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dp

Member

Registered: 2017-11-10

Posts: 11  

Loss of on-hover response

I've downloaded  a live copy of CHIMAERA and run it from a thumb drive.  I have found a problem with the interaction of Firefox and Thunderbird. It appears that the "on-hover" function/interrupt gets confused and locks up the machine requiring a power cycle in order to get control of the machine.  My conjecture is that the "on-hover" function is "single-threaded" (for lack of a proper term?).  Firefox opens full screen with two tabs and a wait for the "Get Started" button on the second tab.  Subsequently loading Thunderbird, which opens full screen, has an interactive 'window?' that’s waiting for the "Next Tip" button.  At this point, the cursor is locked, in that, while the cursor can be moved around, no selection can be made even from the top of the page (system?) icons.  It appears that the on-hover function is locked up. While this occurs with Firefox and Thunderbird, I think that, at boot, if two apts are loaded full screen with both requiring an input, the system will be locked up because the "on-hover" processor is confused and locked up.  (IBM had a similar prob with OS/2 where all apts were “single-threaded” through the keyboard code. If one failed, no one had a keyboard.)  So I think that this is a more generic problem than just in this specific case.  If Firefox is loaded and resized to half screen, and T-bird is loaded and resized to half screen, then it mostly works but can be easily confused  locking up the system requiring a power cycle.

How do I go about further isolating this problem?

And, is their a key-sequence that can rescue this situation? Once upon a time, I remember "somewhere" there was an "alt F4" to close the current window.

P.S. What code processes the on-hover interrupts?  Is this the HTML processor?  And who might that be. Thank you.

Last edited by dp (2023-04-04 17:17:25)

chris2be8

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 198  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

ctrl-alt-f1 (press all 3 keys at once) should get you to a text screen (there are 6 of them, ctrl-alt-f1 to ctrl-alt-f6). ctrl-alt-f7 should get you back to the GUI (try this out *before* you get another hang). If that works you should be able to log on and try commands like killall firefox and killall thunderbird.

If you can't free the GUI you could use sudo shutdown -r now as a slightly gentler way to force a reboot.

Last edited by chris2be8 (2023-04-05 16:33:42)

golinux

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,820  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

I have an xkill shortcut in my panel for occasions like you describe.

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dp

Member

Registered: 2017-11-10

Posts: 11  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

The best way to induce this problem is, upon boot (with a fresh live copy), load the browser (firefox), which will open two tabs the second of which will have a no network found and a "Try Again" button.  Then load Libre-writer which will open a small window with a "Next Tip" button.  At that point, the "on--hover" function no longer works for any of the icons on any of the panels. Additionally, Ctrl-Alt-F1--7 do not work.  So there is no way to get to the command line to recover the system.  Sometimes, when both appts are loaded in one window, and switching from one tab to the other,  the title switches to firefox but the rest of the picture still shows Libre-writer. On some occasions, when switching around, multiple instances of the Devuan Launcher is attempted before locking up.  (Don't know how to drop a screen pic into this message.)

It seems that two appts are waiting for their on-hover interrupt to be processed.(in sequence?)  If the second appt covers the first screen, you can't get to the first button so the interrupt processor cannot issue a return-from-interrupt so that the interrupt stack can get back in sync. Any debug suggestions are appreciated.  Progress is slow due to all the rebooting required...

Interestingly, if  a network connection is established before loading the appts, everything seems to work ok.

Also, loading the appts in the reverse order changes the way the failure manifests. thanks.

chris2be8

Member

Registered: 2018-08-11

Posts: 198  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

Do you have another system? If so can you log on to the systems with problems via ssh (preferably before causing it to hang)? That should give you a way to enter commands (I've had to do this).

Just to confirm, does Ctrl-Alt-F1---7 work whan the system is not hung?

dp

Member

Registered: 2017-11-10

Posts: 11  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

Do you have another system? If so can you log on to the systems with problems via ssh (preferably before causing it to hang)? That should give you a way to enter commands (I've had to do this).

Just to confirm, does Ctrl-Alt-F1---7 work whan the system is not hung?

I can bring up another laptop system.  I have to learn how to use ssh...  That's just where I am at this point. Yes---

Ctrl-Alt-F1---7 work when the system is not hung.
Thank you.

dp

Member

Registered: 2017-11-10

Posts: 11  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

I'm thinking I may have a hardware problem.
Learned rsync and have backed up my home directory.  Will reinstall the OS and retry.

GlennW

Member

Registered: 2019-07-18

Posts: 342  

Re: Loss of on-hover response

Hi, I've been having mouse problems as well. "focus" being the main disfunction.