[ale] Lockup trying to start X11 after exiting it

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Tuesday 28 September 2004 10:25 am, Bridges, Doug wrote:
> I am having problems starting up Xfree after having been it in once.  At
> first, I was using kdm, and whenever I logged out, the computer would hang
> after the logout, but before the login screen came back up.  I have since
> moved to using startx, and I can fire up Xfree once, and I can exit it
> once.  However, when I try to start it up a second time, the screen hangs. 
> I am able to Alt-F1(2,3,4,...) between login screens, and I can kill the
> Xfree instance with Ctrl-C.  Even after killing it once, however, I cannot
> get back into it.  I have tried several different window managers, so I am
> certain that it is not the window manager causing the problems. I am using
> a Dell Optiplex GX260 with its onboard video.  This occurred with both
> kernel 2.4.x (18?) and 2.6.8.
>
> I have attached a text file with the output of lspci, XF86Config-4, and
> /var/log/XFree86.0.log.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.

That's pretty strange.  That was the XFree log from the hang, not the success, 
right?  I don't have a solution, just some ideas on how to approach it.

What is in your .Xclients (or .xsession) file?  Try making it as simple as 
possible.  After exiting X, see if anything is left in your process list.  
(run ps aux befor and after and compare the results.)  Use netstat -tl before 
and after running X to see if someone is listening on a port that you didn't 
expect.

Sounds to me like something is not freeing up a port on exit.  If you wait, 
say, 10 minutes can you start X again, or does it require a reboot?

You could also run tcpdump and see if there is any network traffic.  Sometimes 
DNS problems can cause strange hangs.

Michael