Re: Can't restart certain crashed applications without rebooting (in this case Noatun)
OK, I think I solved my problem.
I use a script I wrote some years ago (named kpid) to kill tasks by name
(at the time, I didn't know that killall could do that)--anyway, I
thought my script was using kill -9, but instead it uses kill -15. So
now I:
* kill -9 any remaining processes named noatun
* kill -9 artsd
* then I can restart noatun
Sometimes it seems that artsd starts automatically before I start
noatun--in the cases when it doesn't, it seems to get started by
noatun.
Sorry for the noise!
Randy Kramer
On Monday 21 June 2010 09:46:27 am Randy Kramer wrote:
> Hmm, as is too often the case, after sending an email seeking, I
> start to get some other clues--I found a suggestion to restart
> arts--I tried that, still no luck so I'm still looking for help (but
> maybe I have some kind of clue now).
>
> Randy Kramer
>
> On Monday 21 June 2010 09:38:55 am Randy Kramer wrote:
> > Sorry this is so long--maybe I can summarize the problem here, then
> > you can go on and read the background and a more detailed
> > explanation of the problem:
> >
> > Sometimes after a program hangs (in this case noatun), I have
> > trouble restarting it without rebooting my entire system. I do
> > look for all the processes associated with the application (noatun,
> > using ps -Al | grep noatun) and kill them, with either kill -9 or
> > kill -15, but afterwards, when I try to start the application, I
> > just get a spinning hourglass indication in the taskbox (on the
> > taskbar) and a small bouncing blue ball elsewhere on the screen,
> > both of which eventually disappear without having started the
> > application.
> >
> > Hmm, maybe with that you don't even need the Background and Problem
> > listed below. I've tried googling, but don't really have a good
> > clue for what to google.
> >
> > A dead end (I think):
> >
> > Oh, wait, I might have a clue: now I try to start noatun in a
> > terminal (with & or without) and I very quickly (sometimes) get
> > exit 255--hmm, on the next try I didn't get the exit 255--what does
> > exit 255 mean?:
> >
> > rhk@s17:~$ noatun &
> > [2] 11248
> > [1] Exit 255 noatun
> > rhk@s17:~$
> >
> > Well, I haven't found out what exit 255 means, but I don't think it
> > matters, it doesn't consistently happen, just sometimes.
> >
> > Background:
> >
> > This is surely not a Debian specific question, but I'll try asking
> > here to see if anyone can give me one or more hints--I've tried to
> > do some googling, but really don't have a good clue for what to
> > google.
> >
> > I've had the same thing happen for applications besides Noatun
> > (iirc) (and on Linuxes that I used before installing Debian 5.0),
> > but because the current problem is Noatun, I'll mention Noatun in
> > this example.
> >
> > I was running Noatun and it hung. It may have been something I
> > did--specifically, at the time it hung, I had the playlist up and
> > was unchecking checkboxes on the playlist.
> >
> > In an effort to restart noatun, I looked (using ps -Al | grep
> > noatun) for all noatun processes and killed them with (the first
> > time) kill -9. Later (on subsequent attempts), I tried kill -15.
> >
> > Either one wipes out all the processes with noatun in the name.
> >
> > The problem:
> >
> > Here's the problem: when I go to restart noatun, it won't restart.
> > On the taskbar (is that the right name in KDE) I see a task labeled
> > noatun seemingly attempt to start--I see an hourglass spinning, and
> > elsewhere on my screen I see some sort of small bouncing blue ball,
> > but after 15 seconds or so, both disappear and noatun hasn't
> > restarted. If I go look at the processes using ps -Al | grep
> > noatun, I find something like the following:
> >
> > s17:~# ps -Al | grep noatun
> > 1 S 1000 11039 3039 0 80 0 - 8589 - ? 00:00:00
> > noatun 1 S 1000 11040 11039 0 80 0 - 9670 - ?
> > 00:00:00 noatun 1 S 1000 11141 3039 0 80 0 - 8589 - ?
> > 00:00:00 noatun 1 Z 1000 11142 11141 0 80 0 - 0 -
> > ? 00:00:00 noatun <defunct>
> > s17:~#
> >
> > If I wipe those out (using kill -9 or kill -15), they disappear,
> > but when I try to noatun again I get the same result.
> >
> > In the past, the only way I found to recover from a situation like
> > this was to reboot. (Potentially just restarting KDE might also
> > solve the problem, but from my point of view, restarting KDE is as
> > drastic a solution as rebooting, so when I think about restarting
> > KDE I just go ahead and do a (cold) reboot with the hope of
> > cleaning up any other possible "garbage" that might be floating
> > around in my system.)
> >
> > I see that the one process is a Zombie. I've googled on things
> > like zombie, process, noatun, restart, and combinations
> > thereof--even a good suggestion on appropriate search terms might
> > get me started here (of course, a nice clear explanation and course
> > of action would be nicer).
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Randy Kramer
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