4.6.2 early report

[Duncan]

gene heskett posted on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:09:52 -0400 as excerpted:

> I tried that.  The new user also has no top bar of a window decorations.
> 
> Wandering around in ~/.kde4, I found a bunch of what look like junk
> directories in .kde and .kde4 subdirs of .kde4 and nuked those, but what
> seems odd is that there are a lot of *rc files in .kde4/share that not
> even root can look at with less, no error when root tries, just no
> response.

That sounds VERY MUCH like filesystem damage, perhaps due to failing 
storage hardware!  What filesystem are you using?

You mentioned amanda virtual tapes, so I assume you have good backups.  If 
not, be worried.

If you're lucky and it's just the filesystem, not the hardware, a good fsck 
should help.  Some of the data that /was/ in those files may end up in 
lost&found, and the files will likely either be deleted or truncated to 
zero size.

If you fsck and it finds and fixes the damage, try another fsck.  If it 
finds more damage, you're probably losing the disk.  If not, try rebooting 
and another fsck.  If that one too comes up clean, at least the disk isn't 
falling down around your ears, but I'd still keep a very close watch on it.

Normally, *rc files shouldn't be in ~/.kde4/share/ itself.  Rather, 
there's normally quite a few in share/config/, but none in share itself.  
If they're in share itself, something strange is definitely going on.  
Again, it could be filesystem or hardware damage, but from my experience, 
they don't just drop left a directory in the tree in that case, but drop 
to the filesystem root or to to lost&found.  But that could be filesystem 
specific.  (FWIW, my experience is mostly with reiserfs, which I've used 
for years and has, barring disk hardware issues, been quite dependable 
since the data=ordered patch to the kernel several years ago now (let's 
not talk about before that), even with the stick of bad memory I had for 
awhile.  But I had disk hardware issues due to an AC going out here in the 
Phoenix summer a few years ago too, resulting in disk overheating and a 
head crash, thus my experience both with chaotic shutdown software 
filesystem issues before data=ordered, and with hardware filesystem issues 
a bit more recently.)

In addition to the disks I'd check your power supply.  Perhaps the problem 
is that it doesn't have enough power for the disks, or perhaps your 
incoming power simply isn't good.

> And my konsoles are AFU again, foreground & background colors are
> randomized but matched, so one can't see the output till he does a mouse
> drag over the output to highlight it.
> 
> mc seems to be slowly self destructing too.
> 
> I may yet have to re-install on a different drive. :-(

Given the indications, that may well be a good idea!

Good luck!  It sounds like you might need a bit, right now!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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