Xorg crashing randomly

[Scott Bennett]

     On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:21:04 +0200 Ghirai <ghirai at ghirai.com> wrote:
>Lately Xorg (log file says X.Org X Server 1.4.0') seems to crap out randomly,

     That's the server in X.org 7.3.

>sometimes after a few hours, sometimes after a few days.
>
>I'm running 7.0-RELEASE, custom kernel (ULE scheduler and unneeded drivers removed, everything else is default), and nvidia driver (latest).
>
>There's nothing in messages, nor in the xorg log file, except:
>
>---
>Fatal server error:
>Caught signal 11.  Server aborting
>---
>
>I don't know what other info i should give, there isn't much (if anything) in the log files.
>
>I might add that i've tested the RAM, plus the rest of the system is ok.
>
>Any ideas are appreciated.
>
     Are you running xscreensaver?  Many of the various screen saver modules
cause X.org 7.3 crashes with exactly the messages you cited above when they
begin execution in full-screen mode.  The ones I've tried so far do not cause
crashes when they are displayed only in the demo window of the preferences
panel in xscreensaver-demo, but full-screen mode gets a very different result
for some modules.
     If you are using xscreensaver{,-demo}, try setting it to "blank screen
only" rather than running the modules that produce the pretty patterns on the
screen.
     There may be other applications that cause the same sort of crashes, but
the screen saver routines are the only ones I know do it for certain.  Firefox
2.x under X.org 7.3 gets an impenetrable hang, not a crash.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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