f16 - locked out again

[Robert Moskowitz]

On 01/06/2012 12:55 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-01-06 at 11:44 -0500, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>> This happens once in a while, but this is the 2nd time this week, though
>> the symtoms were different.
>>
>> The latest occurance, I locked the screen<ctl-alt-l>  and came back
>> later to use the system.  I hit an arrow key which normally brings up
>> the password dialog box and even before the box showed up I started
>> typing in my password.  This normailly works fine and opens up to the
>> workspace I was last on.
>>
>> This time nothing happened.  There was a flash across the screen like
>> the dialog box coming up, but the screen stayed black other than the
>> portion of the top panel that normally shows when the screen is locked.
>> I was able to<ctl-alt-F2>  to another console and back.  I tried
>> <alt-F1>  then 'r' and saw the spindizzy but nothing after that.  In the
>> end, I rebooted by logging into the F2 console.  Perhaps I should have
>> done a tail on messages first?
>>
>> Various things have happened over the past month on f16 with gnome 3.
>> Not coming out of suspend and having to ppull all power for a hard boot
>> recovery (AC and battery).  Gnome locking on me with no keyboard or
>> mouse clicks, though the mouse will mouse around.
>>
>> So it is still unstable for me.
>>
>> Advise on trouble shooting?
> Are you using local accounts or are you using LDAP? If you're using SSSD
> for user accounts, it's not impossible that it could have crashed, which
> occasionally results in behavior like what you're describing.

No.  Local auth.

>
>> Oh, and to the point of pulling the battery to get to a hard boot
>> state.....   My brother-in-law was talking about his recent purchase of
>> a notebook with a sealed battery; ie he cannot remove it.  His question
>> was on which kind of warranty to get.  But now my question is:  does
>> anyone have a notebook with a sealed battery and if so, how do they
>> recover when nothing works?  When you cannot switch to another console
>> and the power button does nothing?  How do you force a boot if you can't
>> pull all power?
> Pretty much every laptop made in the last ten years will shut down hard
> if you just hold the power button long enough (5-10s).

Not if you set FC for suspend on power button.  For some reason my old HP nc2400 would NEVER shut off from the power button.  I could hold it probably forever.  I guess I have been caught between fear that I MIGHT get the poweroff button pressed by accident and REALLY needing to power off...