[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#527872: Bug#527872: upgrading dbus or running the init script kills X

[Michael Biebl]

Michael Biebl wrote:
> Norbert Preining wrote:
>> severity 527872 serious
>> title 527872 restarting dbus kills X and kills keyboard
>> thanks
>>
>> On Sa, 09 Mai 2009, Michael Biebl wrote:
>>> Hm, I can not reproduce this problem here, restarting dbus does not kill my X
>>> session.
>>>
>>> Could you check/attach your Xorg log file please
>> Even worse, I just tried it and then I remembered that I wanted to
>> report the bug already some weeks ago. When calling
>> 	/etc/init.d/dbus restart
>> from a running X it restarts X and gdm, but the keyboard is not working.
>> I cannot switch to console, it is all a mystery.
>>
>> I managed to capture everything, the problem is that X reboots but
>> fortunately the old Xorg.0.log is saved. Then the kbd does not work but
>> Sysrq at least.
>>
>> Ok, short:
>> - boot
>> - gdm pops up
>> - I login as user
>> - open a xterm, su, and call /etc/init.d/dbus restart
>> - X dies -> the log file of that X is attached as
>> 	Xorg.0.log-dbus-killed-X
>> - X restarts but the kbd does not work, the log is attached as
>> 	Xorg.0.log-X-session-after-debus-kill-without-kbd
>> - I sysrq out (sync, remount ro, reboot), the end of the syslog of that
>>   kernel run is attached as 
>> 	syslog
>>
>> The only errors in the "Missing kbd session" is
>> 	(EE) config/hal: couldn't initialise context: (null) ((null))
> 
> Looks like hal is not correctly started when you restart dbus, and X is hal to
> get it's input devices (thus no keyboard or mouse).
> 
> So imho we have two problems here (not really problems in dbus itself)
> 
> 1.) hal does not seem to come up properly after dbus has been restarted
> 2.) I Xorg can't connect to hal, it should gracefully fall back to a basic
> kbd/mouse configuration.
> 
> Could you investigate if hald is started correctly when dbus is restarted and
> running afterwards?
> 

Ok, this is what I found out so far:

If you restart dbus *within* a X session and you are using the awesome window
manager (can't reproduce it with metacity/gnome, kwin/kde or openbox), you will
be kicked out by awesome  from your X session as soon as D-Bus is stopped.

"/etc/init.d/dbus restart" will also stop/start its dependended dbus services
(like hal), which usually goes like this

hal stop
dbus stop <- you will be kicked out here, thus hal will never be started again.
dbus start
hal start

as the new Xorg relies on hal for input device enumeration, this will leave you
without keyboard and mouse configuration when hal is not running. Indeed very nasty.

As I said, I can only reproduce this behaviour with the awesome window manager,
but not kwin or metacity. This actually leads me into the direction that this
might be a window manager related bug.
Norbert, can you re-confirm that your are *not* using awesome, i.e. you are
using stock metacity from GNOME.
Everyone else who commented on this bug report seems to be using awesome.


Cheers,
Michael

-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

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