fedora 18 gnome-shell core dumps before live system starts

[Bram Mertens]

Hi,

I wanted to give fedora 18 a try so I created a new virtual machine in
virtualbox (host is Windows 7 enterprise 64bit).
I'm using the 32bit live CD but no matter what options I try after the
fedora 18 progress bar I get a black screen followed by the blue
background for a short while and then a window displaying "oh no
something has gone wrong please contact your system administrator".

I've checked the media (troubleshoot check media and start fedora 18)
and it reported no errors.
I tried adding xdriver=vesa and troubleshooting > start with basic
vide driver but I get the same result.

I opened one of the virtual terminals and I'm able to log on as root
so some system is running, but I'm unable to tell if this is the live
system or some anaconda or other installer shell.

/var/log/messages contains reports that gnome-shell core dumped and an
abrt trace has been created.
The only report I found that resembles what I see is
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=919669.  In the abrt
report I also see "Process /usr/bin/gnome-shell was killed by signal 4
(SIGILL)" in the reason file.

Is there any other boot option I can try?  Is there a way to recover
from the gnome-shell crash?  Perhaps force fallback mode?

Thanks in advance.

Bram Mertens

[Bram Mertens]

Hi,

I reinstalled using the i386 DVD as suggested, I was able to go
through the entire installer and even the first boot screen.
Fedora boots but the end result is the same, after the boot screen the
screen goes black for a little while, then a blue background is
displayed and then the "oh no something has gone wrong" message is
displayed.

There were nearly 700 updates available so fully updated the box and
rebooted but the issue remains.

I installed the Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE Desktop Environments to test,
rebooted again since I don't know if the problem lies with the desktop
environment, the display manager or X itself at this point.
The result is exactly the same, I was expecting to get a list where I
can select which environment to use as described at
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/installing-the-mate....

The release notes specify that systemctl should now be used to switch
the display manager
(http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Release_Notes/sect-Rel...).
 How can I list which display managers are available?
systemctl list-units --all|grep -i display returns only the Gnome
display Manager.

So I installed xorg-x11-xdm and system-switch-display-manager and
tried system-switch-displaymanger XDM.

CTRL-ALT-backspace doesn't seem to have any effect, so rebooted again.

How do I reload the display manager using systemctl or systemd?

Now I do get a graphical login screen but after I log on I still get
the "oh no something has gone wrong".
It is still trying to start Gnome 3, and gnome-shell is still getting
killed by signal 4.

How do I switch the desktop environment?

Regards

Bram

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Michael D. Setzer II
<mikes(a)kuentos.guam.net&gt; wrote:
>  On 30 Apr 2013 at 13:54, Bram Mertens wrote:
>
>  Date sent:              Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:54:14 +0200
>  Subject:                fedora 18 gnome-shell core dumps before live
>  system starts
>  From:                   Bram Mertens <mertensb.mazda(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  To:                     users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I wanted to give fedora 18 a try so I created a new virtual machine in
> > virtualbox (host is Windows 7 enterprise 64bit). I'm using the 32bit
> > live CD but no matter what options I try after the fedora 18 progress
> > bar I get a black screen followed by the blue background for a short
> > while and then a window displaying "oh no something has gone wrong
> > please contact your system administrator".
> >
> > I've checked the media (troubleshoot check media and start fedora 18)
> > and it reported no errors. I tried adding xdriver=vesa and
> > troubleshooting > start with basic vide driver but I get the same
> > result.
> >
> > I opened one of the virtual terminals and I'm able to log on as root
> > so some system is running, but I'm unable to tell if this is the live
> > system or some anaconda or other installer shell.
> >
> > /var/log/messages contains reports that gnome-shell core dumped and an
> > abrt trace has been created. The only report I found that resembles
> > what I see is https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=919669.  In
> > the abrt report I also see "Process /usr/bin/gnome-shell was killed by
> > signal 4 (SIGILL)" in the reason file.
> >
> > Is there any other boot option I can try?  Is there a way to recover
> > from the gnome-shell crash?  Perhaps force fallback mode?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
>
>  Don't know about the windows setup of Fedora 18, but I just had
>  my students to an installation of Fedora 18 32bit version form the
>  DVD iso  on my classroom machines that have the 64 bit version
>  of Fedora 17 installed. Last semester we did the same with install
>  Fedora 17, when the machines were running 16. Might be that the
>  DVD iso has some files that the live cd doesn't. I use the dvd.iso
>  file instead of using the dvd, since it is faster, and don't have to
>  make many copies, but it does work under virtual box.
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Bram Mertens
> > --
> > users mailing list
> > users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> > Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have
> > a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
>
>
>  +----------------------------------------------------------+
>    Michael D. Setzer II -  Computer Science Instructor
>    Guam Community College  Computer Center
>    mailto:[e-mail]
>    mailto:[e-mail]
>    http://www.guam.net/home/mikes
>    Guam - Where America's Day Begins
>    G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer
>    http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
>  +----------------------------------------------------------+
>
>  http://setiathome.berkeley.edu (Original)
>  Number of Seti Units Returned:  19,471
>  Processing time:  32 years, 290 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes
>  (Total Hours: 287,489)
>
>  BOINC@HOME CREDITS
>  SETI        14604313.846723   |   EINSTEIN    11072023.359852
>  ROSETTA      7096923.600919   |   ABC         15926538.031993
>

[Bram Mertens]

Hi,

For the VM on CentOS I found a solution: changing the video driver
from the default "cirrus" driver to xvga, after that the gdm screen
indeed showed a list of users.  Previously the error I got was
before/during the gdm so I never saw the gdm screen.

For the VM on Virtualbox I switched the displaymanager using
system-switch-displaymanager on the command line.

lxdm now offers me a username input field, nothing more.

I also used switchdesk to switch from Gnome3 to XFCE and that works.

Regards

Bram

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Joe Zeff <joe(a)zeff.us&gt; wrote:
>  On 05/01/2013 03:03 AM, Bram Mertens wrote:
> >
> > Now I do get a graphical login screen but after I log on I still get
> > the "oh no something has gone wrong".
> > It is still trying to start Gnome 3, and gnome-shell is still getting
> > killed by signal 4.
>
>
>  If all were working properly, when you select your account from the list
>  (assuming there's more than one account to select) there should be a little
>  drop-down list allowing you to select from all the DEs you have installed,
>  and defaulting to whatever you used last.  Presumably, it says GNOME right
>  now.  If you do see that, try changing to a different one, because the error
>  you're getting is very Gnome 3 specific.
>
>  If that doesn't work, the error might be in gdm, the Gnome greeter, that
>  shows the login window.  It's supposed to be possible to select a different
>  one from a CLI, but I've never had it work; probably because lightdm, the
>  one I want, isn't supported.  If all else fails, you can always use a CLI to
>  install a different greeter, such as lightdm or (I think) kdm and remove
>  gdm.  Then, when you reboot, nothing starts that's part of Gnome unless you
>  either select it as your DE, or you run a program that needs it, and the
>  latter shouldn't get you that message. Not ideal, I know, but if nothing
>  else it will get you running until you can track down what's causing that
>  error.  Good luck, and if you do find out, please let us know; that's one of
>  the least helpful error messages I've ever run across[1], and having some
>  idea of what it means would be a great help to everybody using Gnome.
>
>  [1]Possibly the least helpful was one used by a friend of mine: 1=2.  Of
>  course, he was a genius[2] and he had the source code.  And, to be fair, he
>  only used it to indicate that something unanticipated had happened.
>  [2]Look up Dan Alderson in Wikipedia for more information.
>
>  --
>  users mailing list
>  users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>  Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
>  Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org

[Joe Zeff]

On 05/01/2013 03:03 AM, Bram Mertens wrote:
>  Now I do get a graphical login screen but after I log on I still get
>  the "oh no something has gone wrong".
>  It is still trying to start Gnome 3, and gnome-shell is still getting
>  killed by signal 4. 
If all were working properly, when you select your account from the list 
(assuming there's more than one account to select) there should be a 
little drop-down list allowing you to select from all the DEs you have 
installed, and defaulting to whatever you used last.  Presumably, it 
says GNOME right now.  If you do see that, try changing to a different 
one, because the error you're getting is very Gnome 3 specific.

If that doesn't work, the error might be in gdm, the Gnome greeter, that 
shows the login window.  It's supposed to be possible to select a 
different one from a CLI, but I've never had it work; probably because 
lightdm, the one I want, isn't supported.  If all else fails, you can 
always use a CLI to install a different greeter, such as lightdm or (I 
think) kdm and remove gdm.  Then, when you reboot, nothing starts that's 
part of Gnome unless you either select it as your DE, or you run a 
program that needs it, and the latter shouldn't get you that message. 
Not ideal, I know, but if nothing else it will get you running until you 
can track down what's causing that error.  Good luck, and if you do find 
out, please let us know; that's one of the least helpful error messages 
I've ever run across[1], and having some idea of what it means would be 
a great help to everybody using Gnome.

[1]Possibly the least helpful was one used by a friend of mine: 1=2.  Of 
course, he was a genius[2] and he had the source code.  And, to be fair, 
he only used it to indicate that something unanticipated had happened.
[2]Look up Dan Alderson in Wikipedia for more information.

[Michael D. Setzer II]

On 30 Apr 2013 at 13:54, Bram Mertens wrote:

Date sent:      	Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:54:14 +0200
Subject:        	fedora 18 gnome-shell core dumps before live 
system starts
From:           	Bram Mertens <mertensb.mazda(a)gmail.com&gt;
To:             	users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org

>  Hi,
>  
>  I wanted to give fedora 18 a try so I created a new virtual machine in
>  virtualbox (host is Windows 7 enterprise 64bit). I'm using the 32bit
>  live CD but no matter what options I try after the fedora 18 progress
>  bar I get a black screen followed by the blue background for a short
>  while and then a window displaying "oh no something has gone wrong
>  please contact your system administrator".
>  
>  I've checked the media (troubleshoot check media and start fedora 18)
>  and it reported no errors. I tried adding xdriver=vesa and
>  troubleshooting > start with basic vide driver but I get the same
>  result.
>  
>  I opened one of the virtual terminals and I'm able to log on as root
>  so some system is running, but I'm unable to tell if this is the live
>  system or some anaconda or other installer shell.
>  
>  /var/log/messages contains reports that gnome-shell core dumped and an
>  abrt trace has been created. The only report I found that resembles
>  what I see is https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=919669.  In
>  the abrt report I also see "Process /usr/bin/gnome-shell was killed by
>  signal 4 (SIGILL)" in the reason file.
>  
>  Is there any other boot option I can try?  Is there a way to recover
>  from the gnome-shell crash?  Perhaps force fallback mode?
>  
>  Thanks in advance. 
Don't know about the windows setup of Fedora 18, but I just had 
my students to an installation of Fedora 18 32bit version form the 
DVD iso  on my classroom machines that have the 64 bit version 
of Fedora 17 installed. Last semester we did the same with install 
Fedora 17, when the machines were running 16. Might be that the 
DVD iso has some files that the live cd doesn't. I use the dvd.iso 
file instead of using the dvd, since it is faster, and don't have to 
make many copies, but it does work under virtual box.




>  
>  Bram Mertens
>  -- 
>  users mailing list
>  users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>  Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have
>  a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org 

+----------------------------------------------------------+
  Michael D. Setzer II -  Computer Science Instructor      
  Guam Community College  Computer Center                  
  mailto:[e-mail]                            
  mailto:[e-mail]
  http://www.guam.net/home/mikes
  Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
  G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+----------------------------------------------------------+

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu (Original)
Number of Seti Units Returned:  19,471
Processing time:  32 years, 290 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes
(Total Hours: 287,489)

BOINC@HOME CREDITS
SETI        14604313.846723   |   EINSTEIN    11072023.359852
ROSETTA      7096923.600919   |   ABC         15926538.031993