m swithing from X11 to terminal and big surprise: terminals are non-operational, NONE. I mean, *I* can't even switch between terminals, because on every one is the same frozen output. But X11 still works, until *I* switch to terminals couple more times and I can't do anything. 

This is a very serious problem here, *I* don't know if it is a nvidia driver problem, or something else. I've already switched off nvidia.ko and set the driver to "nv" instead of "nvidia" in the xorg.conf file. We will see, stay tuned.

Ok. The system is working for a few hours by now and *I* can tell, that everything is working just fine. I think the problem lies in the NVidia driver, maybe the Linux compatibility library, hard to tell. 

I have Linux enabled in the driver. I will test the system with a recompiled NVidia driver not supporting Linux libraries, then *I* will report back here. I think it will be tomorrow.

Ok, i think i have pinpointed the problem which is with the NVidia driver. I've been compiling some application in virtual terminal and this terminal frozen. I was unable to switch to another virtual terminal, but could switch to X11 and work there. Tests are unfinished yet, but with NV driver there are no issues. I still need to test it more, maybe in few days i will have more time for it. In the meantime, please write here if anybody was having that kind of issues in the past, or have this issues now. This topic is still opened due to unfinished tests with the drivers.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (Feb 6, 2013)

I've had similar problems with a system using the binary nvidia driver & a 7xxx series card.

Perhaps a better question to ask at this point is why you want to switch to `terminal mode' so often? As far as I know, there is no limit on the amount of xterms Xorg can handle


----------



## StrikerASD (Feb 6, 2013)

I am switching between terminals so often to chceck stability. It should not take place that system hangs only from switching from x11 to terminals, on Linux i have not such issues. And in fact it should not be a problematic on bsd. It's that simple. I still need to run some tests, i will deal with it in the weekend.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (Feb 6, 2013)

This reminds me of the old joke:

Patient: It really hurts if I press here
Doctor: Then don't press there!

Problem solved?

No, it `shouldn't' do this, but then again, there is no reason/function to switch virtual terminals all the time, so is there really a problem? You know, Instead of solving this (non-)problem you could also go out and have a good time...


----------



## StrikerASD (Feb 7, 2013)

*I'm having good time right now*

This joke only tells that the problem with patient was not resolved because of lazyness of a doctor. Maybe not many people do switch between X11 and terminals, but your solution is not a solution. There is a problem and it needs to be fixed. This is freebsd, it should be more stable system. But it is not, because such bug like this don't exist on linux. So if you are not helping, then stop writing this non-helping crap of yours, please.


----------



## StrikerASD (Feb 10, 2013)

*Issue pinpointed*

It's been a while, but test are complete. The problem lies with NVidia proprietary drivers. Open source driver works as expected. Switching from X to terminals and vice versa doesn't crash system, nor hangs terminals. I will report this to NVidia.


----------

